Tag Archives: consciousness

How to spot a fake prophet

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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Teachers, philosophers and prophets 

Throughout history, humanity has benefited from the leadership and inspiration of many great teachers. but all too often their followers made a god of the prophet, created a mythology, established dogma, and lost the original message.

Once a religion is established, it becomes possible for an elite ‘priesthood’ to control their flock, claiming that their authority comes from a dead, disincarnate or supernatural being and that they are the chosen channels for this power.

Seek out what the enlightened masters taught (not what their successors and devotees want you to believe they said) insofar as this is possible. Don’t be taken in by anything that doesn’t feel intuitively right for you.

Many charismatic individuals have claimed to be great teachers; there was a procession of them in the late 20th Century. How do we spot a fake?

  1. Genuine spiritual teachers have no selfish motives. They avoid ego, worldly power and material gain.
  1. They inspire a real sense of truth and integrity in a spirit of humility.
  1. They encourage you to experience things for themselves rather than encourage neediness and dependence on them.
  1. They walk their talk; live what they teach. Be especially wary of any that preach a simple life while stuffing their bank accounts and collecting luxury cars.
  1. Above all, they show you how to go within to where the real teacher may be found.

Seek truth wherever you can find it. Paths are many, but the truth is one. No teacher, religion or cult can have sole possession of the truth. Beware of anyone or any group that believes theirs is the only truth!

 

©David Lawrence Preston, 25.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

Anatomy of a religion

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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All religions have certain things in common:

  1. They separate ‘us’ from ‘them,’ believers and non-believers, members and non-members.
  1. They lay down set beliefs, creeds and rites of practices. Usually they insist that followers subscribe to the whole package.
  1. They usually expect followers to contribute financially.
  1. An appointed ‘priesthood’ or ‘clergy’ sporting special robes and/or role symbols.
  1. Have sacred days, festivals etc. in which followers observe certain practices such as feasting, fasting, visiting a place of worship and exchanging gifts.
  1. They are willing to distort or discount scientific and other evidence that conflicts with their beliefs.

Some religions also:

  1. Look down on non-believers and try to scare people who don’t agree, e.g. by preaching eternal damnation.
  1. Are exclusive to a certain race/group of people They dismiss other cultures on the grounds that, ‘he or she is not one of us.’
  1. Encourage followers to believe that they can only connect with a Higher Power with the help of an intermediary and by taking part in specified rites and rituals. For example, you could live as ‘Jesus’ intended and still not be regarded as a good Christian if you do not attend church and observe the sacraments.

Wisdom, love, peace and truth are not a result of belonging to a particular religious group (although this may help some), but understanding spiritual truths such as right thinking, humility, love and forgiveness – and putting them into practice.

©David Lawrence Preston, 25.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

 

Life and Death

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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Death is the last taboo – nothing concentrates the mind quite so much. We cannot have lasting peace of mind until we have come to terms with it. Who has not at some time wondered what, if anything, happens after death?

The truth is, we can never be sure. But our attitude to death impacts on our attitude to life. If we believe that death is final, why bother with matters of the spirit? Why not just get what we want and let someone else deal with the consequences?

If we believe that life goes on beyond the grave and we have to answer for our actions either to a Higher Power who can consign us to a heaven or hell or by coming back into human form and making amends, that puts an entirely different slant on the matter!

Death is an inevitable aspect of life

A woman whose young son had died was inconsolable. She visited all the doctors in the area to find out how the child’s life could be restored. Finally she sought the help of the Buddha. She asked him to help bring her son back to life and ease the terrible pain in her heart.

The Buddha told her that he would revive her son if she could bring him a mustard seed from a household in which no-one had ever died. The woman set out to find such a household. She visited one house after another, yet at every door received the same reply – at various times, members of the household had passed away.

She returned to the Buddha in a more realistic frame of mind. She had learned that death is an inevitable fact of life. We are all going to die one day. What matters, like so many things, is not what happens, but our attitude towards it.

Life and death are partners

We tend to see life as good and death as a bad thing, but this is untrue. Life and death co-exist. Death happens all the time while life continues.

Birth is the process by which a fragment of universal consciousness takes form as an individual being, but it is not the beginning. Neither is conception. We start out as ideas in the quantum energy field even before we become particles and long before we are born into the world. Hence birth is part of the transition from invisible substance into visible form.

Death is the transition back to the energy field. The Life Force leaves the body and is reabsorbed, mental activity ceases and the body disintegrates and returns to dust. Hence life and death are not opposites but partners in the great scheme of things.

‘Birth and death are of equal significance. They should concern you no more than going to sleep every night and waking up every morning. As you go to sleep, you die. As you wake up, you are born.’

 Ramala

©David Lawrence Preston, 24.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

 

 

 

Raise your sights to a higher way of being

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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One of the visitor attractions in the holiday town where I live is a balloon tethered to a 500 metre cable. Patrons enjoy a stunning panorama which extends for over twenty miles.

Imagine a balloon flight: the higher you rise, the further you see. Features on the ground, including all the things you fret and worry over, get smaller and lose their detail. If the balloon could rise even higher, they would disappear almost completely. Similarly, when you seek happiness and security in a higher way of thinking, your anxieties seem less significant.

How do you attain a higher way of thinking? The way is represented by the letters I-T-I-A.

  • Intention: Aspire to your highest potential. Direct your will. Keep your intentions pure and everything is achievable. The more you stay focussed, the more certain it is.
  • Think: Shake off the thinking patterns and beliefs that have constrained you, raise your thoughts to the underlying Intelligence that governs the universe and all our lives.
  • Imagine: Imagine yourself charged with spiritual energy, like a giant rechargeable battery absorbing power from the source as effortlessly as breathing. Imagine yourself putting it to good use in the service of your fellow beings.
  • Action: Be the master of your actions, making wise choices guided by your intuition. Act as if source energy is flowing through you and have faith in all that is good. When this becomes your natural way of being, your Inner Power is truly awakened.

Persevere

When you decide to change, you’ll come up against mental inertia – warring thoughts in your mind. Ignore them. There will probably be times when you feel tempted to go back to your old ways.

A friend recently said to me, ‘Yours are lovely values to have, but you can’t live that way.’ Why not? Did she mean that spiritual ideals somehow interfere with other priorities, such as the scramble for status and material success? Greed, envy and selfishness are all too common in today’s world: you don’t have to be a part of it.

No words can express how you feel once you have awakened the infinite power within you. All along your Inner Power had been lying dormant, and you didn’t realise it. But now you do. To quote Kahlil Gibran, ‘You are greater than you know, and all is well.’

‘Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be; and whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace within your soul.’

From ‘Desiderata’ Max Ehrman

 

©David Lawrence Preston, 23.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

 

 

 

Attune yourself to Creative Intelligence by taking some quiet time for yourself each day

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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Creative Intelligence is the invisible energy that governs the universe; the Life-Force which suffuses everything and connects us to each other. It’s not a fanciful idea – it has a firm scientific basis.

Mahatma Gandhi described it like this:

‘Whilst everything around me is ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that changes a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and re-creates.’

Be quiet and still, then you can feel it pulsating in every part of your being.

A student once asked the teacher, ‘How can I find G_d?’ The teacher answered, ‘How does a fish find the ocean?’

You are living in an ocean of consciousness. It is around you and in every atom of your body. Love, peace and happiness are not to be found in faraway places or unusual states of consciousness, but here, right now, when you look within.

Have some quiet time to yourself each day. Make it a priority. Reflect on spiritual ideas and meditate on the source of your inner power.

As your inner power grows, people will comment, ‘I want what you have. Can you show me how to get it?’ Tell them what you have learned. Share your experiences in a spirit of love and with humility. Explain to them that they already have what they seek and encourage them to develop a quiet, calm mind. Then they will discover it for themselves.

 

©David Lawrence Preston, 23.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

 

Your Inner Power

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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Everything you need to build a happy and fulfilling life and become a force for good in the world already lies within you. You may not have been aware of it, but it is there, just as it always was. Look deeper: it may be buried under a mountain of negative thinking, false beliefs and emotional baggage.

You are charged with spiritual energy. It needs only to be released, and as long as you have the ability to think and act for yourself, you can do it. It’s never too late.

Your inner power is non-physical

Your inner power has nothing to do with your physical attributes. If it were, the world would be ruled by Olympic athletes and weightlifters. Elderly, impaired or diminutive individuals such as Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi, Stephen Hawking and Mother Theresa would have been powerless and made little impact.

Your inner power is spiritual. Spiritual means ‘non-physical’. It reveals itself in your thoughts and beliefs, ideas, dreams, hopes, feelings and understandings. These shape your world, because your life is a reflection of what you hold in your mind.

Your thoughts, words and actions have real power. Take charge of your inner world and you take charge of your outer world too.

 

©David Lawrence Preston, 23.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

Where should we look for the secret of life?

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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‘We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.’

(T.S.Eliot)

 

There’s an old Eastern story: Long ago, four senior gods met to decide where to hide the greatest secret of life. They knew they needed a safe place because if humans ever found it they couldn’t be trusted to use it constructively.

The first god suggested hiding it at the top of a high mountain, but they soon realised that humans would eventually climb to the top and find it.

The second suggested that the bottom of the deepest ocean would be better, but agreed with the others that humans would eventually explore the depths too.

The third suggested the centre of the Earth, but they realised that humans would one day dig deep enough to find it.

Finally, the wisest spoke. ‘There’s only one place to hide the great secret of the universe – within the human heart.  They’ll never think of looking for it there.’

The secret of life cannot be found in holy books for it lies within.

©David Lawrence Preston, 23.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter@David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

Get into the Light

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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‘There is a Power that will light your way to health, happiness, peace and success, if you will but turn toward that light.’

Paramahansa Yogananda

Light is often used as a metaphor for the  sacred, and this is more than an abstract idea. In many ways Universal/Creative Intelligence is like the sun, constantly emitting energy and keeping us alive. It flows through us.

We can light up ourselves and the world around us by making a simple choice. As the Indian Master, Sai Baba, says, ‘The rays of the sun fall equally on all who are directed in their way. If someone is behind an obstacle, or in a room, he will receive only part of the light. Cultivating the higher spiritual yearnings is like coming out from the confinement of a room into the sun’s rays.’

Just as a place cannot be light and dark at the same time, when we are switched on, painful emotions such as doubt, hatred, anger and blame fade into the background allowing love, courage, confidence and forgiveness etc. to take their place.

Many people are leaving the traditional religions in droves because they cannot relate to dogma and ritual that bear little relation to living well and creating a better world. As you have discovered, spirituality is not concerned with theologies. It is about life and how to get the most out of it. Look inside, remove the mental blockages and let life flow through you. Then use it to build the kind of world you want – one filled with peace, happiness, health and prosperity for all.

 

©David Lawrence Preston, 21.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

Do you believe the personality survives death?

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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Many do, all over the world and across many cultures. They believe that the personality lives on after the life force has left the body. Dying, they say, is like taking off a cloak; we just step out of it like a snake sheds its skin.

In a famous letter written in 1854, the Native American leader, Chief Seattle, was of this view:

‘When the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children think themselves alone…. they will not be alone…. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land…..

The dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.’

Only a change of worlds! Of course many pour scorn on these ideas, but there is evidence that some trace of ourselves survives this transition. For instance, people who have had near-death experiences often report going through a tunnel and emerging into light to be greeted by friends and relatives who have already made the transition. Their accounts are remarkably consistent. Most say they found such joy and peace there that they didn’t wasn’t to come back.

Is this proof that the personality lives on after death? Not really. Neuroscientists argue that near-death experiences can be explained by the death throes of the brain and can be reproduced under hypnosis or hallucinogenic drugs. So the jury is out.

So where do you stand?

Reincarnation

People who believe in reincarnation think that after a period of reflection we are reborn into new bodies to continue our spiritual growth on this Earth. Reincarnation, they say, explains childhood prodigies such as W. A. Mozart and occurrences of ‘déjà vu’. Have child geniuses been here before and brought their previous learning with them? And is it possible that ‘déjà vu’ is really a memory from a previous life?

Again, we can’t be sure so it’s best to keep an open mind. Life is a continuing experience of growth. We take on challenges as a way of raising our consciousness. Who’s to say the process doesn’t continue over several lifetimes?

Is it worth dwelling on? Probably not. The important thing is not what you did in previous lives, but what you are and do now.

 ©David Lawrence Preston, 19.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @David_L_Preston

How to Books, 2007

 

Death – the last taboo?

Posted on by David Lawrence Preston
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Death is the last taboo – nothing concentrates the mind quite so much. We cannot have lasting peace of mind until we have come to terms with it. Who has not at some time wondered what, if anything, happens after death?

The truth is, we can never be sure. But our attitude to death impacts on our attitude to life. If we believe that death is final, why bother with matters of the spirit? Why not just get what we want and let someone else deal with the consequences?

If we believe that life goes on beyond the grave and we have to answer for our actions either to a Higher Power who can consign us to a heaven or hell or by coming back into human form and making amends, that puts an entirely different slant on the matter!

Death is an inevitable aspect of life

A woman whose young son had died was inconsolable. She visited all the doctors in the area to find out how the child’s life could be restored. Finally she sought the help of the Buddha. She asked him to help bring her son back to life and ease the terrible pain in her heart.

The Buddha told her that he would revive her son if she could bring him a mustard seed from a household in which no-one had ever died. The woman set out to find such a household. She visited one house after another, yet at every door received the same reply – at various times, members of the household had passed away.

She returned to the Buddha in a more realistic frame of mind. She had learned that death is an inevitable fact of life. We are all going to die one day. What matters, like so many things, is not what happens, but our attitude towards it.

Life and death are partners

We tend to see life as good and death as a bad thing, but this is untrue. Life and death co-exist. Death happens all the time while life continues.

Birth is the process by which a fragment of universal consciousness takes form as an individual being, but it is not the beginning. Neither is conception. We start out as ideas in the quantum energy field even before we become particles and long before we are born into the world. Hence birth is part of the transition from invisible substance into visible form.

Death is the transition back to the energy field. The Life Force leaves the body and is reabsorbed, mental activity ceases and the body disintegrates and returns to dust. Hence life and death are not opposites but partners in the great scheme of things.

‘Birth and death are of equal significance. They should concern you no more than going to sleep every night and waking up every morning. As you go to sleep, you die. As you wake up, you are born.’

Ramala

 

 ©David Lawrence Preston, 19.1.2017

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter ‘David_L_Preston

 

How to Books, 2007