On Friday, Oct. 16, some of us are meeting in Dana Point for a whale watching cruise, followed by dinner. On Saturday, we're meeting for lunch at an Indian restaurant that has a marvelous buffet. Then we'll head back to my place to continue socializing. Please let me know if you're interested in attending and meeting some great, like-minded people. (I'm also celebrating my birthday!)

Michael Channeled by Shepherd Hoodwin

April 24, 2015

Madison, Virginia

Transcribed by Alexandra Hahn

Many people long for something greater in their lives. It is this hunger for more that helps drive evolution. People, of course, interpret that in a variety of ways. Because this is still a late young-soul planet, largely, and because more than ever before, advertising is proliferating, often filling every waking hour, many people, even those not young, assume that what they seek is material. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with enjoying material wealth. In fact, most people today have more material possessions than the wealthy had throughout most of history. To the extent that possessions are enjoyed and used, there is nothing intrinsically unspiritual about it, although many people’s eyes are bigger than their stomach, as it is said — they end up being weighed down. It’s a cliché and true that eventually people find that material acquisitions were not truly what they were looking for, although there can be worthwhile lessons gained while one is seeking material expansion.

Some people seek fame. More often, but not always, it is the cardinal roles who see fame as valuable. For example, fame allows sages to reach a bigger audience, priests, a larger congregation, and kings, a greater kingdom. Again, there is nothing intrinsically unspiritual about that, but people who finally gain fame, obviously the great minority of those who seek it, usually find that it wasn’t what they were looking for, although it can be a useful tool. Many more simply seek what they define as success. Being successful in your chosen endeavors is more pleasant than being unsuccessful, but ultimately it does not satisfy the desire either.

What everyone, including us, truly seeks is the greater knowledge of self. In fact, universes are simply an expression of the Tao’s desire to know itself more. Every part of the Tao, including you, shares in that hunger. Why do all of us crave to know more of ourselves? For one thing, it’s fun! Stasis is boring.

Curiosity is one of the most valuable traits a sentient being can have. Curiosity about anything is a desire to know more of yourself, because you are everything. There is, incidentally, a difference between curiosity and nosiness. Nosiness springs from human hard wiring that is designed to create clans that keep others in line. It is a primitive impulse and not useful to awakening souls. But curiosity about anything is a delight in discovery.

You live in a society that often tries to dull curiosity. Your so-called educational system, by its very structure, inhibits curiosity by overly directing children’s studies. Children are generally far more curious before they enter school than upon graduation.

We have often spoken of humanity as being in a waking sleep — sleep-walking. They seem to be awake because they are functioning, but most people’s minds are asleep. Often people keep themselves so busy, or are required to struggle so much just to survive, that they do not nurture their awareness. And many, unfortunately, find themselves in situations that do not provide much stimulation.

It is marvelous that you have created the Internet, because now, people virtually anywhere can explore a vast range of knowledge. Most, however, do not take much advantage of it yet. It is a little bit like lab rats trained to stay in a cage who then do not leave it when the door is opened: many people do not know to look for what would awaken their minds. When we refer to the mind here, we are not just speaking of intellect, but all consciousness. An awakened mind also has much richer emotions, generally speaking. There are those who are very curious intellectually but repressed emotionally, or perhaps just underdeveloped. But if people follow their curiosity where it leads them, eventually it will probably awaken their emotions as well.

Curiosity is not mental chatter. When the mind is cut off from the self, it may try to run the show and demand an explanation for everything. That's better than nothing, but it is not the curiosity of the whole self. A truly awakened mind is in love with life. The awakened mind is fascinated by people and wants to truly know them, even someone you have known for decades. If your mind is awake, you will delight in discovering new things about that person. You love to learn about everything.

Obviously, some things will interest you more than others, and that is natural — you have been charting a course specializing in what interests you for many, many lifetimes. However, in most of your past lives, circumstances did not allow you a very broad range of study of the things that interested you. Of course, you had experiences, including karma. A lucky few could learn to read and had a few interesting things to read, but experience was, relative to today, constricted. You might have been curious about science, but few had the opportunity to devote time and resources to its pursuit. Today, the awakening mind has extraordinary resources, not just intellectual resources. Most people now can see movies and TV shows exploring the human condition that allow them to grow without having to directly have those experiences. People can travel now like never before. Many people live longer, so they have more time per lifetime. Although this is a very challenging time to live in, on the whole human beings are blessed.

When the mind is asleep, all of these marvelous advantages are taken for granted. But when you are awakening, you are more and more filled with appreciation. Even if your health isn’t good, your finances are challenging, or whatever, if you can truly take in the resources you have, you will feel very lucky.

The greatest resource today, in our opinion, is that every human who seeks spiritually can find extraordinary bounties of information and guidance on the path. Throughout most of history, spiritual studies were restricted to a few and were usually not very accurate. Of course, there still is a great deal of limited and inaccurate spiritual guidance, but the curious mind can pick through it and discern the unifying themes. When you deeply desire to know yourself more but have no external resources to mirror back the self, it is a difficult slog. But when you discover valid information and good teachers, your outer being can begin to match your inner, and your growth can accelerate vastly.

A good question to ask yourself on a daily basis is "What do I want?" This may be interpreted as selfishness, but that is not what we mean. You may think you want something material, but go a little deeper: "What will that material thing give me?" If you want a sports car, ask yourself, "What do I really want from that experience?" You might discover that you want the thrill of your body moving quickly through space. If that is the case and you cannot yet buy the car, perhaps you will instead ride a roller coaster and have that experience of excitement that will let you know a different part of yourself that wants to express.

Or you may know that you want a relationship — that is natural for most people — but if you ask yourself, “What do I want beneath that?” you might discover some qualities. Perhaps you want connection so that you can share your love and have someone to help you see who you are. You might find that you can have what you want now, at least in part, even before the relationship shows up in form, by opening to greater connection with others who are already in your life. Partly, you do this through your curiosity, your delight in seeing yourself in them. You can cultivate rich friendships, even over the Internet. These are real relationships, even if you have not met in person. They are not full-bodied, but they are valid.

Knowing what you truly want and having the curiosity to gently pursue it can bring much happiness in the human condition. Every experience you have ever had can teach you more about yourself. You may not yet realize what many experiences can teach you (or, in fact, have already taught you), but if you are curious, you will eventually discover it. And if you are playful in your exploration, you will have much delight in uncovering what you were really learning. Granted, many human experiences are painful and difficult, but even those, when viewed with the awakening curious mind, can fascinate, teach, and expand you.

We often speak about growing through joy. You cannot experience joy in the waking sleep. The best you can have is titillation – scratching an itch. But joy is the knowledge of what truly is. The surface may be bad news, but if you are curious and look at it more closely, you may see a different story.

Spiritual advancement is two things: One is remembering what you already know on a soul level. There is a great deal that you already know that you have not yet downloaded into this body. You have to make room for what you wish to download. If you wish, for example, to download some musical skills you already developed, you have to make space to receive them, but remembering what you already know is relatively easy.

The other part of spiritual growth is learning new things that you did not know or know how to do before. That’s slower, but great fun for the soul. You may have had a thousand lifetimes but never learned how to be awake in your body, for example. If that is the case, it will take diligence to learn this, but it will be very rewarding. Your progress may be slow because it is a skill you never practiced before; you were doing other things. Those on the spiritual path are now being called to learn what they never learned before, or maybe learned a little but now have the opportunity to get really good at it.

Many of you are learning to perceive and work with energy. It may have been a challenge to learn this in most of your past lives because very few people were teaching it or were even aware of it. Even now it’s rare but there are some gifted teachers, and more people are awakening to its existence. You can learn to see what you never thought to look for in the past. It may be slow going for you, but as you work with your teachers and fellow students, your progress accelerates. This is a valuable skill, because ultimately everything is energy. If you do not feel curious about energy, then it is not for you to study it. Study what your curiosity leads you to.

No one develops expertise in every area, and you don’t have to because you are one with your brothers and sisters — they will do the things you are not doing as they follow their curiosity. Don’t criticize yourself about what you are not good at. You are good at many things. If you don’t know what you are good at, ask your friends. They might be able to see things about you that you do not. Perhaps you excel at kindness, which is not an easy skill to master. You may take it for granted and not think of it as a skill, but it is. You do not have to be good at everything, but if you follow your curiosity you will get better and better at a lot of things. It will happen more or less automatically as a by-product of following your curiosity. If something seems like it’s too hard, you may be leading with your ego rather than your curiosity. Take a playful approach to whatever you want to discover, like a child who delights in learning something new or looking at the stars. It is better to play at your spiritual growth than to work at it.

Sometimes it is work. Sometimes you have to overcome old patterns and need the courage to face your fears. You may have to push yourself through them a bit, but it is your curiosity that leads you to conquer your fears because you deeply want to know what is on the other side. It is your being the Tao seeking to know itself better that impels you through your growth. When one is frozen in fear, one is asleep in that area. No one truly wants to be stuck — everyone wants to progress. You can progress through play, or work, or a combination. But having delight in life will bring you the most rapid growth.

Many on the spiritual path are empathic and highly sensitive. They are often overwhelmed by the pain and ugliness of the world. They frequently say that they want to learn their lessons and get off the physical plane as fast as possible. Maybe you have had that thought — it is understandable. There is a difficult stage in awakening when you have become more sensitive but do not yet have more skill, so your pain increases and you don’t know what to do with it. The simple answer is to follow your curiosity and delight until you gain more skill. Most people do not truly want to die or finish with the physical plane as fast as possible — you came here for a reason after all. Most people want to learn how to enjoy physical plane life, even at its most challenging.

You are a teacher. You can teach how to live in joy to all those you come in contact with as you yourself are learning it. You may not teach it in words and counseling, although you might, but you teach it in your energy as you awaken to curiosity. The more delight you take in the life you are living, the more you are teaching others that same skill. If you radiate joy, you are healing the planet. Anything else you might do — for example, political activism — may be good work. But if curiosity is not awakened in humanity, you have your work cut out for you. Awakened minds simply do not pollute or make wars. Responsible citizens do need to deal with symptoms from time to time, just as if you have a raging fever, you probably need to bring it down before you can get at the root cause. But your best bet for healing humanity is to demonstrate the awake mind, delightedly pursuing your true desires.

No doubt you have often heard about raising consciousness and desire to live at a higher consciousness yourself. Consciousness rises from levity — lightness. As you awaken more and more, you are less and less heavy. You do not take problems as seriously. Paradoxically, you handle those problems more skillfully because you are higher than them. Your levity has caused you to rise; you can look down and can see better what you need to do.

There are people who don’t take anything seriously because they are living on the surface. That is not what we are referring to. You can take very seriously your passion for experiencing more of who you really are at the same time as you take lightly the insanities of the current state of human consciousness. You live in what is still a rather primitive society. You will be disappointed time and time again if you are expecting maturity from the vast majority of human beings. Yet when you rise high enough in consciousness, you do not judge people for where they are; you love them. They are a part of you, part of the Tao. And you know that if minds wake up, humanity can quickly be transformed.

It is hard to be a pioneer — you have to blaze the trails — and that is what you are doing. Once they are blazed, vibrationally, there’s a path that makes it easier for others. It is easier to awaken today than it was five years ago, and it will be easier still in five more years.

There is a good chance that you are a lot more awake than you realize. You have probably been growing daily but are not able to see where you are in consciousness compared to five years ago. Again, your friends might come in handy here, because they may be able to validate how much you’ve grown, especially in five years. Of course, they’ve grown, too, most likely. Everyone grows unless they fight it — many do; many are fearful. But your friends have probably been growing pretty well.

As you elevate in consciousness, it becomes easier and easier to love. Love is your core nature. Discovering more of who you really are is ultimately an expansion of love. At first, people love according to the dictates of biology. A mother loves her children at least partly because her hardwiring predisposes her to it (unless she is blocked). Children love their parents for the same reason. Often, that attachment is extended to close relatives. This is biology and it is useful. It is not yet agape — unconditional, transpersonal love — but it’s a good start. People also usually love those with whom they have good sexual relations — again, biology. In addition, they are often able to love their friends, and beyond that, their community. As you awaken your mind, you start to find that you love more and more things. You may be touched by the delights of animals, plants, minerals, and the beauty of nature in general, such as sunsets. You may love art and music. And so forth. As you open more and more, you move closer to loving everything. This is not as hard as it seems. It is impossible for those who are earthbound, but not so hard as you become lighter. It is true that none of us will experience the ultimate of agape until reuniting with the Tao, but it is possible to experience a quite expansive love while on the physical plane. It may be thought of as altruism, beneficence, good will to all those you come in contact with, and it can grow from there.

When you are awakening, you begin to see your reactions to other people in a different light. What other people do that may be inappropriate or abrasive starts to engender less reaction in you. You are less judgmental because as you awaken, you take more and more responsibility for your internal state; your own issues come to light. It is possible to evolve to the point where other people’s actions mostly do not determine your internal experience. As you get better at that, you can love more people, even the difficult ones. You may not choose to spend time with them; you may not be drawn to that because like attracts like, and you are drawn to others who delight in life. However, occasionally, you will come in contact with people who are rude or difficult, and you won't see the need to let that bother you so much. This is a very useful skill if you are going to be in a human body. You take ownership of your whole energy field. You start to know yourself as light, in every sense of the word – light-hearted, light energy, easy.

Every time you do react uncomfortably to another person or a situation, that is an opportunity to discover more about yourself and to advance. You may even reach the point where you thank people for pushing your buttons because if your buttons are being pushed, there are some stuck energies in you. Every human being has some. Even the most advanced souls will, from time to time, find some pockets of stuck energy; that gives them raw material for more growth.

MEDITATION

Ask your essence to show you a scenario in which you can change your experience to one of delighted curious exploration.

***

If you are working at a job that isn’t intrinsically all that interesting, you might play with the idea of viewing it as a kind of meditation. People sometimes meditate by staring into a flame or paying attention to their breath. These are not intellectually interesting activities but they can shift your focus to essence. You might view your repetitive or dull job as a kind of meditation. It may be a good idea to do an actual meditation before going into work and then see if you can maintain that relaxed attention. You do not always have to have entertainment from the outer world when you are properly balanced internally; you can just enjoy the radiance of your own being. That said, it is preferable to have work in which you have a natural interest, even delight in. However, you can use any circumstance to grow. You can build your skills with whatever situation you are in.

If you are in a relationship that is not going very smoothly, maybe it is not ultimately the relationship you will remain in. But if you take advantage of that rich opportunity to polish your skills, if you show as much love as you can to the other person and awaken your curiosity about him or her, it will not be a wasted experience. You are rarely going to have ideal situation but you can work with whatever you have and find some delight in it. When you can find interest and delight in any situation, you are free. You are never again going to be a prisoner of your circumstances. That is a rare and wonderful achievement, and even if you do not accomplish it all the way, working toward it is enormously worthwhile.

Every person has been through some difficult experiences. Often when you hear of others' suffering, you identify with it, which is understandable, because it probably will remind you of somewhat similar experiences you have had, if not in this lifetime, then in another. That is one way people develop compassion. But when you rise in consciousness, you can see the suffering of others in a different light. You can love them not only because you have had similar pain but because you see them as a fellow journeyer, someone who has taken on something difficult and is growing as a result. You know that although what they experienced was harsh, they will deepen because of of it, and you deepen by sharing their experience. You don’t pity them — that is not a very useful emotion — and you no longer resonate with their suffering; you simply love them. You do not have to be taken down by their story. You can celebrate their courage and strength. You know, even if they don’t yet, that what they learn from that situation as they harvest their lessons will bless many other people. When you seek healing for your experiences, you don’t just heal yourself; you are part of the whole and heal the whole. This is one reason humanity is progressing so fast now — people are sharing their healing. It may not look like humanity has progressed all that much if you are only going by the news. However, the world of politics and so forth is the last layer to demonstrate transformation. Transformation is happening.

We have more confidence than ever that humanity will awaken – and that is in part because of you. You can take some credit.

MEDITATION

Observe with curiosity what you are experiencing right now. You might explore what is happening in your body. You might play with the energy. See where your curiosity draws you.