PSA Life Mastery: Newsletters

In effective initiation, the initiator connects with and embodies high spiritual energies and then channels them into the aspirant, the student who aspires to divine wisdom. If prepared to receive these energies, the aspirant will experience, at least for a short time, a state of enlightenment and personal evolution beyond what he or she has yet attained. This experience serves as a guiding light to inspire the aspiring student to carry on with his spiritual work. More importantly, this experience initiates. It brings the spiritual forces to bear upon the consciousness of the aspirant. These energies speed the spiritual unfoldment of the aspirant much like a hothouse speeds the growth of plants.

Many are called and few are chosen is a phrase from the Bible that kept coming to mind when I considered initiation. I didn't know what that meant previously. Now I realise that we are all called to reconnect to spirit when we experience some kind of awakening (initiation), but not all of us choose to respond to it. In fact only a courageous few take action to change and actually become spiritual.

Each and every one of us has at least one life changing event be it the death of a loved one, divorce, redundancy or something that causes the personality to meet the spirit and at this time we are given the opportunity to choose which voice we are going to listen to in order to live the second part of our life in a much bolder more powerful way, embracing greatness.

When you choose spirit you will find an unfoldment of a life much greater than you could have anticipated, which you definitely in the ordinary scheme of things, didn't see coming or dream could ever be possible. Loss, pain and suffering, is therefore, ultimately a gift. It puts us back in touch with others and their pain and loss and suffering. That's where our greatness is.

This is the path of personal spiritual alchemy. This is also INITIATION.

Initiations aren't always part of a formal sacred ritual aligned to some religious sect or secret society - more usually they are the result of a higher invisible 'formless' part of life teaching us about life, offering us an opportunity to grow and become powerful.

At first, we don't always feel powerful enough to change or grow, but at least we can begin to discover just how afraid and unhappy we truly are, trapped in a rut! That's a good start. Later as I became more absorbed on my own path of self-discovery, I was to learn that life is a series of initiations, whether we are conscious of this or not.

Spiritually, I learned that initiation means transformation - lead into gold is a good metaphor - through purification. You need to learn to purify your lower physical body, balance work, rest and play. Here you would conquer tribal survival issues. Then you purify your lower emotional desire body and conquer greed, poverty consciousness or other money imbalance issues plus that Mother of all issues, sexual lust without love. Next you conquer your lower mental body and conquer fear based thoughts and feelings, which cause self doubt and self sabotage. You learn to practice right use of will. Then, you need to conquer attachment - the initiation of the heart where you learn to let go and let God greeting with joy that which enters your life and releasing it joyfully when it leaves - always seeing the blessing.

Initiations are tests of self-mastery on the alchemical path, which lead us out of bondage and into liberation. Throughout our history, steps and tests of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual progress have been called initiations. This is true most especially in the 'Mystery Schools'.

These schools are the higher orders of learning established by and for the high elite inside normal religions. For instance, the mystery school of Judaism is Qaballah. Sufi is the Mystery School of Islam, the Gnostics are the keepers of the mysteries of the true higher Christed teachings. In terms of PSALM workshops, the book and the alchemical path mapped out within, initiation refers to embracing a new way of living becoming a conscious expression of your higher spiritual self. This means you change your personality beliefs and limited expectations to integrate the higher spiritual values as you begin to learn them.

Initiation is much more than acquiring spiritual knowledge. In its fullest sense, it's about understanding, exampling and living these new spiritual principles. This means hard work in a more down to earth manner to change rigid core false beliefs and our lower self ego control patterns. However, there are powerful tools to bring about this purification.

Once you learn how to strengthen the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies, change can be accomplished more easily. Initiations must be passed, mastered and integrated in all our lower bodies (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.)

Many people prefer to ignore the more down to earth work of psychological healing including the embracing of the shadow. This is because it appears to be mundane compared to the more glamorous mystical practices. However, the one who is prepared to tackle the shadow is the worthy aspirant. Remember this - it's very important!

As the circle of life continuously turns for us all on this Earth, no one can escape the lessons of initiation. Everything in life is about initiation and everyone is dying to some aspect of the personality self every day.

I first came across this concept or this particular type of consciousness for spiritual growth studying the shamanic path in 1992 after my first near death experience. At that time, I was blessed enough to be guided to meet Dr Credo Mutwa, Spiritual Leader of the Zulu Tribe in South Africa . Credo was a Sanussi - which is beyond even the rank of 'shaman'. It's a kind of King of the Shamen. Credo has written about 15 books on the secrets of the path of the shaman. His clients include Elizabeth Taylor, Val Kilmer, and other celebrities too numerous to mention. He has helped Neil Armstrong - the astronaut write a book about his spiritual experiences on the moon.

Here are the basic initiations that we need to successfully complete in order to ascend or become enlightened. Remember, every minute detail of our daily lives is an opportunity to demonstrate mastery on the path of enlightenment. Here's a brief reminder of what these initiations entail.

In the first level of initiation, you learn to purify your physical body and to balance your times of work, rest and play. At this first stage, the challenge is to resolve and rise above basic survival issues. It's time to re-examine your true needs. The relevant question to ask yourself is not what do you want but rather what do you need.

At the second level of initiation, you purify your emotions. Buddha taught that all suffering results from the emotion of craving. Here you conquer craving in the form of greed for money (poverty consciousness) and lust (sexual desire).

The work of the third stage of initiation is the purification of your thinking. Thoughts blended with emotions create feelings. At this stage, your work is to recognise and correct your fear-based thoughts and feelings. Unless resolved, these can cause self-doubt and self-sabotage. A basic issue to confront and resolve at this level is any desire to control or dominate others. You learn to use personal power with integrity.

In the fourth stage of initiation, you learn to master attachment. This freedom from craving or attachment is the initiation of the heart in which you learn to let go and let God. This detachment does not mean that you do not care. At this stage you learn to have strong preferences without being attached to specific outcomes.

Initiation levels five through seven will not be described here.

To pretend that forces of imbalance do not exist and fail to use adequate protection is foolhardy indeed. Psychic attack is not only projected by great powers of evil. It can emanate from anyone who is ruled by negative ego and is still unconscious of the power of their own thoughts, words and feelings. This occurs, for example, when anyone is attacking and judgmental towards others. I trust you are beginning to see where this is all leading and why it is so vital that you embrace these ancient wisdoms to strengthen and protect yourself on a daily basis.

Unwittingly, this Shaman's Death Process is actually what I put myself through: I binged on drugs in order to escape the despair of how awful I falsely believed life to be on this planet. Of course, for me life here was truly dreadful (note the use of fear-based describing word). When I was ruled by negative ego, that's what I had come to believe and therefore that's the reality I had powerfully created for myself. I created my own Hell. Now I'm using the same principle to create Heaven on Earth. Can you imagine the bliss we experience when we learn to take responsibility for every word, thought and feeling - and successfully create the life we truly choose to live?

Through working with MS-REM super reiki energy mastery daily, we can consciously speed up this symbolic death process and accelerate our ascension process. And we can do so in a less painful way than I took. Eventually, when we have learned to let go of all attachments and surrender all judgement, these deaths will become virtually pain-free. Pain usually indicates the need for change. When we are on this path, pain can also be a great teacher or messenger who is telling us that needed change is taking place.

Here is an example from Mother Nature: Let's consider the pain-filled process of the life of a seed. First of all, it's a seed and it's perfect. Then someone comes along with some water. The seed swells up and bursts open. If nourishment, and light are present, it grows and changes into something different, something equally perfect, a flower. Then it dies and changes again to something equally perfect but different. It's spirit nourishes the earth and allows other energies to be created.

The process of the growth of a seed can be likened to the spiritual unfoldment of human beings. Before I had energy mastery skills and spiritual wisdom, I felt that I was perfect. Then life watered me with new nourishment. I wondered how I ever felt perfect knowing and experiencing so little of my real self. I am in this flowing process now every day and it's joyous beyond comprehension.

Tune into nature as often as you can, watch seeds growing, seasons changing and learn from the spirit of everything. Learn how to be at one with all that is. As we re-enter the Universal flow, we begin to grow. We realise that change is all there is. Nothing remains unchanged. This is how we evolve. It's such a simple truth, but not always an easy one. Remember, this process of change at first seems difficult because we are all trained from birth to resist change. We stay in our own particular comfort zones, place enormous value on and attach to our jobs, marriages, partners, children, hobbies, educational status, social status, etc. When inevitably change erupts on our horizon we strive to resist it. This resistance slows down the process of change and causes pain.

Initiation to nature at Level 3 PSA - MS-REM, it is timely to explore the gifts of the Shaman, the gifts of the Earth Mother: the mineral, plant, tree and animal kingdoms. It's time to choose to receive strong energetic attunement to these 'helper spirits of the Earth'.

Shamanism is defined as the ability to commune with all spirits dwelling on all levels of Creation. However, seeker beware. It is imperative for people studying the path of the Shaman to study with a recommended teacher who is well-trained, tried, tested and true. To unwittingly delve into shamanism without expert and impeccable guidance, especially in countries that regularly practice the dark arts, can be life-threatening. In any case, it is not a path for the faint-hearted!

Many of us, as young children, have some ability to communicate with the spirits. Most of us lose this ability as we grow - or we have it trained out of us! At any age, having such abilities can be a detriment. To make good use of them, we must learn to discern which voices are creative and helpful, and which voices lead us on a path of self-destruction. Any person having this ability can be severely misunderstood. I know I was terribly misunderstood and judged completely insane, when I finally began to open up to these dormant abilities in myself. At first, I was judged so harshly. For a while I listened to and believed voices which said I needed more drugs to fuel my incredible new abilities and give me more power. At first, I didn't know how to discriminate between the many voices I heard. To my credit, I eventually learned to determine when my inner guidance was to be trusted and when it was coming from forces of imbalance; from negative sources. And eventually, I was strong enough to find my power without artificial stimulants. I feel because I recognised and overcame the pitfalls, I am now able to lead others along this path. So, seeker, beware. On the modern path of shamanism, we are taught how to eliminate negative influences and protect ourselves. Discernment is an important key here.

A series of shamanic deaths must be experienced and conquered at the start of this path. This is where we learn about protection, discernment and strengthening self. Normally these battles are fought with the help of gifted healers and shamans, rather than my somewhat solitary process. The finest shamans in our world today are those repaired 'wounded' healers who have walked the path of death and rebirth, destroying all the shadows that block inner clarity. Once a person has experienced and triumphed on this hard fought road to wholeness and wellness, it becomes easy to assist others in doing the same. When you have recognised and healed the darkness within your self, it becomes simple to see this darkness in others and diagnose it accurately. This has been my path. My willingness to confront 'anything' in myself that did not and does not serve the highest good, and my willingness to go through the cleansing process daily, is my greatest gift. This gift I now lovingly share with you..