The journey to enlightenment is one governed by initiation. This is a fact often overlooked by those who yearn for spiritual growth. In the Esoteric Tradition, the study of spiritual initiation is a cornerstone of inquiry. To understand it is to grasp the requirements for walking the Path with greater comprehension and assurance. Often people hold the view that enlightenment is a state of consciousness suggesting spiritual perfection, and freedom from further incarnational life. From one perspective this is true. Enlightenment can be viewed as a final consummation. Unfortunately, when strictly holding to this definition, there is the tendency to forget that spiritual evolution is gradual. As such, it is valid to view enlightenment as an incremental process as well. Over countless lives, the soul is progressively learning how to express itself in the outer world. Each incarnation sees the soul gain a measure of added effectiveness in this regard.

Very few restaurants in Los Angeles cater to both man and dog - even a dog that has incarnated from another dimension to help Earth's inhabitants cope with the major challenges ahead. However, a handful of excellent eateries in West Hollywood are exceptions to the rule. They welcome us with open arms, provided we sit at one of their outdoor tables. Tres European. One particular day I was deep into my second cappuccino and the morning paper's crossword puzzle when I began to notice Zeus's unintelligible muttering.

Thus, the first requirement of the Tantras is to get the chi to enter into the central channel, but to do so, you must first prepositionally cultivate the chi and mai otherwise it will not be possible.

We see people becoming successful around us everyday, no matter how uncertain times we live in or how fluctuating our society may be. Opportunities come and go more than ever, but what is it that makes some of us hold on to the abundance that is our birth right while others see it as a slippery dream that seems to avoid us?

There are certain strategies and ways of being that we need to achieve in order to be able to create a strong foundation to allow energy, money and abundance to come into our lives and be held within the frame of our capacity to receive:

There are many different ways to perceive, utilize, and benefit from energy. What I offer here is one of many ways. Indeed when I do other kinds of activities I perceive of and work with energy in quite a different manner. What follows is my experience of energy while performing Aikido over the course of more than twenty years.

Our mind tends to go on and on making up stuff, as if what it is thinking is always the truth. However, the mind has been deeply programmed since childhood to think and believe in ways that often have nothing to do with truth.

No society has ever been happy under the rule of people of some other society. History, from one perspective, is nothing but a struggle between two groups-one attempting to enslave or keeping enslaved the other and the other fighting incessantly to ward off this slavery. All wars are nothing but a manifestation of this ancient phenomenon. It seems we cannot tolerate losing our freedom and at the same time we cannot allow others to be free. When we are under the rule of someone else we fight to throw off the shackles and when we are free we strive to enslave others.

2. An exact clone of how you are now - absolutely nothing has changed in a decade.

"What am I most thankful for right now?"

The beings in the Human Kingdom were created as step-down transformers for Divine thought-forms, to remanifest the heavens of the higher spiritual planes onto the denser planes of form and matter.