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Stuart:
Some people are run by the legislation of the ego and the personality
rather than run by the softness and the feeling and the sacredness
of their inner feeling. If you want to empower your life, the
first thing you've got to do is discipline yourself and discipline
your mind.
My system, or the system that I was taught, which I recommended
to people is: rising early, taking time to meditate, time in
silence, a very simple diet, a lot of prayer, a lot of sacred
tradition, sacred ceremony, and really processing and feeling
your way along. Returning from the hedonistic, totally self
indulgent world of the ego to a world of minimalism, simplicity,
caring and a world where those inner perceptions begin to open
up. Because naturally, as you return to spirit, then you return
to the interconnectedness in all things and through that interconnectedness
in all things you can develop enormous amounts of perception
and esp and empower your life through simplicity. You basically
can see around corners.
Veronica:
What do you do every day? What is your personal spiritual practice?
Stuart:
I always rise early. I usually rise somewhere between 4:30
and 6:00. Sometimes I don't, but generally speaking, I do, and
I meditate and I walk. And then I spend most of the day, if
I can, except of course when I'm working, I try to spend time
on my own, time in silence. I walk down the street and I watch
people. I watch their etheric and I learn about energy. I feel
out my life and the people in it. I watch for any sudden shift
of energy and generally sort of sit there, a bit like a lighthouse
keeper, watching the boats go by and trying to stay in touch
with things going on at a distance without necessarily having
to phone them or fax them, but by just watching them.
Veronica:
Throughout your books, I kept getting that it is about one's
own personal empowerment, raising one's energy level to a place
where life becomes easier, less of a struggle. I understand
and agree with that, but how does this relate to the concept
of grace, or the power of prayer, you know, when you've done
it all and you don't have much strength left, and you let go,
and then a miracle happens. How does that work?
Stuart:
At that point where you quit, it's the point where the ego or
the personality has taken such an enormous hit in the struggle
that it finally sits down in a puddle of mud and sort of says
"I've had enough." At that point, the miracle appears.
It's in the very chasing after of things that you push them
away. So the ego will yearn and force and push and be desperate
and demand and be this brat. Of course, as you lean and push
and demand and strive and yearn for things, you actually shove
them away from you. The minute you pull back and sit down and
enter silence, the things start to come back toward you. I
think sometimes in that example, that you just cited, it's that
moment of where we reach zero resistance and suddenly those things
that we desire, pop up in front of us, effortlessly, and it's
very beautiful, isn't it?
Veronica:
Yes, it is. You also talk about detachment and non-judgement.
How does that work, really? Do we just walk around and observe
without having any opinions? What if we come across something
that does really bother us, do we deny how we really feel?
Stuart:
There's a middle ground. Basically, if you raise your energy,
you're going to take yourself out of the evolution of the people,
because you're going to move beyond their thoughts, their ideas,
their feelings. So, you're going to transcend out of the physical
plane without actually necessarily dying. By detachment and
by disciplining yourself, you can have the most enormous care
and love and good desire for the people without being intimately
involved. Then, if you can detach from your own stuff, because,
you're not your personality, you're not your mind, you're an
infinite energy inside a body, behind the mind, that's nothing
to do with your personality. So, if you buy your own emotions,
if you buy your stuff as being real, then you become a victim
of this theatrical display. Emotions for the most part are just
opinions of the ego presented in a theatrical scale for other
people to observe. So you jump up and down and wave your arms
about and say "I'm terribly angry" and everybody is
supposed to sit up and take notice. But, in fact, that's only
an opinion, it's nothing else. Then, as you become an observer
of life and as you become an observer of yourself, which isn't
a sort of callous don't care attitude, it's just a gradual,
sweet retreat from the evolution, in realizing that you are projecting
yourself and working yourself beyond the evolution of these people.
Then, if there is something that you feel very strongly about,
you have to decide whether or not you want to dive back into
the great mud puddle of life or not. It's up to you.
Veronica:
Would you talk about the 1000 day climb that you refer to in
your books?
Stuart:
As we are programmed through what I call tick-tock in my books,
the sort of very hum-drum 9-5 existence, the institutional education
of our children, and so on, and as we buy this ego's world, as
you start to make that turn, it's just my perception that it
takes about three years to make that turn complete. So, I call
that the thousand day climb. And obviously, while you're going
through that turn, it's almost like a big ship and you're turning
back and sort of rocking or bouncing over your own wash, the
waves that the ship created as it was going along. It's a turbulent
time and you can't really see very far in the future because
you might have been in that tick-tock programming for twenty,
thirty or forty years. So, three years to make a complete transition
to where you're just going to look at your life differently and
embrace spirit, is not a very long time. What I say to people
is, that while they are in that climb, don't try too hard to
become something new too quickly, because if you do, more times
than not, you will fail. More times than not, anything you start
will fall apart. It's best to just realize that the climb is
a dedication and stay focused on cleaning up your act, resolving
issues, processing your feelings and generally just raising your
energy. And then after the three years is over, usually one
reaches a sort of plateau, where one can consolidate and sort
of think, "well now I'll head out, and I'll do this, or
I'll do that, or I'll help humanity in this way, or I'll serve
in that way, or whatever."
Veronica:
Everything is energy. In short, what can we do to raise our
energy level?
Stuart:
It's a matter of discipline and a matter of perception and perception
only comes if you can control the personality. A lot of my courses
deal with developing the trance state. If you're not prepared
to go that far, then just by discipline, simplicity, conserving
your power, nurturing yourself and all the usual things of that
kind of mode will bring your energy up. The thing you do have
to control is fear, because without controlling fear, you will
always depreciate your energy. For example, you'll be very excited
about something and suddenly a lot of insecurity and fear will
come your way and you'll depreciate a whole chunk of your stock
so to speak.
Veronica:
And be careful who and what you surround yourself with?
Stuart:
Yes, definitely. I think the more you raise your energy, the
less and less people you'll find around you, or the people that
you have around you, will be more at arm's length. I think that
regarding the influence of other people, there is something very
polluting sometimes by some of the associations that we make
and often we know that we ought to be going beyond them. Dysfunctional
relationships, dysfunctional jobs, dysfunctional circumstances
can be very energy draining and bring one down. I think also
a part of the spiritual quest is this point of making the right
choices and cleaning up your act as much as possible.
Veronica:
My favorite quotation of yours is, life
was never meant to be a struggle, just a gentle progression from
one point to another, much like walking through a valley on a
sunny day. Why do you think so
many of us make it such a struggle? Do you think people have
responsibility tied into struggle?
Stuart:
Well, not necessarily. First of all, we teach people that it
is honourable to struggle. A lot of the religions said to people,
"look, you're very poor, you're struggling, but don't worry,
you've been chosen". So, struggle is just endemic to our
people. Obviously, if you're trying to materialize a certain
vision, an ego vision, and you don't have the energy to pull
it off, you're going to struggle. If you consume more than you
have the money for, you're going to struggle. Most struggle
is economic, some of it, of course, is emotional. The most simple
places where most of the struggle takes place is people living
and demanding a life style that they can't sustain. And that's
just an opinion of the ego. And, of course, negative energy
in our dimension is only anything that contradicts the ego.
For example, if you demand a lot of respect and somebody insults
you, you've been contradicted and you might be upset. Or, if
you demand a certain lifestyle and you don't get it, you might
moan and be terribly upset and consider it a very negative experience.
If you demand that your life is always cosy, safe and guaranteed
and someday something comes along that isn't cosy, safe and guaranteed,
then you will experience the ego being contradicted, and you
will describe that as negative energy. You see, there is nothing
wrong with demanding if you have the energy to pull it off, but
one of the things that is endemic to our society is that people
are so self indulgent, they are demanding without considering
the fact that they might have to put a little energy out.
Or, they'll put whimpy amounts of energy out and expect enormous
returns. So much of life nowadays is worshipping at the altar
of this completely self indulgent ego that demands all sorts
of things without ever having to lift a finger for it.
Veronica:
What would you suggest to people who want to make their contribution
to the world and want to do some spiritual service?
Stuart:
Well, I think that is the destiny of everyone who is on the quest,
in the end. And I think that everyone who is on the quest will
sooner or later find a place to serve because we live inside
a sort of evolutionary molecule which is the folk spirit or the
tribal mind of all of our people and we are only as good as how
much we can raise ourselves and others up.
Obviously, the best contribution you can make to the world is
for you to become serene and self sufficient and composed and
then teach that to others. I think as soon as one turns within
and raises ones energy a little bit, where you go to serve is
automatic. And some people will serve in a very big way, let's
say, because they're politicians or whatever, but most people
serve quietly, they're in a health food shop or at the yoga centre
or they're helping teach kids or whatever it is. To serve is
a great honour and privilege. And I think that is the destiny
of everyone on the path.
Veronica:
In your book, Whispering Winds of Change, you state that it
would take a crisis to shrink the world ego to the point where
the spirit can begin to win back control. Would you elaborate
on that?
Stuart:
Well, you can see that in a small way in each individual. Most
people, especially males, in their twenties and early thirties,
when the ego is rampant, and they are into making money and whatever,
they usually have to have some kind of crisis, before they'll
turn within. So, they need a car wreck, or a divorce, or a
serious disease, or a bankruptcy, because the ego won't give
over power until you actually dethrone it. There has to be
some sort of revolution. And the revolution has to be, of course,
an internal one, within your mind. However, it isn't often that
the ego will actually sit down and voluntarily abdicate.
So, in a national sense, or in a global sense, the world ego,
which is this institutional domination of our people by the patriarchal
white rulers of our western democracies, won't give away control
until such time as there is a crisis where they have to. A good
example is in the countries behind the iron curtain, where they
completely lost it and now are in a gradual state of change.
It will come to America, and it will come to Britain and Europe
as well. So, I think what you see in the individual level, you
see in the national and political levels, and the global level
as well.
Veronica:
What advice do you have to give our readers given the current
economic and political conditions?
Stuart:
Well, you're looking at a society in collapse. It's sort of
like the decline of the roman empire. You can either do nothing
about it and sort of whistle, while the place burns down, or
you can start to retreat. Of course, the retreat you make is
an internal one. So, if you're prepared to retreat within and
get disciplined and get inside your life, control your life economically,
pay off your debts, resolve your relationships, then as society
bounces out of control beyond you and outside of you, it isn't
going to affect you. I think a lot of the people who will be
very seriously affected are those that are prepared to do nothing
and all of a sudden change will be imposed upon them.
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