I have noticed through both personal experience and observing others that people respond for the most part in one of two ways to trials--with acute dejection and feelings of utter hopelessness, often combined with various forms of escape and self-destructive behavior (drugs, alcohol, violence, larceny and deception), OR, by "seeking" answers. We are all on a journey toward realization of our Divinity. Conscious seekers have come to the point where they have awakened and chosen the latter way. If you are reading this, you are likely one of those. Often we awaken through realization that our pain and suffering is only exacerbated by our refusal to heed the urgings of the Universe to make change in our lives. Those who are continuing to respond to trials in dysfunctional ways have not yet reached the point of choosing awareness. At some point, the pain and suffering that arises from their behavior may finally lead to their awakening in this lifetime. The universe is always trying to lead us toward wholeness and teach us to choose thoughts of love and turn from fear. And it teaches through a very efficient system of cause and effect - matching our inner convictions and focus with outer experience. Thus to assist us in preferring and choosing loving thoughts, focus upon fear brings uncomfortable and undesirable effects that don't feel good. When it finally gets so bad and we feel so miserable, many of us awaken to what the universe is teaching. We begin to consider change. Others will choose to continue the course of reaction, drama and fear to their demise; but still, their souls will continue upon an evolving path to awareness.

In a sense, it could be said that it takes courage to have chosen the seeking path as we have because there isn't all that much support out there for going within, the way of spiritual seeking - at least outside of a religious context. (I make this distinction because turning to traditional religion is widely accepted and in that sense does not take the sort of courage to which I refer.) But non-religious metaphysical seeking goes against conventional wisdom, against the ways of mass consciousness (and individually, ego consciousness), which tells us to "get out there" and "do, do, do, take action, action, action" to solve your problems. Still, most who have awakened don't necessarily view it as a courageous choice, for we have realized that when it comes right down to it, there really is no other choice but to take this new path. We had already concluded that exclusive commitment to the conventional wisdom of the world was just no longer an option; we had already realized that it did not, could not provide the answers we needed. We had arrived at 12th grade in earth school and there was no turning back. Succinctly, we had already been there and done that.

So now here we are awakened and ready to experience more wholeness in our lives. Alas, it is the case unfortunately, that so many "light seekers" feel alone; because, quite frankly, at this point in our evolution, most people are still unconsciously wading in mass conscious thoughts. I might interject here that the individual ego is the conglomeration of limited thoughts that one has absorbed from mass consciousness. It is a body of thought with which the individual identifies. The individual's fixation upon the limiting thoughts of the ego results in limited experience. So, many seekers, awakened and consciously trying to break with ego fixation and move away from that muck, often don't have a lot of people around them who are open to the new thought ideas of which the seeker is becoming aware. These awakened ones, open to a new broader perspective of the universe and of life -- eager and excited about this new way of seeing things and a new way of operating their lives -- often study and read voraciously.

The new way of operating involves a significant change of approach, best described by contrasting it with the conventional ("old") way. The conventional way of getting what we want in life involves action and doing; it's about manipulating physical material and people and events. It focuses upon competition and winning at all costs, even at the expense of harming others. The new way involves cooperation with the way the universe works in terms of energy and the principle of cause and effect. With this approach, rather than focusing on manipulating the outer, we focus upon establishing our own inner energy in such a way that it is a match to what we desire to create or bring into our lives. Then through the principles of cause and effect and the flow of energy toward what is of similar vibration, we rendezvous with our desires in such a way that is for the good of all involved.

Immersed in the world of limiting thoughts however, many trying to learn to operate in this new way, find themselves continually tempted by the distractions of mass thought -- and succumbing to them. The result is that even with their new awareness, they are experiencing difficulty in creating the new circumstances and conditions in their lives that they desire. One way of looking at why seekers don't create what they desire, with as much ease as possible, is that they are not vibrating at the energy level that is consistent with what they desire. So what we have is seekers absorbing all of this knowledge and intellectual understanding (which is good and I would never have them stop reading and studying) but they are not really changing their energy. What it amounts to is, knowledge doesn't create-- energy does. Or more specifically, we get what our energy is-not what our knowledge is.

So many people who are lacking in health, or abundance or love relationships, are sort of immersed in their low energy as regards those subjects; but that low energy also spills over into other facets of their life. They feel bummed and sort of hopeless that things will ever change. Despite their intellectual understanding and knowledge of Conscious Creation (CC) principles, they are still not making movement in their experiences because it's difficult to implement the knowledge in this state of low energy. Trapped in the muck of mass consciousness and frozen in fear, they are unable to get their mind off of what appears to be these unresolvable circumstances that exist on the outer physical plane. They're not able to see any possibility of relief. But whoa; let's hold up a moment! Before you think that this sounds like a depressing, hopeless situation, let me stop right here and stress a very important point. Since it's all about our energy, there is no permanency whatever to this situation. It is only an illusion. There is nothing like a fate cast in stone to any of this - absolutely not! When our energy changes, our experiences change accordingly. We'll be getting back to that, but now let's continue with our description of the dilemma many of us feel.

CC principles urge us to get into a state where we can feel as we would when we've already attained that which we desire. But it's difficult to conceive of a particular state when one has never known wholeness in that area. There's little or no prior experience of the feelings upon which to draw. This is a bind of course, because if an individual cannot break out of the focus of lack and limitation in that area, she will only continue in the same spiral of her focus. And, as circumstances worsen, the fear and hopelessness only increases. Having awakened however, it's most unlikely that any seeker would revert back to the reactionary mode of the unawakened state, or if they were to, they would not remain there long, for they would very soon realize the futility of that. But, as is often the case, they will continue plugging along, though in a state of erratic, low energy.

Albert Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it". We know we are here to grow and transcend, and what we are to transcend is that consciousness that has created the problems. It is a given that we can overcome any problem - it is an absolute -- for that is part of the whole grand scheme of the Universe. It is through meeting challenges and difficulties and overcoming our problems that we undertake our primary purpose here, that of rediscovering our Divinity. So to overcome our problems we must transcend the consciousness of the ego which only sees problems and has brought us a persistence of our problems. We are to drop our identity with the ego and discover and re-identify with the Divine Presence and Power within us. We are to see anew.