Intuitive Living: A Sacred Path

By Alan Seale

This modern guidebook to spiritual growth starts with the awakening of self-awareness; awareness of our bodies, our feelings, our thoughts and the energy that flows through every cell of our being. It leads us to the inner states of freedom and peace,seen not as the absence of conflict, but rather a response based on a deeply rooted knowledge that no matter what is happening around you, nothing can harm you at your center. Seale works with the tool of meditation and shows how we can open to the language of love and Spirit. Includes 45 exercises and meditations which speak to us in profoundly different ways at each stage of spiritual growth and can therefore be of great value both now and as our practice deepens. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Jan 15, 2001
• ISBN: 9781609251352

Alan Seale

Alan Seale is a highly sought after leadership and transformation coach. He has led workshops and keynote presentations at the Kripalu Center in Lenox, MA; the International Coach Federation annual conference in St. Louis, MO; the South Bay Organizational Development Network in Silicon Valley, CA; and similar events nationally. He is the author of Intuitive Living and Soul Vision;Life Mission. He lives in Rochester, New York.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about life—your life, my life, all of our lives together. It's a book about awareness—becoming aware of yourself at the depths of your being, of others around you, and of all that surrounds you. It's a book about spirituality—an exploration of your spirit that is at the same time human and divine, and the development of your own personal sense of spirituality. It's a book about Spirit, which I define simply as the all of the everything that is.You might also call it God, Source, Love, the Universal Creative Force, the Great Mystery, Universal Wisdom, or Higher Power. I will use the term Spirit throughout this book to represent this great mystery that cannot be defined.

This is a book about communication—communication with yourself, with others, and with Spirit. It's a book about intuition, which, in its highest form, is nothing less than the voice of Spirit within you. Intuition, fully developed, is the most profound level of communication— a direct knowing or understanding, whether through words, images, or feelings, of the presence of Spirit and Its profound guidance. It is one of Spirit's greatest gifts. This book will help you uncover the presence of Spirit in the moment-to-moment living of your life, and develop that highest level of communication called intuition.

This is a book about understanding Love as a potent energy force that has created the universe, and continues to create and sustain us all, creatures of all kinds, and all matter in space. The journey that we are about to undertake together will help you know deep in every cell of your being that you are Love made manifest on Earth. As you honor yourself as Love, you will awaken your innate intuitive wisdom. Your journey will open doors to a mystical process within you of moving back to soul, nurturing yourself toward a place of balance between ego and soul. It is a journey into your essence—a journey to a more profound understanding of your oneness with the divine. It's a journey that involves opening, developing, and using your intuitive gifts, just as you use all your other talents or abilities, to enrich every day of your life.

You will find many tools in this book to help you move along through the journey. There are many exercises, some of which are activities to do, while others are meditations to simply experience. You will find explanations of universal concepts, often made clearer or expanded upon by direct teachings from Spirit. You will learn and grow, be challenged and fed. At times you will have a direct experience of a shift of perception or understanding within, and other times the process will be much more subtle. Try not to judge your experience or have preconceived notions of what your experience should or should not be. Step into this path with an open heart and mind, and allow the mystic within you to begin making itself known. What you experience could be the magnificent unfolding of you.

As we move into the 21st century, life seems to keep speeding up.We see it most clearly in the domain of science and technology. The new computer on which I write this book is outdated within weeks of its purchase. Global communication networks, cybertechnology, and methods of doing business are constantly being updated, so that state-of-the-art is almost a meaningless term.

We also see religious and cultural belief systems that have reigned for centuries being questioned, shaken, endangered, rejected, revised, transformed, and rediscovered in a relative wink of an eye. Political systems and empires rise and topple. It seems that what once took 500 years to develop in human consciousness became possible in 250, then 100, then 25 years. Only a few generations ago, the set of beliefs into which we were born—about life, about what's right and wrong, what works and what doesn't—would last a lifetime. Now, however, we are faced with constantly changing values. Life seems to be an ongoing process of re-evaluation.

This accelerated rate of growth and change unsettles us. It provokes us constantly to take stock of our lives, to question our beliefs and our models, and to examine our ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It demands that we embrace change rather than resist it, that we become actively engaged in the process of our lives. We are challenged to develop a more enlightenedway of living, one that requires awareness of all that is around and within us. This means awareness not only of what is readily apparent to the physical senses, but also what is available to us through our inner, specifically intuitive, senses.

This book is about learning to listen to intuition, the voice of Spirit within you. The purpose is to find your own sense of order and structure in your personal, professional, emotional, and spiritual life. You are invited to enter into a spirituality that has no rules, a spirituality that is large enough to allow you to find your freedom and truth in your own divine process of human development.

For me, this has entailed an in-depth and ongoing exploration into the essence of my being: digging around in the hidden aspects of myself, searching out my own sense of the divine and its role in my life, establishing a clear and powerful relationship with Spirit, and walking hand in hand with Spirit through every day.

Intuition: The Inner Voice of Spirit

INTUITION HAS BEEN defined as an unexplained inner knowing, a hunch, or a gut feeling or response. In the Western mainstream culture, it has often been given little, if any, credence. It certainly has not been considered a source of information on which to rely for any matters of consequence.

For me, however, intuition is much more than this. It is a process of tapping into your deep sense of inner wisdom. This is the place inside of you where you know your oneness with All. At its highest level, the intuitive voice is the part of you that is one with the Great Mystery, which is Love. It is the voice of Spirit within. Intuitive awareness develops hand-in-hand with your willingness to step beyond the intellectual mind, so that you may know and experience the infinite possibilities that exist beyond the bounds of ordinary consciousness. The way to this inner wisdom is through your own personal spiritual and mystical journey—embracing this inner voice as Spirit, and allowing it to lead you as teacher, counselor, guide, and friend.

This inner voice of Spirit is the foundation of mystical life. In our culture we are not encouraged to develop an awareness of this inner voice. We are, in fact, often afraid to make a decision or take an action because of a gut feeling, or because we heard an inner voice saying, Do this. And if we do, we are usually hesitant to admit it to anyone else. We are not taught to trust that inner voice. Yet Spirit is alive and well and dwelling deep in each of our hearts. Through the inner journey and a willingness to accept that there is more to life than what we perceive with our outer senses and the reasoning mind, we can step fully into the intuitive journey and enter a world of endless possibilities.

Historically, it was often thought in many belief systems that only a chosen few were blessed with intuitive gifts, the ability to be aware of and access other realms of consciousness, that deep inner voice. However, as we enter the 21st century, more and more people are awakening to a call from within to open to the boundless possibilities of the greater world that seems hidden to normal conscious awareness. Seems is the key word here. The boundless possibilities lie within everyday, moment-to-moment living. It does not matter whether you choose a life in the public eye or one of quiet and privacy. Simply by living your life you will introduce others to new paradigms of spiritual living. Developing the ability to hear the voice of spirit involves 5 steps:

Spiritual awakening: An opening in conscious awareness to the existence of a Universal Force that is the creator and sustainer of all;

Self-exploration: Embarking upon a journey to uncover and know the divine essence of your being;

Removing blocks: Recognizing, acknowledging, and working through emotional blocks and inner resistance or fears that hinder a full awareness of your own divinity, and the constant flow of Love through you;

Intuitive development: Developing the intuitive mind as an aspect of Spirit, of Love, of God, of the Great Mystery;

Surrender: Complete surrender to the guidance of Spirit. This surrender is not at all a passive process. It is an active process of being in a profoundly heightened state of awareness, receiving the guidance of Spirit, and responding in the appropriate way through attitude and action.

These steps are not necessarily undertaken in any particular order. All people have their own unique experiences, perhaps starting with number 2 followed by number 1, then 4 and 3, and then back to number 2, and on and on it goes.

If we choose to embark upon an expedition into self, accepting the challenge to explore on many levels of awareness at once, this exploration goes to the far outer limits of conscious awareness and then pushes out from there to discover every aspect of being. When we choose this path, we dive deep into our hearts to plumb the depths of our souls, through which we come to know God—not necessarily a God we have been taught to believe in by family, society, or institutions, but rather a God or Spirit or Universal Mind with whom we find our own very personal relationship. We embrace the intuitive mind as an aspect of the divine within us. We recognize that the intuitive mind is the larger mind, of which the rational mind is only one aspect. We learn to channel the rational mind through the larger intuitive mind for a more complete awareness and experience throughout each day. We learn to listen and respond to this divine inner voice of Spirit, allowing it to be the guiding light for our lives.

Our path does not necessarily replace any particular religious or spiritual belief system but transcends it. Our sense of spirituality comes out of experience and faith, not out of what someone else tells us to think or feel. Rather than forcing an experience to fit into the framework of a particular belief, we let the experience show us its inherent spiritual message. We come to this spiritual truth through daily living. We come to know Spirit through experience rather than dogma, and, at times, may even reject all beliefs or thoughts in order to allow Spirit or spiritual experience to enter in.

Too often we encounter people who say, I know what I believe, and that is the end of the discussion. They have not given much thought or consideration to their beliefs, and at the same time don't want to go further. They certainly don't want you to question or challenge their beliefs, for they have found a safe place within them. However, for us, the actual statement of belief becomes the jumpingoff-point for examining and understanding our belief as it relates to life, rather than a statement of belief being the end-point of the journey. We embrace all life as a spiritual teacher—an unfolding spiritual process, moment by moment, constantly offering gifts and insights, deeper and more profound understanding. We don't look at life through a fixed lens of beliefs, but rather let life experience itself lead to our personal truth.

Using This Book

THIS BOOK IS DESIGNED as a guidebook for your personal journey of self-discovery, co-creation, and intuitive development. It is structured to effectively guide the novice as well as the individual who has been actively walking the spiritual path for many years. You will find that there are many layers to this work, many stages in the journey. Therefore, this is not meant to be a book that you will read only once. When you have come to the end of the book, perhaps you will take some time off to let things settle. Then you start again at your new level of development. You will find that the exercises and meditations speak to you in profoundly different ways at different stages of your own growth and development. Many students, having completed the third level of classes, ask to return to the first level to begin their journey again.

For the sake of organization this guidebook is presented in three parts. Parts One and Two focus on your unfolding spiritual journey, while the focus of Part Three is primarily intuitive development. You may choose to do the exercises in Part Three along with your work in Parts One and Two. After all, it is through your spiritual journey that your intuitive gifts develop. Or you may choose to work straight through the book in sequence. As you begin the book for the first time you may want to read it all the way through, and then come back and work your way through the exercises. Or you may want to start at the beginning and slowly proceed, doing all the exercises and meditations as you come to them.

Treat this book as a companion on your journey, highlighting sections of text that are significant and making notes in the margins. This will allow you to find discussions of particular concepts again quickly so that you can work with those ideas over and over. This book is meant to be used, not to sit on a shelf in pristine condition.

Finding a Partner or Organizing a Study Group

Although you can do a tremendous amount of this work alone, you will find some exercises for which you need a partner, and some, especially in Part Three, where a group is recommended. With this in mind you may want to invite an adventurous, like-minded friend to join you for this journey. Or, you may want to organize a study group and work through the book with your friends and fellow spiritual explorers.

A partner or a group can become a powerful support on your journey. As you move through the self-discovery process, you will go deeper and deeper within yourself, uncovering joy and love as well as pain and conflict. However, because of this deep exploration, building trust and safety within the group is essential. You will want to nurture this support system, allowing it to develop in its own time so that everyone feels safe there. In order to build this high level of energy, you must have a group commitment—it's essential that the group be fully present so you all can really raise your energy together!

All of this is to say, choose carefully who you invite to join you on this journey so that you build a loving, supportive, and committed circle of people. And then enjoy your time together, for you will be sharing a magnificent unfolding.

With or without a group, however, you can certainly approach this book as your own personal curriculum for transformation. Take your time and go step-by-step, working through the exercises and meditations. You can read through many of the exercises to get a sense of them and then proceed. However, some are intended to be guided meditations. I suggest that you either pre-record these meditations on tape so that you can minimize distraction and set your own pace, or that you and your partner guide each other through the exercise. If you choose the latter, do not discuss the exercise until you have each had your turn, so that neither of you influences the other's experience. You can also use the meditation tapes that are available as a companion to this book.

If you choose to create your own meditation tapes, speak in a voice quality and pace that will facilitate a meditative state. You may want to record the first couple of meditations once and then listen to see how the tape sounds. Ask yourself what could be improved in order to create the best possible meditative experience for yourself. You may want to go through the printed text, highlighting words or phrases you want to stress. Then tape the meditations again. After doing this for a few meditations, you will know exactly how you want to create your tape the first time through.

Journal Writing

I ask my students to keep a daily journal, writing at least three pages a day. I recommend that you do the same as you begin this journey. Three pages often seems like a lot, but you will find as time goes on that you begin working out the issues of your life through these journal pages, and that you gain powerful insights and clearer perspectives through the process of writing. At times, you may also begin to realize that you are not the one doing the writing. This is one of the most effective ways to begin your direct communication with Spirit. An easy and open dialogue can evolve out of your own reflective process without you trying so hard to get Spirit to speak. Spirit is there ready to help and guide you, offering love, nurture, and support if you can step back and let it happen. Following each meditation, you may also want to record the experiences of your inner work in your journal, particularly if you received insights or clarity around certain issues, so that you may come back to work further with this understanding.

Meditation

I also ask that my students establish a meditation discipline. If you do not already have an established meditation practice, I encourage you to begin a regular practice now. The particular method you use is not as important as the fact that you do it. There are a number of meditations in this book. They are very simple at the beginning and become more involved as you progress. They will help you establish your practice and open to the profound guidance and teaching available to you through your own meditation.

If at all possible, it is helpful to meditate at the same time and in the same place every day. This helps build an energy around that time and place, which will help you go deeper and deeper in your consciousness, and access higher and higher states of awareness. If you are working with specific spirit guides and teachers, you are in effect making a standing appointment with them for working together every day. And they will keep that appointment! We will talk more about direct work with spirit guides and teachers in chapter 17.

Meditation is a process of heightening attention and awareness. It is about tuning in, not tuning out. It is about being awake—really awake—more awake than you have ever been. The goal of meditation is to heighten awareness, not to escape from the world. It is about finding your deep, inner point of stillness. In our Western tradition, we tend to get caught in rational thought, which keeps us from the highest levels of consciousness. In this journey, however, we see the rational thought process as just another mental activity to be transcended in order to get to that ultimate point of stillness.

Meditation is a discipline of mind and body in order to access that point of stillness. It is a process of purification. As you are able to focus and reach the states of inner quiet, you begin to also be in touch with your inner states of disquiet. As you work through the unresolved issues that cause the disquiet, transforming them to quiet, purification occurs. You have then raised yourself to a higher level of consciousness.

Open Mind, Open Heart

However you choose to approach meditation and the information and work of this book, try to come to it with your mind and heart open and fresh. Let go of preconceived ideas of how it should be—how you should behave, think, or feel in response to these concepts or experiences. Try to come into the work as an empty vessel waiting to be filled with the Love of the universe.

Allow yourself to work through this book and the individual concepts and exercises at your own pace. Respect your feelings at every step of the way. If an exercise or concept feels overwhelming in some way, or just uncomfortable for you in that moment, respect that feeling and move on. Take from this book what feels comfortable to you and leave what does not. However, remember that uneasiness will not always mean to retreat. At times you may come to an exercise that challenges you, yet you also know it is a step you now must take. The exercises you skip over may come calling out to you at a later point, and you will know then that you are ready to take that step. As my fellow musician, Jorge Alfano, says, There's nothing wrong with fear— it's just a sign you are crossing over into the unknown. Know your feelings and let your own inner wisdom be your guide.

We have said that this work has many layers. Some of you will be starting on the surface layers as you pick up this book, while others of you will have already progressed to much deeper layers. Give yourself permission to be wherever you are in your journey. Don't try to force yourself to be somewhere you are not. Don't try to push yourself faster than you are ready to go. At the same time, be sure to acknowledge the tremendous work you may have already done, and celebrate the accomplishments you have made in your spiritual path.

And So We Begin

At the beginning of most travels, it is suggested that you fasten your seat belt and get ready for the ride. For this journey, however, I'd like to suggest that you might want to take off your seat belt in order to be free to fly. Be comfortable and free to move around so Spirit can move around within you. Just as I allowed myself to be guided by Spirit in writing this book, I hope you will allow Spirit to guide you in reading and working.

The sections of the text that are in italics have come directly from Spirit. You will notice that Spirit often refers to Itself as we. They have explained themselves as a collective consciousness of the Universe; again, as the all of the everything that is. So, lest you get confused that we is a committee sitting in the spirit world, they are simply the great wisdom of the Universe that lives within each of us.

Enjoy the gifts that I have received from Spirit, as well as your own gifts. When you open and commit to the spiritual journey, to working with Spirit in the development of your intuitive awareness, the gifts are many, and the possibilities endless. All good wishes for your journey!

Meditation CD

To enhance your study with this book, you may find the companion meditation CD very helpful. To order, please contact:

Alan Seale

P.O. Box 526

Jeffersonville, NY 12748

[phone]

www.alanseale.com

PART ONE

The Journey with Spirit

Love is the creative and sustaining force of the Universe. It

is the fundamental essence of all that exists. Through our

awareness of ourselves as pure Love, we come to know

our oneness with all creation.

1

FINDING THE PATH

Welcome to this wondrous journey into you. Me, you might ask? Yes, you. For if you want to find Spirit, if you want to find God, if you want to know Love and how this marvelous universe works, you must take the journey into you. As you do, you will begin to uncover extraordinary parts of you that you never knew were there. And you will come to much more profound understandings about parts you thought you already knew very well. The deeper you go in spiritual self-discovery, the higher you can fly in conscious awareness of all that surrounds you, seen and unseen, heard and unheard, known and unknown, thought and unthought. Sounds simple? It is. Sounds difficult? It is.

For now, welcome to the path—your path. It belongs to no one but you. Sometimes it will feel like you are creating it as you go, and other times it will appear to have been created for you. This is the mystical path, plain and simple— a path of co-creation, serendipity, miracles, and day-to-day, moment-tomoment human experience.

We all have experiences of Spirit and intuition in our own way. There is no single way. What is important is that people who so desire find their way, find their own sense of spirituality and its unfolding journey, and come to know their own intuitive process, their own sense of Love and its movement through their lives. This book is a result of my own spiritual and mystical journey to date. It has been a journey of awakening to the essence of who I am and the truth that is me, leading to the constant and powerful presence of intuitive understanding— profound communication with myself and with Spirit.

The words on these pages and the ideas they present all have come from some aspect of doing the work—daily meditation, Spirit Circles, teaching classes and workshops, clairvoyant counseling sessions and readings with individual clients, long and solitary drives from my country house to my city office and studio, walking the earth, and living with and in Spirit. What I want to share with you is the richness of life that can come from developing your intuitive gifts through a more acute awareness of Spirit, a process that involves selfdiscovery and leads to self-empowerment. This journey moves far beyond the fascination level of psychic phenomena and enters the domain of the soul. Developing intuitive gifts is an in-depth process of journeying to the core of your being and removing any and all obstacles that might separate you from the fullness of Love. The more we work through and let go of our own excess baggage, the clearer and brighter the soul shines out, and the easier it is for us simply to become one with Spirit, the Universal Mind or God-force, granting access to all of the knowledge and wisdom that is there for us.

I certainly can't say that my journey with Spirit has been without doubt, skepticism, frustration, or conflict; but I must also say that I can't imagine not taking the journey. From my earliest years, I was a child of curiosity and vision, always seeking the next step, the next place to go in order to perfect a skill or to find out who I really was. Growing up in Kentucky and Indiana, I followed my father through many of his daily activities as a Protestant minister. As active as I was in all the church affairs, I found myself searching for more. I knew that there had to be a bigger picture. It wasn't until many years later that I would begin to see into the other realms of possibilities.

My conscious awakening began in the early 1980s. I had completed graduate degrees in church music and voice performance, joined the voice faculty of a well-known college conservatory, and had begun serving as organist and choirmaster in a church. As I taught singers and dealt with some of my own personal issues, I began to realize that I was embarking on a journey that perhaps not everyone was actively pursuing. I realized that I was searching deeper inside myself and striving harder for an understanding about life and its mysteries than most people I knew. I began seeing many parallels between the freedom of singing and the freedom of life; yet I was still trapped within the confines of a former belief system.

Over the next several years, I began reading books, practicing meditation, and taking classes and workshops. I began to embrace the possibilities of other realms of awareness, and of the validity of experiences which had no rational explanation. As my daily meditation practice developed, I began to feel as though somehow I was being taught. I would perceive thoughts or understand concepts that I had never considered or understood before. I received a lot of guidance for helping a friend, Mac, who had recently been diagnosed with AIDS. Spirit helped me understand the powerful spiritual healing that was occurring in the midst of Mac's debilitating illness. For many years he had been a very angry man. Through his illness he was able to let go of his anger, so that when death came two years later, he was a very peaceful man. Walking that difficult daily path with Mac was much easier with the guidance and insight from Spirit. As we sat and talked and struggled with his anger, fear, depression, and sadness, I would often think, How can I possibly help him—I have no words or answers. And then Spirit would give me the words or lead me to a deeper place of compassion from which to listen.

As time went on, I began to understand the unfolding of my own life from a much larger perspective. It was as if Spirit was communicating with me through thought-forms. I would just know which choice to make, what my next professional steps should be, where I needed to go, and who I needed to see. On many occasions I found myself going someplace simply because an inner voice said I had to go. Once there I would meet someone important to my journey, or have a conversation that would lead to a shift in perception about something in my life. Only