Love's Alchemy

By Sky Shayne Innes

This book calls you to awaken to your true purpose. It calls you to live in love rather than fear. And it calls you to live as the Alchemist, using your problems as lead to create the life you long for; a life that, like gold reflects richness and beauty in its most enlightened form. The invitation is gentle, yet irresistible for those who still yearn for true happiness.

It is a book to be absorbed rather than read from an intellectual perspective. You will have the sensation of being guided along a pathway by a trusted and delightful friend. One who has already undertaken the journey and is familiar with the territory of transformation.

Sky's words will inspire and seduce you. Her own experiences are powerfully illustrated in the stories shared from her journal. And the work is further enhanced by the timeless wisdom of poets, sages and mystics woven like a fine thread throughout.

Although peace and tranquility permeate the text, the ideas presented are at once compelling and challenging. If you are willing to receive then into your heart, your perception of yourself and your world could be changed forever. And, you may indeed find yourself falling into love ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sky Shayne Innes
• Release date: Apr 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311530660

Sky Shayne Innes

"Without love, there is no possible solution to our current predicament." Such is the focus of Sky's work, encapsulated in the concept of love’s alchemy. Her commitment is to evolve consciousness through the transformative power of love. Author of Love's Alchemy and founder of HEARTherapy, Sky is a pioneer in heart-centred therapy, working in this area for over 25 years. As a psychologist, coach and teacher, she is celebrated for her guidance and insight. As an awakener, her invitation is for you to awaken to your true nature and thereby, evolve all of consciousness.

Book preview

Happiness is as a butterfly, which when pursued,

is always beyond our grasp,

But which, if you sit down quietly,

may alight upon you.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Love's Alchemy

Sky Shayne Innes

Published by Sky Shayne Innes at Smashwords

8 Giaour Street, Byron Bay NSW 2481 Australia First published 2003

eBook Edition: 2014

Cover design: Ellie Exarchos Typography: Tasio Sclavenitis

Editor: Catherine Hammond eBook Conversion: Michele Grey

Copyright © Sky

All rights reserved. This publication is copyright. Other than for the purposes and subject to the conditions prescribed under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retreival system, or transmitted in any form, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

Contents

Preface

Prologue

PART ONE

Consciousness Is All There Is

Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence

Modern-Day Mystics

God Is All There Is

Sky Is Your True Name

I Am Not the Doer

Who Surrenders?

PART TWO

Who Am I?

Gentling the Mind

Love ’s Alchemy

Follow Your Bliss

The Beloved One

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

For all those who have taught me, in love or fear,

the wonder and miracle of life.

For my Mum and Dad who love me, even when they’re not sure they made me.

And John, who is my light.

Alchemy is the process of transformation.

The medieval meaning of the word refers in particular to the transformation of base metals into gold.

Here, the word refers to the transformative power of love.

Love is the heartbeat of life.

Love’s alchemy transforms all that you fear into all that you long for.

You are the alchemist!

Preface

The inspiration for this book is our call to awaken to the divine purpose we are here to fulfil. This is not a noble endeavour, but a practical and realistic way of living our lives fully and bountifully, in whatever way that means to us. For in our fulfilment is our purpose.

When I was a little girl, I wanted two things: to feel safe and to be happy. I thought there was a wonderland somewhere, and if I was very good and very diligent, I would be allowed into that wonderland, free from horrible and frightening things. As I grew up, I clung to that belief of freedom, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. This book is about finding that wonderland.

Because it is about an insight impossible to intellectualise, it is not a book to be ‘read’. It is a book to be absorbed, meditated and contemplated. I confess it is a book intended to give you a serious identity crisis. It has been put together so that you are brainwashed or, as I prefer to call it, mind-cleansed. The repetitive nature of the wording is my modus operandi, with an invitation for Grace to be present. I place some of my past in your present, only as illustration. I quote some scriptures, calling on the perennial wisdom of the ages, only as illumination.

This is a book that requests permission to enter. It knocks gently, but persistently. Opening the door to it, allows revelation, beyond any expectation or idea you may have – indeed, revelation in revolution, undermining the normal tenets of understanding. If you will, allow this revelation.

With great love and respect, I tell you there is absolutely nothing wrong with you or the world, except as you think there is something wrong. And we do think there is a great deal wrong. We think this because we are divinely ignorant.

Having said that, please understand that this is not another book about positive thinking or reprogramming our cognition. In other words, this is not a book about translation, but transformation: real, miraculous transformation. As such, there is nothing to believe. It is not another belief system. You will find no ritual, creeds or codes. It is not a philosophy. Please do not look for a coherent, logical argument following any of the usual philosophical thinking. None is followed. Rather follow your intuitive wisdom to a ‘knowing’ that transcends all disciplines of understanding. This is when the mystery whispers in your heart, beyond sense, to a sensibility of the mystic.

This is a book about spirituality, not religion. The distinction I make is the fundamental difference between something dynamic, living and present in every moment of our lives, as opposed to something reserved for only a part of our lives that we think of as sacred. Spirituality contributes in far-reaching ways to a more integrated and authentic vision of life, enabling us to live with greater integrity to the Truth. It is an exploration into reality, investigating that which is really real. Spirituality is about the wholeness and holiness of all of life; religion carves the uncarvable into tablets of stone and turns the living Truth into dogma. Of course, at the heart of all religions is the perennial spirit of the Truth.

Some people think of spirituality as unrealistic, impractical and foolishly idealistic. In fact, it is the most rigorous posture we can adopt. In the face of so much past conditioning, the temptation to stick with what is familiar is great. Sticking with the past is also the hard way, and we have been doing it the hard way for a very long time. Now, in this moment in time, we have the opportunity of discovering for ourselves the boundless bounty of being – of being all that we may be. By shifting our consciousness to an awareness of who we really are, quite naturally our minds and bodies and stories reflect the outer form of this inner knowing.

As a self-confessed cynic who needed proof, the sciences of our day have given me all the proof I need. My conviction does not come from science however, but from the direct experience of it in my life. This is the rigour I gauge as of supreme relevance: how do I now experience my life? Is this not, after all, what it is all about?

This book is a very practical guide to true happiness. Divided into two parts, Part One is an exploration into the One reality that gives rise to all that exists. It demonstrates the divinity that reality is. In our day-to-day existence, we often overlook this. Part Two reveals this divinity in our lives.

Throughout the book there are ‘practices’ that we can do for this revelation. These help us realise the sacred in every moment of our lives. They are extremely simple and extremely powerful. Do not be deceived by their simplicity. They truly contain the power to transform your life effortlessly and profoundly. See for yourself. If you think and act as if there is anything wrong at all, I offer these practices, hoping they will serve you as they have served me. Please understand, they are not prescriptive. Anything prescriptive has the danger of becoming rigid. Make them your own, fresh in each moment of Truth.

Scattered through the pages of this book you will find butterflies. You may care to use them to pause and feel the Truth as you know it in your heart.

We think we live in the world. In reality, the world lives in us. We think we have to get our act together. I tell you, it is together, more perfectly than we can ever imagine.

Once we realise this, the world may be as it is, and we are free. The sublime paradox is that in our realisation of this, we are transformed, and so is the world.

This book is for you.

I offer it with all my heart,

all my soul,

all my mind

and all my strength.

Prologue

The ultimate reality of existence is love, and this is who I am.

As though a voice resounding through all of time and space, I feel the resonance of this knowing deep in the core of my being. Only as I know myself and everything as love, am I free. Love itself is the true nature of all that is. Beyond the turbulence of my mind is real love. To know this secret is to make love universal.

To know this secret is the alchemy, and my world is made golden.

My world, in this moment, is very dear to me. It has the form of a green valley, called the Promised Land, embraced by baby mountains and a creek called the Never Never that chants its gurgling mantra in the shady depths of the forest. From above, sunlight filters through the canopy, as though stained glass windows in a cathedral. Sitting on a rock in the middle of the creek, I am draped in dappled light and stilled by the swirling motion of crystal- clear water. All is well.

All is profoundly well. All is always well, in all ways. How do I know this? What is this assurance – so knowing, so intelligent, so far beyond any understanding?

The vulnerability of my body is endlessly vulnerable. The kaleidoscope of my emotions may mock certainty with doubt and fear, and yet, beyond all that, I know with absolute certainty that all is well. The sentiment of me and my story is undone, revealing the pure force that I am; that is all there is; that is love.

I have loved sentimentally, with all the ecstasy and pain that such love brings. I have feared in ways innate to the human condition. I treasure each precious moment as an experience perfect in being what it is – nothing more, nothing less. In my unsentimental embrace, the pure force of love is revealed as the true nature of existence. Love is all there is, and I am that.

I have struggled for years to find happiness. Not the transient happiness of a good moment, but the happiness of freedom. I have had the good fortune of many happy moments in a fortunate life. My good fortune was not enough to appease the unhappiness. I was driven to make sense of the sorrow and suffering so prevalent in the world – or so I thought. And in my attempt to make sense of sorrow, I lost the sense of sorrow. Even sad stories, mad and bad stories, when free of sentiment, are love stories.

Now that I know you and I are the most powerful force in existence – indeed the pure force of life itself – I am free to be all that I may be. Quite literally, I fall into love and live as love. For the Truth of who I am is love.

And so we start our fall into love…

PART ONE

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

SOCRATES

To see a World in a grain of sand,

And a Heaven in a wild flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.…

WILLIAM BLAKE

Consciousness Is All There Is

I WANT TO START with a story about you and me. Like all good stories, the beginning is its genesis.

In the beginning there was Consciousness, which was nothing at all. This nothing at all contains everything that could possibly be, and has, therefore, infinite potential and infinite intelligence. After a Big Bang some fifteen billion years ago, Consciousness manifested itself as a vast realm of hydrogen gas. This single event is deeply significant in that it is the start of you and me as we know ourselves in form. For hydrogen is the first of what we call matter.

Naturally, this Big Bang also heralded the creation of space and the dawning of time. Taking its time, Consciousness acted out the vital and vibrant dance of hydrogen. After a billion years of this dance, hydrogen gathered itself together in a wondrous attraction. Clouds of this gas condensed and the first stars appeared, burning with the first light of the universe. A hundred billion galaxies were spawned.

As these stars grew, they manufactured carbon and nitrogen and all the elements needed for life. When they died, they exploded into space, spreading and seeding more complex elements that eventually formed life. And so, as life, we were born almost four billion years ago, informed by the journeywork of the stars as Walt Whitman put it with such visionary acumen.

This is the story of creation as cosmologists tell it to us. Evolution is a single ongoing event of incredible precision and intelligence. Put simply, existence is the process of Consciousness. If Consciousness can give rise to all this with its astounding intricacy, from a gas we call hydrogen, nothing in existence can really be considered accidental, arbitrary and random. Every element of evolution, be it the birth of stars or the birth of kittens, is the process of Consciousness.

Consciousness is all there is.

In these few words, the essence, the heart, the whole truth of Absolute Truth – that which is truly real, eternal and infinite – is pointed at, like a finger to the moon.

Consciousness is all there is.

How simple!

So simple, it eludes us.

Consciousness is all there is.

How revelatory and awe-inspiring.

So revealing, we scramble back to the pedestrian, blunting sharp insight to dull platitude.

Consciousness is all there is.

How deeply relaxing.

So much so, we melt into the peace which passeth all understanding.

Consciousness is all there is.

How momentous these few words are.

So Promethean that we cannot even begin to comprehend the extent of it. As a flea on the elephant, unable to comprehend the wide world beyond.

These words enchant and seduce the mind to the perennial Truth, the absolute Truth beyond understanding. They impart the essence of existence, and substantiate reality as the divinity it is. See for yourself with this practice.

Close your eyes and place your attention on these words:

Consciousness is all there is.

Notice how your mind can’t really comprehend the full measure of these words. So simple and yet so elusive. Feel the tendency to argue with these words, and yet no real argument follows. Notice the feeling of rightness of these words.

Shift your focus from your head to your heart. Feel the deep relaxation these words bring. Like candles, they provide light until they extinguish themselves. In this moment your mind is transcended. No words are left. In this stillness and peace, you know the Truth of these words. You know it for your Self.

When Alice spotted the White Rabbit in a dreadful hurry, wearing a waistcoat and checking the time on his pocket-watch, if you please, she followed him down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. Only to find herself in an altogether different world. I would like you to think of these words, ‘Consciousness is all there is’, as similar to the rabbit- hole, so to speak, taking you to an altogether different world. Much will be familiar and yet, like Alice’s wonderland, altogether different. In your exploration of this world, keep returning to these words, ‘Consciousness is all there is’, as a reminder of where you are.

I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth!

How funny it’ll seem to come out among

the people that walk with their heads downwards!

The Antipathies, I think…

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

What follows is an enquiry into the implications of these few words. It includes a very personal story about God at its most impersonal. Consciousness, God, Being, Spirit, Truth, Universal Intelligence, Source, Existence, Nature, Quantum Field, the Tao – call it what you will, no word can ever be adequate to describe the miraculous mystery that life is.

I like to use the word Consciousness. For me it reflects intelligence, the intelligence that forms stars and starfish from a hot gas. I tend to use the word Consciousness, more than Spirit or God, when I want to call attention to the implication of intelligence. These words tell of intelligence that is universal. Whether the unimaginable pre-Big Bang void, or post-Big Bang universe filled with billions of galaxies, it is ultimately an ocean of intelligence.

These words also tell us that your consciousness and mine, usually regarded as different mentalities, are inherently of that same intelligence. Our cognitions and perceptions are Consciousness, because that is all there is. To ask, What is Consciousness? is to ask, What is?

There is a discerning metaphor that comes from the East. It is of a finger pointing to the moon. The moon is a symbol of the indescribable. Because it is so indescribable, all we can do is point. The finger shows us where to look. The finger and the moon make the quintessential image reflecting the impossible task of describing the indescribable, saying the unsayable.

And indeed, if it can be said, it is not it!

So in our great longing for freedom, we look to where the finger points.

Consciousness is all there is.

As profound as these words may be, they are still only the finger pointing. Traditionally, the pointing finger has been religion or spirituality. Religions now have more to do with convention and dogma, mistaking the finger for the moon. And in the Western world, the word ‘spiritual’ is so misused that it communicates very little that can be properly understood by us. On the contrary, it has come to be a word referring to all things weird, wacky and generally unreliable. The shame of this perception is that spirit is the essence of life, and the spiritual perception is the only truly reliable way of gaining insight into our lives. All other perceptions focus only on a part of life and, therefore, cannot reflect the whole Truth.

To avoid confusion I would like to clarify the way I use the word ‘truth’. Ordinarily, what we call the truth is that of convention. It is true or not true according to the conventions of the day. Conventional truth is relative and therefore changeable. When I talk about the Truth, I am referring to the absolute Truth. Absolute Truth refers to that which is eternal and unchangeable. As such, absolute Truth is beyond time and space, and cannot ever be described.

Truth is the property of no individual

but is the treasure of all men.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

This that is indescribable is, indeed, the source of all that can be described. Spirit, Consciousness, Universal Intelligence, God – whatever the name – is the source and substance of existence. Whatever name or concept we may use to describe it can only ever be the merest reflection. Indescribable, unexplainable – and yet we all know we are connected with something vast, sacred and miraculous, even though we cannot conceive or speak of it. However irreligious we may declare ourselves to be, this we know… somehow. We really are much wiser than we think.

If it can be said, it must be a construct of the mind. It may be a relative truth, but it is not the Truth. We take many things as true: ‘The earth is round.’ ‘Gravity is the force that keeps us on it.’ ‘There are 365 days in a year.’ ‘Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen.’ ‘Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.’ ‘Evil is bad.’ ‘Homosexuality is unnatural.’ ‘Life is unfair.’ ‘Parents love their children.’ These are conventional truths. They appear to be true until something else appears more true. For instance, homosexuality is unnatural until we learn that many species of animals engage in homosexual behaviour and what could be more natural than nature?

We live according to these postulates as though they are true. We don’t question their veracity any more than we would question whether day follows night. But these postulates are not the Truth. They are the ways we sense and make sense of our world, our lives, our experiences. Depending on who or what we are, we sense and make sense in a multitude of different ways. We map the universe, labeling, measuring, comparing and conceptualising. Science, religion, astrology, mathematics, philosophy, history, geography, psychology are all maps, more or less useful, depending on our perspective.

He knows the universe and does not know himself.

JEAN DE LA FONTAINE

In our desperate need to make sense of our lives, we make our maps the territory, our reality. The map is not the territory. Truth is the territory. Unmapable. Indescribable. Beyond imagination and beyond mental comprehension. Beyond time and space, infinite and eternal, beyond the mind’s understanding of infinite and eternal. To know the Truth requires a transcendence of the mind, beyond all the mappings of the mind. As Lao Tzu says:

The name that can be named

is not the eternal Name.

The unnameable is the eternally real.

In the same vein, Krishnamurti, a profoundly wise sage of our modern era, says:

The moment anyone says he knows, he does not know. Truth is not to be known. What is known is a thing of the past; it is already dead. Truth is living, not static; therefore you cannot know Truth. Truth is in constant movement, it has no abode, and a mind that is tethered to a belief, to knowledge, to a particular conditioning, is incapable of understanding what Truth is.

Consciousness is all there is.

To know this is to know the Truth. It is a transcendent knowing that peals away the understanding of the mind, like the layers of an onion, until nothing is left. This ‘nothing’ is Consciousness, the source and substance of everything. No one, no thing, no event or circumstance – indeed, no thought – can exist independent of this. In its immanence, it pervades all that is always. It is the ground of all being.

To know the Truth of these words, ‘Consciousness is all there is’, is to know thy Self.

Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence

KNOW THY SELF

Eyes downcast,

we pass through the gate,

for aeons, unknowing.

Low-impact lives,

frenzied dash for safety or oblivion,

sweating the small stuff,

unconsciously dying, piecemeal.

Walking dead, awaken! awaken!

The clarion call sounding

above the killing fields of endless incarnations.

Walk another dead day,

or know thy Self.

OUR CALL TO AWAKEN comes in a multitude of forms. For much of our journey through life, we may not be aware of the call, or we may ignore it, not understanding what it is. Finally we die, and life as we know it, is over. But for many of us, the longing to know the Truth starts in the midst of life. We cannot face death as the end. Indeed, our fear of death – or its equivalent forms of psychological annihilation – is often the motive to awaken from the nightmare.

The secret whispered in our hearts is to deprive death of our death. To know thy Self is to know there is no death.

I was a teenager when my aunt Griselda, telling me of her near-death experience, made me mindful of the mystery of death. I suppose death and dying is not a typical concern for the average teenager, especially in my day. ‘Hanging out’ at the beach with the ‘gang’ was far more important, and if a shark appeared in our midst, it was scary and thrilling, but not really recognised as death’s henchman. We were young, foolish and felt immortal enough to look into the jaws of death with the exuberance of precocious youth.

What struck me so strongly about aunt Griselda’s near-death experience is how beautiful it was. Rather than terror, she spoke of radiant light and intense feelings of peace and joy. Everything was harmonious, and she was held in the embrace of what she described as universal love. So much so that she didn’t want to come back. Since then I have read and heard of many similar experiences of intense love. I recall a client of mine telling me about her near-fatal car accident:

The shock of broken bones and blood everywhere had no horror. None of it felt real. What felt real was the still peacefulness, as though the whole world and all its concerns had faded away. Distant sounds of distress seemed strangely perfect, in harmony with everything else. I felt so free, as if no longer confined to my body, and yet embodying expansive love and joy. More real than anything I have ever felt was the ecstasy of this love.

Like a distant memory of precious love lost, such stories teased my heart with longing and remembrance. It is the same remembrance that we sometimes have, for an exquisite moment, when presented with nature bathed in beauty.

I remember one such moment at the lake of Lugano, on the Italian border in Switzerland. The mountains, the water, the shore of the lake were all lit by the setting sun to the full spectrum of golden luminescence. I was transfixed. It was so lovely! My tears overflowed, and I felt indescribably glorious. Such glimpses reveal a reality all too rarely experienced, and yet achingly familiar.

Briefly, the herald calling us home is heard.

We walk a long way to see into the heart of life. The road is often very dark, but the journey is wondrous. Grace is that which lights the way. My journey began a long time ago. This is an account from my journal of that first call:

I was young. Perhaps five or six years old. My parents and other grown-ups were politely attentive on a stifling Sunday afternoon in Africa, drinking tea and talking about God. I was supposed to be playing with the other children, but preferred the dark coolness inside.

Go and play with the others says Mother, without conviction. I ignore her and continue daydreaming, drowsy, like Beatrix Potter’s flopsy bunnies after eating too much lettuce. Ignoring the stiff formality of tea after church, and the sounds of children playing in the hot, dusty afternoon, I am content to allow the clink of china and cake forks, adult voices and the drone of flies, lap at the edges of my attention.

Suddenly, as though a tidal wave were crashing into my tranquil waters, words register. Deep, resounding and piercingly clear, they shatter my stupor. God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, says a cultured adult voice. But the words resonate, as if they were the very sounds of the cosmos, and I the quivering instrument played.

What does it mean? I ask urgently, demanding attention to my small presence. Now wide awake and agog, I ask again. "Please, what do those words mean?

I listen carefully, all alert attention.

God is omniscient means God knows. God knows all there is to know. God knows everything that has ever happened, everything that will ever happen and everything that is happening right now. God knows how perfect all of existence is, in every moment. God knows every nook and cranny of the universe and knows every thought and every feeling in the minds and hearts of all beings.

The old man speaking has white hair, gentle eyes that seem to see another world, and a serene voice. He continues:

God is omnipotent means that God is all-powerful. It is the power of God that is the source of all of life. Everything in all of space and time is created and powered by God. Nothing happens without God. Not the tiniest teardrop nor the most distant star exists without this power. All movement of every kind everywhere in existence is empowered by God. All action, an act of God.

I hear the words and feel myself suspended like a puppet, waiting for him to continue.

God is omnipresent. My small body shudders with a strange recognition of what is to come.

This means that God is everywhere all the time. There is no place that God is not there. There has never been a time that God is not present, not even for a second. God permeates all that is. All that is, is made up of God, always has been and always will be. What is, is God.

The voice stops. Silence. Still moments filled with the portent and peace of these profound words.

In this hallowed silence I squeak, elated and unself-conscious, So I am God. I must be made of God, too.

In that moment, I knew this to be the truth. So right, so familiar, so clear. It was as if I had found some long-lost treasured object, but had not known if I only dreamt it. I melted, for a moment, into a serenity of utter knowing, vast and safe beyond any childish conception of the big-bad-wolf world I had to deal with. Even at that age,