JOURNEY INTO THE LIGHT: DISCOVERING YOUR INNER SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE

By Tim Carter

Beyond your mind and body, lies your consciousness, which is aware of, but not a part of your thoughts. This book describes the journey of awakening to, and re-connecting with that consciousness, your essential nature. This awakening has been variously described as achieving “Enlightenment”, “Spiritual Awakening” or “Awakening from the Dream”. Labels aside, this awakening is available to us all.

Having begun this journey, you will find purpose and meaning in your life as you gradually remember your true nature and access your own inner guidance.

If you sense that there is something beyond your physical life story, then you are ready to begin that inner rite of passage.

In describing his own life journey as a young man seeking answers to life’s big questions to an awakening in consciousness in middle age, the author respectfully encourages you, also, to take that wonderful and magical journey, back home.

Visit https://www.timcarterbooks.com/ for more information about the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Feb 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781982296827

Tim Carter

Married, with three children and seven grandchildren, Tim Carter, now happily retired, enjoys time spent with his family, above all else. Before retirement, Tim was a country solicitor with his own practice for thirty three years. Passionate about helping others who may be struggling, he endeavours to do this with the Workshops and Counselling that he is currently involved in.

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Copyright © 2023 Tim Carter.

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technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the

advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer

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constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International

Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9681-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9682-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date:   10/09/2023

To my wife, Ann, for her loving support always

and for the light she shines for me and all who meet her.

For those looking for answers to the great mysteries and big issues of life - like Who are we, actually?; and Does life have a purpose? - this book provides answers which make sense, as well as being inspirational. Tim describes the path he followed and the doors which opened for him as he himself sought answers to such questions.

As he shares the insights and the practices which led him to inner peace and joy, he offers us a pathway to our own higher consciousness. He distils some complex issues into a very readable book - a book filled with truths, tips and guidance generously, respectfully and lovingly shared. You, the reader, can use it to find your own inner peace, and tap into your own wisdom, just waiting to be accessed. I, personally, have found it invaluable on my own ever-continuing journey to the light.

—Wendy McAra, MA Psych

Contents

Introduction

1     The Spark

2     Rebellion

3     Life’s Big Questions

4     Seeking Answers in the World

5     Commonality

6     Inner Guidance

7     The Healing Journey

8     Searching for God

9     Spiritual Healing

10   Inner Child

11   Love and Fear

12   The Language of the Soul

13   The Journey Continues

14   Keys

15   Are You a Sensitive?

16   Pilgrimage

17   Death

18   Our Wounds Are Catalysts for Growth

19   The Way Forward

20   Manifesting Your New Life

21   Your Life’s Purpose

22   Spiritual Awakening

23   Allow Your Consciousness to Awaken

24   Who Are We, Actually?

25   Humanity—Change Is Coming

26   Just Imagine

27   Where To Next?

Acknowledgements

Introduction

We are each on a journey.

Every person on this planet is on his or her own unique and wonderful life journey.

But what are our life journeys all about?

Is there some purpose to them, or are our lives merely brief flashes of consciousness within the darkness of a never-ending universe?

From a young age, these and related questions assumed a great importance for me, and I became profoundly restless as I sought their answers. Following a spiritual experience in my twenties, I set out to discover these answers if it were possible to do so. After a lifetime searching, I have discovered my answers. They may not be correct, and they may not be the answers for others, but my answers and the journey I have taken in finding them may provide help for others who also ask such questions.

I believe that now is the time to look more closely at our own life journeys and to ask these questions:

1. Do our lives have a purpose, and if so, what is it?

2. Where are we going?

3. Why are we going there?

4. What will we find when we get there?

This story is in part about my own life journey and in part about some of the things I have discovered along the way as I sought to answer such questions. Finding the answers, I realised, was just part of the journey. Awakening in consciousness and finding myself were the really important parts and the parts for which I am truly thankful.

If you are reading this book and your life journey is similar to mine—and it may well be—then it is my hope that some of what I have learnt will assist you on your own rite of passage.

May God’s light bless you and sustain you on this magical journey.

1

The Spark

Man cannot discover new oceans until he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

—Unknown

M y journey first came to my conscious awareness when I was twenty-eight years old.

Up until then, life had just seemed to happen to me. Good and bad events appeared to spring into my life at random. I guess I hoped for more good than bad, and I sought to be happy whenever possible. However, I could not see a purpose to life, nor did I understand my life journey at that time. I had questions about that journey, yes, but no answers. It was like being in a rudderless ship blown this way and that by the fickle winds of chance.

All that changed when my wife, Ann, and I decided to travel from Australia to England via South America on board a small passenger ship. Thankfully, this ship had a rudder, and it seemed to know where it was headed.

The Voyage

I remember the ship rolling more heavily as we navigated the Southern Ocean swells bound for Cape Horn and the Atlantic. The stabilisers had been retracted with a view to gaining more speed, which was great if you were in a hurry to get somewhere but not nearly so good if the added motion meant that you might have to skip the next meal or maybe the next several meals.

The weather was cold, the sky leaden, and the sea shades of grey and green with spindrift blown by the howling wind creating wild patterns across its surface.

We were ten days out from New Zealand and had still not sighted the South American coastline. Cape Horn, near the bottom of the South American continent, is the area where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. The waters around the Horn are particularly hazardous, owing to strong winds, large waves, strong currents, and icebergs.

In addition to feeling somewhat queasy from the motion of the ship, I was also more than a bit glum, having just received bad news from one of the doctors on the ship that I might have to have a kidney removed when we landed in England. This was definitely not good news, and it would be fair to say that my thoughts matched the weather in all its depressing greyness.

However, at about this time, we met an older Australian couple, and after a while, my health issue came up. With great enthusiasm, they said, Have you ever looked at diet and natural health principles as a way to healing? I replied that I hadn’t heard of them, and they suggested that I look into taking control of my own health by watching my diet, improving my exercise, and generally looking into some natural health principles. They gave me magazines to read that were very positive in their outlook and that seemed to indicate that you could really take charge of your own health without being so dependent upon the medical profession providing you with your next script.

Spiritual Connection

Whilst this was an exciting prospect for me, I did go through times of deep depression when I wondered what life would be like minus one kidney and with possibly failing health. At the time when I was perhaps feeling most sorry for myself and generally railing against life’s inequities, I sensed what I can only describe as a most marvellous and wonderful message, which seemed to spring from within but was clearly not part of my conscious thought processes.

It came to me in the form of an inner knowing or speaking or perhaps thought transference—not from anyone around me but somehow from within me.

The message was simply that my access to the couple who had provided me with the natural health information had been arranged and was for my benefit. The quality of this message was such that I could not doubt its veracity. In fact, it seemed that everything I had learnt in my life up to that point was by no means certain when compared to this message, which was somehow absolutely truthful and real.

I had never experienced anything like this before, and when I started to think the message through, I realised that something, somebody, some force actually cared for me enough to want to help me in my progress through a difficult stage in my life. This was nothing short of a revelation to me, and even now, many years on, I still find myself wondering if it really happened or if I was just imagining things at a time when my emotions were running high.

Some people might call my experience a spiritual experience, others might call it a mystical experience, and still others might suggest that I was simply off my rocker.

Whatever the nature of the experience, for me it was like a fire had been lit within me—one which has burned strongly ever since. It started my exploration of the great mysteries of life and thus committed me to my own particular path, which I would liken unto a quest for the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail, in my case, was understanding what life is all about.

I am also able to relate that by taking my health into my own hands and adopting natural health principles, I was able to improve my health dramatically and forego the kidney surgery.

So much for sea voyages! This one had set in motion a chain of events that continues to inspire and awe me to this day.

2

Rebellion

There are always risks in freedom. The only risk in bondage is that of breaking free.

—Gita Bellin

D oors opening, said the automated voice of the train’s speaker as my train pulled in to Wynard Station in Sydney. I and a multitude of others disgorged from the train and headed at speed towards the exits and another working day.

As I left the station and walked up to the street, I noticed that the weather was sunny, and all looked good for a nice day ahead. Turning to the person beside me, I commented as such only to be met by a startled look as the person scuttled away. My attempt at engaging someone, if only to discuss the weather, had not been well received. I suppose, after all, that I was a stranger, and strangers don’t normally talk to one another, at least in the city.

Sydney was and still is a beautiful harbourside city; however, peak hour in any big city is not a pretty sight. The rush to get to and from work and to be somewhere on time amidst the crush of humanity generally allows people little time to interact with one another. It seemed as if it were every man or woman for himself or herself.

I walked to my office building and then caught the lift heading to the sixth floor. Again, the lift was full of people, and I noticed that everyone was facing the front of the lift, making a point of not looking at one another. It was quite difficult in such close confines, I thought. The impish part of my nature was tempted to face the people in the lift and address them with the phrase We are gathered here today … For what, I didn't know. A wedding? A funeral? More likely the latter; they all looked so serious.

Exiting the lift, I headed for the legal office where I was an articled clerk (an apprentice solicitor/lawyer). Finding my cubbyhole at the back of the office, I contemplated another mind-numbing day where I would be expected to deliver letters, lodge documents with the courts and government departments, and occasionally escort clients to the divorce court up the road.

How had it come to this?

When I’d finished school, I had not been sure of what career I wanted to follow or what further studies were needed.

My father had asked me, So, what subjects are you good at?

I had replied, Well, English.

In that case, you should study law and become a solicitor, he’d said.

That had been it—matter decided at eighteen years of age. I had commenced my legal career. My father was always of the opinion that there were only two ways of doing things in life—either his way or his way—and woe betide anyone who had a contrary view.

However, after several years of this, I was beginning to rebel against this soulless life. I felt at times like I was watching myself following the same routine every day, walking with but not interacting with my fellow humans as we all rushed about, and carrying out menial tasks in an occupation I did not enjoy. I imagined doing all that for the next forty years or so, and that was when the questions began:

Is this it?

Is this all I can hope for in life?

Is there something else—some purpose to it all?

Breaking Free

As I pondered these questions, I became more and more restless and finally decided that people living in the country appeared to have more time for others and that perhaps I should leave the city and find out about country life. And so, I did.

I moved to Hay, a small country town ten hours west of Sydney in the outback of New South Wales. I packed my car with all my worldly possessions, which from memory included a bed on the roof and a garbage bin in the front seat, and headed west. Having lived all my life in the city up to that point, I was slightly anxious about what lay ahead. However, that was far outweighed by the excitement and adventure of it all. I need not have worried; I was made very welcome from the moment I arrived.

At that time, the town had a population of about two thousand, a huge change for me after having lived in a city of several million people.

All of a sudden, my life improved dramatically. No longer was I a commuter being jostled this way and that as I went to and from work. I now had a leisurely five-minute stroll from my home to my office, and I was able to stop and talk with everyone I met along the way. People were genuinely interested in who you were. I began to see my fellow travellers on our life journeys in an entirely different light. And most importantly, of course, I met Ann at this time.

Working in the only legal firm in town meant that I got to know most of the people in town quite quickly, and I became involved in all manner of legal work straight away. Gone was the menial work I had experienced in the city. I could see that we were actually helping people here.

I joined various sporting and service clubs and became involved in the life of the town. Living in the outback and in such a small country town, we all had to look after each other. That was quite different to the city, where you often didn’t even know your neighbours. From time to time, the town had to deal with bushfires and floods, and at those times, most people would simply stop work and help to fight the fires or fill sandbags to bolster the levee around the town. The services that would normally assist with natural disasters simply didn’t exist in this outback town, so we all needed to pitch in and help at these times.

The sense of community and of being recognised as an individual completely changed my outlook on life, and while my questions remained, they now came with an understanding that there was a lot of good in the world.

Over the next four years, however, I continued, unsuccessfully, to seek answers to my questions.

In the end, adventure called, and Ann and I set out to travel to England by sea. We hoped to experience other countries and cultures and hopefully stretch our horizons. This, of course, led to my spiritual experience on board the ship, where my quest for the answers really took hold.

3

Life’s Big Questions

When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.

—P. D. Ouspensky and G. I. Gurdjieff

H ow often have you said to yourself, There must be more to life than simply existing?

To me, it seems there has to be more to life than what we experience with our five senses. Everywhere, people seem to be drowning in mediocrity, traditions, and the boring daily grind.

So, what on earth is this existence about?

Millions of us charge about this planet, often at a frenetic pace, all heading somewhere. But where? And why? Are we all heading furiously to our inevitable deaths? Is there some purpose to it all, or is it simply happening for no reason, just for the heck of it?

Seeking Answers

After my spiritual shipboard experience, I started to search and to search with a passion. For some