part0004

Just for the next few minutes, stop everything you’re doing and turn your conscious awareness inwards. Take it away from where it has always been, on people, events and circumstances on the outside of yourself to the inside of yourself. Place your attention on the inside. Make a mental note of how you currently feel on the inside. For most of us, this will be the first few times in our lives when we really turn and take a good look at what’s happening on the inside… and it sure feels weird!

Taking a closer look at our inner state involves using a whole different set of perception skills. While we use our five senses to perceive our outer world, the same senses do not apply here to the inner world. Instead, all we are left with when trying to “feel” our way through our inner world is a mix of interesting bodily sensations and feelings. Since we are still so attached to our physical bodies, most people feel these as sensations in different parts of their body… a lump in their throat, or a sense of heaviness in their chest. Or a general sense of lightness and joy.

Whatever you may be feeling at the moment, make a mental note of it. Now if you are doing this for the first time, words to describe the feelings will not come easily. You’ll not be able to describe them exactly, just as how you struggle to find the right words to describe the taste of red wine which you just sipped. But stick with this exercise over time and it’ll get easier and easier for you. I’m not asking that you describe your inner state in words, although that is certainly what many will be tempted to do. We have been so conditioned to use physical words to describe our inner emotions and feelings.

What can actually be described in physical terms turns out to be only a very small subset of the emotions which we can feel. For example, don’t we find ourselves reverting back to labeling our feelings in the same old ways? Feelings such as joy, happiness, anger, or sadness. Those are some of the common feelings that we go through every single day… but what about all the feelings in between which are indescribable? What about feelings for which there are no words to adequately describe? These feelings are still there, just that we cannot properly express them in words to others.

Another objection that may come up as you attempt to do this exercise is the familiar “but there is nothing there!”. Beginning students of meditation, when asked to close their eyes and turn their attention inwards, are often unable to sit still for long without their stream of thoughts somehow returning to objects, people and events on the outside . Their reasoning is that there is nothing on the inside to focus on. Everything is just bleak darkness and emptiness.

This is because we are still trying to use our five senses to perceive the inner world. But the inner world cannot be perceived through our five senses. If you use your traditional sense of sight to “see” the inner world, of course it’ll all be dark because there is no physical “place” which you can set your sights upon. In the same manner, there is no physical location which you can place your nose to smell, and no physical location which you can reach out to touch. The closest to using your sense of touch to “feel” the inner world would be to “feel” the physical sensations in different parts of your body. That’s why most people often start there, as it is the easiest place to start.

Another helpful tip would be to close your eyes as you tune in to your inner state to cut out as much of the outside input as possible. While keeping your eyes closed, focus on your breathing and feel the sensations in different parts of your body. As I described in my other books, most people will almost instantly start to feel goose bumps running all over their body and a sense of energy shoot up their spine. They will start to feel pleasurable sensations running all over them. This is our perception of the inner state using our sense of touch. Our inner states are not the goose bumps, or the energetic feelings themselves. Rather, these feelings and goose bumps are our translations and perceptions of this energy. Congratulations! If you have made it this far, you have taken the first step to reading your own energy!

Wasn’t that easy for you? It is a natural ability all of us are born with, but seems to have forgotten over time. By just taking a little effort and awareness to turn inwards, we can experience miraculous sensations and feelings at any point of the day. What you have just experienced is a small piece of the energetic essence of who you really are. Most people cannot maintain these good feelings for long because soon, the outer pressures of modern life will cause them to turn their awareness to the outside again. They’ll soon be back in the daily grind. But know that whether your attention is turned outwards or inwards, your inner state is always there! It does not vanish simply because you are not placing any attention on it. And your inner state is the one that determines (the results of) your outer manifestations. If you wish to be a powerful manifestor, you must be zealous about tending to your inner state. It’s as simple as that!

Back to the exercise we were trying a few moments ago. Just for now, close your eyes and focus on your inner state. How are you feeling on the inside? Don’t try to find precise words to describe how you are feeling. Instead, just notice how you are feeling. Observe the feeling or feelings. For example, I can be looking at a tree and just noticing / observing it. I know I’m looking at a tree, even if I’m not narrating or describing what I am seeing. In the same way, notice and observe your inner state without trying to describe what you are noticing. There is no need to put words to what you notice. Instead, just notice what is there. Also do not try to change what is there. Just let everything that is currently there be alright. This is your starting point.

There is great value in this starting point because it shows you where your manifestations are currently going. It took me many years to finally realize that the inner feeling I was walking around with and considered to be normal, was actually a sickening feeling of fear! Therefore, I just want you to notice whatever you are feeling on the inside and don’t label it. The moment we label something, we feel tempted to judge or change it. So don’t label it. Just observe it and stick with it.

For some people, this exercise is going to make them squirm in their seats and feel uncomfortable. You may be unable to do it. Suddenly, you may find yourself being gripped with fear of the unknown… because you have never explored this part of your being before! If a sense of fear suddenly grips you while your eyes are closed, the first thing you can do is to open your eyes and reassure yourself that everything is fine. This is one of the devious ways through which our ego works. Our ego finds it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to “let go” and give up the need to think. The ego always wants to keep us safe based on what it knows. Therefore, when we attempt to turn to a part of ourselves that is unknown, the ego lets us know that it is not alright!

What you have just read in the past few pages did not come to me in a single sitting, or even a single day, week or month! Bits and pieces of the process came to me over the period of several years! So understand that even if you are unable to complete this exercise, you can always set it aside and try again tomorrow. Don’t force yourself to turn inwards and sit with your inner state if you cannot do so without feeling apprehensive. Try to overcome it gently.

It took me many years to make sense of all these feelings and sensations because there really wasn’t any reference point for me. There is no road map for the inner world, although the emotional scale does come really close! So when I first started on my journey, I was experiencing all these bodily sensations while meditating and found no way of applying or interpreting them. I did not know what was happening. I just knew the feelings felt good! I had no way of using this material at that time, neither did I know the relationship of our inner state to our outer manifestations. It was only after a prolonged period of allowing that everything became clear to me. Once I gave up my need to “know” and dropped all my negative worries and insecurities… everything became clear for me in a swoop. Therefore give yourself some time with the exercises in this book. Just because I have written them in the same chapter does not mean you have to attempt all of them in one sitting. This is a book to be savored.

Make a mental note of how you feel without attempting to judge it. For example, you may feel quite “happy” and “light” at the moment… but is it all a feeling of happiness and lightness? Do you feel completely happy and light? Be persistent at asking yourself this question while observing your inner state. Once again, we are not trying to change things but simply observing things. We are attempting to observe our starting point.

For most people, several persistent rounds of self-inquiry and observation will reveal the surprising (or not-so-surprising) answer to be no! They’ll realize that while they thought they felt quite neutral on the inside… there is actually a slight nagging feeling of fear or worry. There is perhaps a ten percent or twenty percent feeling of fear or worry. Sometimes I like to use numbers to quantify the level of something I’m feeling. This is similar to the use of Subjective Units of Distress (SUD) in healing work, in which an individual is asked to give a number on the SUD scale before the healing intervention takes place, and after the healing intervention takes place. I have found that putting a number to gauge the level of my subjective feelings is useful for me, so I know if I have dealt with it successfully. Since everything happens on the inside with no external reference point, it is easy for someone to completely forget that he ever had the pain or fear in the first place… as everything seemed to have shifted instantaneously! Very often, patients often go as far to deny that they had those sensations in the first place! Therefore, stating an SUD before the intervention and then comparing it to the number after the treatment offers some external validation that the intervention worked.

The same applies here. I would usually ask myself — Out of 100%, how many percent of my inner state is fear? Or how many percent of my inner state is worry, or guilt? Because I have been doing this for quite some time, I’m able to identify the feelings quite quickly. Sometimes it is necessary to use a phrase or even a sentence to describe these unwanted feelings, such as the “I don’t want to do it but I have to” feeling. So it’s up to you how you want to put a handle on and describe these inner states.

Now this is an important bit — If you manage to get that 10% or 20% fear / worry / guilt / insecurity (or any other negative feeling) down to zero… your manifestations are settled . They are DONE! Once and for all! If you are able to get those 10% negative feelings down to ZERO, your manifestations are all taken care of and settled by the Universe. It is done! You can stop reading this book and not worry about anything else in the world. If you can get it to remain at 0% for most of the time… then things get even better because you will be living in a state of constant inspiration and alignment.

How do you begin to push bring number down to zero? Quite simply, by noticing that these feelings exist. By acknowledging that these feelings exist and by becoming aware of them. Even today as I do this work, I frequently check in on my inner state and ask myself the questions above. Do I feel 100% positive and light in this very moment? If the answer is No, then I ask myself how many percent of negative feelings am I feeling… and work from there. Do this about 5 times a day and observe how you feel… you’ll notice that your percentage of negative feelings corresponds perfectly to your outer reality.

A few things to note here. First, when we ask the question: Do I feel 100% positive and light in this very moment , we are really asking ourselves about the current now moment. We are not asking ourselves how we feel most of the time, or for most of the day. It is also not I felt “just now”, or how I want myself to feel. We are really talking about that exact moment in time. Think of it as taking temperature using a thermometer. We are using the thermometer to get a now-reading of the temperature, not an average reading… or the reading which we would like to have. We want to be as objective in the process as the thermometer.

The second thing to note is that you have to be honest with yourself when answering the question. Many readers of New Age material have a hard time admitting that they have negative feelings inside of themselves. They’re in some sort of a denial, having read that negative feelings will lead to the attraction of unwanted things. This is a sticky point which I keep coming back to in all of my books, because as I’ve explained this is not an issue. IF negative feelings really exist inside of you and you keep denying / ignoring their existence, they are not going to go away and your manifestations will still be affected. Your acknowledgment of whether you have any negative feelings is not going to affect your outer manifestations. However, your repeated denial of them prevents you from working on them effectively, and that is going to affect your manifestations. Therefore, I am not asking that you dwell on these negative feelings. All that is required for you is to acknowledge if they exist? Yes / No. And if they do, approximately how many percent of negative feelings are you feeling at the moment.

For some people, this number can be quite high. It may be more than 50%, or even 100%. This means you’re feeling highly worried, fearful or scared in that moment. That is alright! The important thing is to answer truthfully, and not give a figure that you “hope” to have or think is correct. Again, no one will know about your answers here so it is all for your own reference only. If you are feeling 100% negative in the now-moment, then your answer is a 100%. It does not matter what number you’re currently at because once you have acknowledged that number, you can take the steps to bring it down towards zero.

Sometimes I check in on my inner state and get the reading that I’m feeling largely alright, but with a 5% feeling of fear and worry. Had I not done this conscious checking-in exercise, I would not have noticed these very slight feelings of fear and worry! I would not have noticed their existence because I was so focused on things that were happening to me on the outside. So this exercise has great value in that it reminds me to deal with negative feelings right here in the moment. At other times I check in on my inner state and it’s obvious that I’m not feeling good, like at 100% anger! If so, I don’t judge or blame myself for it, neither do I bother myself with questions of “How did I get here? I’m not supposed to feel this way!” I simply remind myself gently that now, 100% anger is definitely not going to lead to positive manifestations in future… so why make life difficult for myself now and in the future? Why suffer the distress of negative feelings now and still have unwanted manifestations in future?

With that realization, I instantly relax, then take the steps to realign, refocus and bring myself back to zero. The great value in this exercise is not so much in attempting to change the numbers, but to first notice what they are. This is your starting point for successful manifestations.

Once you have successfully identified your starting point, we can start taking positive steps to change it. It does not matter where you are at the moment or where you have been. As mentioned, we are not even interested in answering the question, “How did I get here in the first place?” How you have gotten to this point is not important at all in the grand scheme of things. What’s more important (and the only thing that matters) is where you want to go, and what you want to create from this point forward. It is the only question you need to answer. So drop the needless worries and guilt about the past. Drop any feelings of regret or “wasted time.” Drop the feeling that you have wasted unnecessary time, energy and effort in the past, or that you have been on the “wrong path.” There is really no wrong path because all of that living has culminated in the now. All of that living has resulted in the current you today, providing you with the much needed impetus to move forward from this point.

It is the same for me as well. As I look back on the journey I have taken, I don’t blame myself for the supposed detours and the times when I could have taken a particular path but did not. As I’ve said many times, how do you know what is best for you? Our limited physical perspectives prevent us from knowing what is highest and best from us, while the ego always tries to pretend that it knows what is the best for us. However, Universal source indeed does know what is the highest and best for us, and is constantly trying to lead us towards it. The only issue is that we shut ourselves out by listening to the ego, by listening to negative or fear thoughts, and by trying to rationalize and intellectualize through things. Give up the need to rationalize or figure things out in the hope that you’ll choose the “correct” path. I can tell you that there’s no “correct” path because all paths ultimately converge. Even if you choose the “wrong” path today, Universal guidance will be there tomorrow to guide you back to your greatest good. Therefore, you’ll simply go through a different set of life experiences but still ultimately end up with all the valuable lessons that you need to learn.

As I look back on my ten year struggle with the Law of Attraction and these Universal principles, not even for a single moment have I wished that things turned out differently. It is not because I do not remember my struggles back then, or how miserable and hopeless I felt… but because all of those life experiences have culminated and contributed towards the person I am today. Therefore I do not wish for a single moment that my ten year struggle was shortened into ten days… as I would have missed out on many important and valuable lessons. Could it have been shortened to ten days? Could I have side-stepped the struggle completely and not have to experience it at all, instead jumping straight into my whole new desired life? Absolutely yes! All of that was optional. The struggle was completely optional. But in my case, I had to go through it to allow myself to learn the lessons within and live from a new place of understanding. Therefore, I could only learn the lessons within by living out those life experiences without, which in turn clarified my understanding and caused me to fine-tune my vibrations. All of that has led to this series of books, which are in turn helping millions of people out there. Do you see how wonderful the Universe is? Because of all this life experience I have lived, I am now in a position to help millions of people and it is the same for you as well.

Maybe you do not see yourself as a writer or teacher in the traditional sense, but every single day, you are living your life as a parent, lawyer, designer, brother, sister, mother, administrative officer, executive… All that you are living in your life right now (whether the “good” or the “bad”) is adding to the sum total of your life experience. All of it is going to clarify and add on to your understanding of life itself. One day, this life experience of yours is going to help others become better parents, lawyers, designers, photographers… whatever role you choose to make a contribution in. That’s why I have often mentioned that living a spiritual life does not mean walking away from whatever you have. It means making a contribution from right where you are, right in this moment. You can lead a spiritual life without having to change roles.

One of my favorite stories told by Abraham-Hicks is one in which a businessman lamented about losing his fortune built up over several decades, and that he would not have the time to build up that same fortune again. Abraham’s response, always in line with the highest vantage point of the Universe, was that all of that life experience the gentleman has lived has not come to waste. Instead, all of those experiences that the man had lived has propelled him into an even better and more powerful place to create a bigger fortune! Once again, my own life experience has shown this to be true. All of that powerful (and oftentimes intense) asking that I did early on in my path has helped to propel me forward with amazing clarity and momentum. They have culminated in the now moment, and the now moment is all that matters.

This is why I encourage you to always check in to see how you are feeling this very now moment. Cultivate the habit of doing so a few times each day. Just check in and see how you are feeling this very now moment without attempting to change things the way they are. This exercise will provide you with valuable insights as doing it over the course of several days will give you an “average” inner state reading that will approximate your outer reality very well. If you find that you are constantly worried or living in negativity / fear, your outer state of manifestations will reflect that as well perfectly. It follows that if you wish to change your outer reality, you have to change your inner states.

When most people check in on their inner states, they find themselves carrying an incredible amount of burden, guilt and regret about past events. They walk around blaming themselves for doing (or not doing) this or that. For example, they may say, “If only I had been more careful with my money back then… If only I had invested it carefully back then instead of splurging it…” Let all of those past guilts and regrets go! There is no use holding onto any of them. There is no way you can go back and change the past, so by holding onto all the guilt for one moment longer, all you are doing is to bring those negative feelings from the past back into the present moment! And these negative feelings will continue to affect your future manifestations! So why allow yourself to suffer like that? Let everything about the past go. Let any blame thoughts about not taking the right action in the past go. It does not matter what you have done in the past. It matters what you are doing now in the present moment, because all of that is going to directly shape your future.

When you are able to effectively drop all the emotional baggage you’re carrying about the past and start living in the now, you would find yourself lighter and freer. You would find yourself to be more joyous and at peace with everything around you. This is because you are no longer at odds with yourself, with who you were before! I have forgiven everyone and everything in the past, no matter how much blame, resentment or injustice I felt. Very often, the person we need to forgive the most is ourselves! I have forgiven myself for everything I have done in the past. This means making a decision to never blame myself again for anything I did in the past, and not judging myself for those actions. I have learned the lessons and it is time to move on. There is no need to keep revisiting those past negative feelings and emotions unless you want more of them in your life.

Therefore, when you check in on your inner state and find some negative feelings there, ask yourself where these supposed negative feelings come from — the past, present or the future? If they come from the past, let all of them go. I can assure you that all it takes is a decision (an intention) and some resolve. If you’ll say “I’m done with feeling guilty about my past. I now choose to let all of that go!” and keep at it each time the guilt comes up, everything will pass for you very fast.

We are often unwilling to let go of past guilt feelings because we are secretly worried that if we let ourselves off the hook, we’ll engage in that unwanted behavior once again. But that’s an absurd solution and another way of needlessly punishing yourself! Why do you need to keep reliving those past guilt feelings and keep yourself imprisoned by them so that you will not engage in those undesired actions again? Set an intention to not act in those manners inconsistent with your highest good again, let your guilt feelings go… and it is done! (The “It Is Done!” technique as taught in my book of the same name can also be used on dropping these negative feelings and beliefs. Just append it to the end of these intentions.)

I would advise that you take a few days or even weeks to work on this segment of the process. First, check in on your inner state and notice how much of the negative feelings are from events that happened in the past. Let those go and be persistent at it over the course of the next few days and weeks. Remember that in letting those feelings go, we are only interested in dealing with the now feelings. By this I mean, “Can you let go of these negative feelings just for now ?” This is often a more effective way to do so than to demand that you let go of these feelings forever, because if you can let go of them in the now… if you can be free from these negative feelings in the now… then the chances of them recurring in the future gets lesser and lesser as well. So don’t set up a huge challenge for yourself by (immediately) resolving that you drop any unwanted feelings from the past “once and for all”. Instead, just resolve to drop them for the now, in this present moment. That is all you need to do, and it will be good enough!

If you’ll check in on your inner state five times a day (it takes under 3 minutes to find a quiet place and do so) and then ask yourself how you are feeling… before making a decision to drop those unwanted feelings from the past and checking in again… you would be making great strides in your manifestation journey.

Let me briefly summarize the process here:

Step 1: Check in on your inner state and ask yourself: In the current moment, approximately how many percent of negative feelings occupy my awareness? (Just an approximation will do.) Let’s suppose the number is 40%.

Step 2: Ask yourself: How much of these negative feelings are from events / people / things that happened in my past? How much of them are due to past fears / regrets / unhappiness that I am carrying around? Let’s suppose that it’s 90%, which means that almost all of your negative feelings are about events that happened in the past.

Step 3: Resolve to get that 90% down to zero. Set a light intention to let all of it go in the now moment.

Can I allow myself, just for this moment (just for now, not in the future), to stop feeling these negative feelings about the past? Yes / No.

Can I allow myself, just for this moment, to let these guilt feelings go? Yes / No. Then feel yourself letting go of those feelings. It is alright to answer either Yes or No to the questions above, as a release happens no matter what answer you give. (This is something I have learned from the wonderful Sedona Method.)

Check back again on your level of negative feelings. In most cases, you will find that the percentage has decreased. Repeat steps one to three if necessary as many times as you like. I usually do it till I am down to zero, in the now. Congratulate yourself… you are well on your way to letting go of emotional baggage from the past in the now moment!