As my psychological practice evolved, I found the new information from science helpful. Even more helpful was my expanding awareness of who I Am and what I Am about from a spiritual perspective. I have always known there was a strong connection between psychology and spirituality. Life choices have put me closer to one or the other perspective on the human condition from time to time, but my adult moments have been informed by both. As I look back on my life, I realize I have been preparing or being prepared for this moment for a very long time.
From my beginnings in a very legalistic Christian family and community, to my search for meaning in other Christian theologies, I struggled with a series of religious belief systems that had too many rules and could not fulfill my desire to experience the Divine. I found grace and first opened my heart to love in the Conservative Baptist message and was baptized as an adult. The rules were still there. When I came out to myself as queer, I found an expansive acceptance and freedom in the feminist and liberation theologies of the Metropolitan Community Church. At the same time, the message, the theology being preached, was too far outside the comfort zone of my ego mind. The interpretations of scriptures my mind had filed away over the years were suddenly challenged; familiar hymns were no longer sung; and I felt betrayed again by a religion that promises so much and from which I experienced so little. My heart wanted more and different and yet my ego mind could not expand enough to allow this measure of different to be acceptable. I also let go of thinking there was ‘A Truth’ out there (in psychology or theology) that would pull it all together and I would finally be happy or at least content.
I lived without a religious practice or conscious faith system for almost ten years. I was enjoying being in a committed relationship, growing my psychology practice and creating a new mental health agency for foster children. My life was full until my relationship started breaking up. Once the relationship was over, the nudge to let go of my ego mind in this lifetime came as an invitation from a friend to experience a personal reading from a trance channel that she knew and trusted. The reading (Personal Reading 2000) began with this:
“Now, perhaps, just perhaps, in this moment, you will allow me. Now, it just might be so that you will let yourself hear me. For you and I make one mighty wholeness; and have planned not just one or a thousand lives, but beyond understanding of times. For I am the mystery of the soul nature of you and I. And your language as a human consciousness I strive to speak in to begin with. But I invite you to accept that the language of our union and our beingness is far beyond in its explicitness and its exquisiteness of how it is that we are, have been and are coming to be.”
and ended with my question: “Why should I believe any of this?”
“You cannot believe it. That is a human experience. You can only let it be, all that I speak be revealed to you, and received moment by moment…”
It took six months for my mind to begin to accept the message given to me that day. I chose to become part of The Ascended Masters’ Foundation (TAMF) and learn more. The ensuing months and years could be characterized as a dance in which my ego mind was given enough information to provide an expanding structure where the experience of the Divine made Its presence known and felt time and time again. The primacy of the ego mind began to let go into the silence, the emptiness that allows the Divine to step in and return to the human’s natural state: a divine being having experiences in human form. I was introduced to a bigger picture, letting go of a limited worldview to a galactic, then universal and finally cosmic consciousness that could hold my ego mind gently as my whole self opened to the experience of becoming my Divine self in human form.
I entered a program of study with The Ascended Masters’ Foundation. The teachings of TAMF were grounded in the channelings of spirited essences such as St. Germain, Jesus, Chief Joseph and Mother Mary. Coursework was equally divided between information and emotional release, a paradigm that met my own needs in a way that other religious/spiritual traditions had not. Contemplative practices such as meditation, tai chi, shared time and music enhanced the experience by quieting my mind and allowing new to find its place in my expanding awareness. I was challenged to let go of what I thought I knew by statements like “Nothing is as it seems; everything is as it should be” from St. Germain. Personal readings provided individual guidance. Serving in a leadership role for TAMF provided ample opportunities for my unconscious blocks to become conscious and available for release.
After five years, I began again to push against the limitations I felt in this community. I left TAMF, grateful for all I had received. And I began to explore and discover my own way of being, my own understanding of who I Am, what I Am about and what is happening in our world today. Today, my interest lies in any awareness or practice that will help me expand my level of consciousness and become one with the Divine, or Pure Consciousness as I have come to know it.
I follow several websites that offer channeled information that keeps my ego mind occupied with new possibilities. At the same time, my personal practices continue to focus on letting go of the old thoughts, beliefs, emotional entanglements and behavior patterns that keep me stuck in the old. The Crimson Circle (2018) has been my main resource for the past decade for learning about embodied realization or ascension to Unity Consciousness. However, like any spiritual tradition, it uses many different platforms to communicate the message that there is more going on here than meets the eye. Channels such as Blossom Goodchild (2019), Sandra Walter (2016) and Denise La Fay (2019) are close enough to my own understanding that I check in on them regularly. As with anything in my life, I have learned to receive what feels right to me and let go of the rest.
Most of these sites would be considered part of the New Age movement. The New Age movement united a body of diverse believers with two simple ideas. First, it predicted that a New Age of heightened spiritual consciousness and international peace would arrive and bring an end to racism, poverty, sickness, hunger, and war. This social transformation would result from the massive spiritual awakening of the general population during the next generation. Second, individuals could obtain a foretaste of the New Age through their own spiritual transformation. Initial changes would put the believer on the sadhana, a new path of continual growth and transformation (Melton). Much of the New Age movement, in my experience, has adopted many of the rituals, liturgies, beliefs and other trappings of a religious tradition that tend to hold onto the old and no longer serve me. I focus, instead, on that which enhances my quest to expand into higher and higher perspectives and experiences of consciousness in human form. I speak of this as a process of Awakening that allows a path of Ascension to Unity Consciousness.
Unity Consciousness is where psychology meets spirituality in my understanding and experience. I am aware that I Am, that my soul is a shard of the Divine, of Pure Consciousness, and that I Am here in human form having human experiences, but this is not my true nature. My emphasis is not in my humanity, but my Divinity, my desire to be Home, Here in this form, and to bring Home, Here for all humanity.
Emotional Release (see Psychological Perspectives), is also part of the path to Unity Consciousness. There is a general consensus among those channels I am aware of that Unity Consciousness involves three aspects of a human being. This Triad is our new human ego mind, no longer the separated human struggling to exist alone in the Third Dimension.
As the Human releases the old emotional blocks to connection, and develops Wisdom, new possibilities open up. This allows connection with the higher perspectives and consciousness of the I Am Presence creating a new psychological and spiritual operating system. As the new triad begins to have its way, there is no longer a need to push, to figure things out, to make things happen, or to fix anyone or anything in order to survive.
Unity Consciousness is also referred to as Christ Consciousness or the Fifth Dimension. Unity refers to leaving our present state of living in duality or polarity. Duality speaks of us and them, of good and bad, or right and wrong. As I let go of this old operating system, I allow new experiences of unity to flow through me. Unity Consciousness 1) builds bridges; 2) generates more compassion; 3) spends less time devoted to protecting, defending or attacking; 4) promotes greater peace and calmness as old adversarial relationships diminish; 5) brings more depth and meaning to our own unique life styles; and 6) deepens our trust for life as we feel less alone and separate (Dunion). Universal Law gradually becomes the new normal (Milanovich and McCune 1996). Letting go of the old and allowing the new brings joy.
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