I Accept My Gift

I. Breaking Down Mental Patterns. The Diary

Living in society conditioned us to accept social norms as the ultimate truth, and breaking out of these societal frameworks was not easy for me. The first thing my Mentor did was to remove me from society for a long period and make me completely isolate myself from it («make» in a good sense – he didn’t force me, but I automatically regarded each of his recommendations as an unquestionable truth and a guide to action).

The first step toward breaking down my beliefs and opening new channels of perception was keeping a diary. There are different types of diaries, and for many years I practiced various forms. Like many things in my life, I did this with particular diligence, considering it one of the most important tasks: to be honest first and foremost with myself and with God.

Coming home from work at night, exhausted, I would sit down to write in my diary for 3–4 hours. Then I’d sleep for 2–3 hours and go back to work.

This was a difficult period in my life – with crocodile tears, I dragged out everything I desperately wanted to hide. Especially fragments of the day involving conflict situations, when I wanted to scream at the top of my voice: «I’M NOT GUILTY! IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!». At such moments, I would stop and examine the situation especially carefully from the perspective of: «IF TWO PEOPLE ARE INVOLVED IN A SITUATION, THEN BOTH ARE RESPONSIBLE».

I forced myself to see the situation through my opponent’s eyes. The more my inner voice screamed «IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!», the louder I told myself: «No! You’re justifying yourself too persistently. Let’s find where YOUR MISTAKE was. Let’s see the situation from this person’s perspective, put ourselves in their place».

I learned to LIVE WITHOUT JUSTIFICATIONS.

I eradicated the «little girl syndrome» within myself – the pattern where your opponent is always the «parent unfairly punishing the child», and you are that child in the situation.

I learned to SEE THE TRUTH.

Later, other forms of diary keeping helped me further: diaries of FACTS and EMOTIONS.

There are diaries of events, thoughts, emotions, and facts. If you keep these diaries separately, you begin to detach emotions and thoughts from yourself, to see that they are NOT YOU but something foreign. And most importantly – YOU CAN CONTROL THEM.

«Try saying not “I am angry” but “I have anger”», my Mentor once told me. «In the first case, it feels like anger controls you – you can’t do anything about it, it overwhelms you. In the second case, anger becomes something secondary, small. I comes first, and anger is ‘with me’ – meaning I can easily control it».

I began to keep diaries in this form, and it significantly changed my perception.

If earlier I might have written something like:

«Ira came in a weird looking dress, angry, and said everyone was getting on her nerves»,

now I wrote:

«Ira came wearing a grey cotton dress. Her eyes were blazing, her nostrils flared, and her voice was two tones higher than usual. She said: “Just now, my boss asked me again to do his work. Him and the CEO are so annoying – always dumping their responsibilities on me!”»

Do you sense the difference?

In the first version, if I told someone about this situation, they would picture Ira as looking strange, wearing odd clothes, and unreasonably angry at the whole world. But when reflecting the facts, we see that there’s nothing strange about her appearance, and she’s not angry at the whole world – only at her two bosses, and quite justifiably so.

The tendency to embellish events leads us to convey distorted pictures to others through our words. But more importantly, we eventually start to take as gospel truth what we once said, and over time, this «made up world» becomes a reality we begin to believe in.

Carefully recording the facts teaches us to see the TRUTH – to see the world as it really is. But most importantly, it removes our inner «screens», and we begin to see the ESSENCE OF THE UNIVERSE.

Keeping a diary brought several more advantages:

I developed a photographic memory and can now reproduce verbatim who said what, their posture during a meeting, and other details.

I began to see the interconnections between events – you start to clearly observe which event followed which, and to discern patterns. This, in turn, allows you to take control of your life: you eliminate unnecessary events and introduce those that will trigger a chain of positive outcomes you desire.

For example, you may start to notice that after meeting a certain person, the projects you’ve been carefully building begin to fall apart. Just when results seem within reach – something happens. And this repeats over and over. With diary keeping, this pattern becomes completely obvious to you. Once you know the cause, you can decide how to address it. You might either end the relationship with that person or help them find their true path, so they change their life. The choice is yours – but in any case, you eliminate what was previously disrupting your endeavors.

Keeping a diary is directly linked to reviewing the past, which is an essential part of self development. Reviewing your past allows you to see past situations from a new perspective – through the eyes of an adult – which means you can recognize and correct mistakes, and consequently change your life path for the better.

This practice helped me acquire many useful qualities, and I recommend it to everyone on the path of personal development and self knowledge.

II. Taking Responsibility

A turning point in my life and a key factor in my growth was taking responsibility for my own life and for what happens in the world.

In Linda Howe’s book The Akashic Records, I came across an important phrase: «Everything I can fix, I fix. What I cannot influence, I let go».

Each of us has an energy field, and within our field, our mental patterns operate. The statement «This person always behaves strangely» is incorrect. Train yourself to be impeccable, and within your field, that person will either be, or become, impeccable.

From physics, we know that coils have electromagnetic fields, and in school we saw numerous experiments demonstrating how physical objects influence each other through electromagnetic fields. But an important point is that humans also have electromagnetic fields. When another being enters our field, they come under the influence of our thoughts, beliefs, and mental patterns.

This is not fiction – it’s a long proven fact. Therefore, before accusing someone of anything, take a good look at what you’ve thought or said about them (or what someone else has said about them).

The second insight I first heard from my Mentor —and which significantly changed my perspective – was the story of healing an entire psychiatric hospital using the Ho’oponopono method.

The Ho’oponopono method is an ancient Hawaiian practice based on the idea of taking responsibility for everything that happens in one’s life.

Its core principles include:

•      forgiving others;

•      love;

•      exploring one’s inner world;

•      learning to correct mistakes.

There was a hospital housing particularly dangerous inmates – staff had to walk through patients’ rooms with their backs pressed to the wall. Before Dr Lee arrived, incidents occurred regularly, and staff constantly quit their jobs.

Dr Lee, who took charge of the patients, did not perform traditional medical examinations as doctors usually do. His method involved spending hours in his office studying patients’ records and looking at their photos, while repeating: «I’m sorry. I love you». In healing the patients, he worked on himself.

Amazing changes began to unfold in the hospital: within just a few months, incidents stopped, staff stopped quitting, and employees started enjoying their work. Eventually, all patients were healed. Dr Lee worked at the hospital for three years, and today the hospital is closed.

You can find more details about this story online in open sources. It may seem incredible, but it truly happened: by changing ourselves internally, we change the world around us.

Everything is energy, and everything begins with intention. First, it happens on the energetic level, then manifests on the material level. This is why it’s important for those with spiritual insight to detach from societal conditioning and re evaluate their inner beliefs.

In everyday life, people utter phrases without considering their impact, deeming them harmless. Common expressions like «My soul aches», «My heart aches for him», or «There’s no such thing as a free lunch» seem innocuous – but those who are aware see what can happen as a result. That’s why they carefully monitor their speech.

When you embark on the path of self development, you begin to control your life – and, moreover, to control energy. Energy is directed by intention, thought, or word. So where does the energy go when you say «He’s a loser»?…

III. Breaking Habits

Early on, my Mentor told me: «Stop doing what you’ve always done, and start doing what you’ve never done».

Breaking habits is the first rule of inner growth. What are habits? Nothing more than inertia. Therefore, a crucial skill in spiritual development is learning to step out of inertia – and eventually, to avoid falling into it at all. This applies to:

•     the cycle of thoughts that used to drag you into their swamp;

•   emotions – such as when a person is overcome by anger and «carried away»;

•     all unconscious habits – «because I’ve always done it this way».

Habits can be broken easily. You can either replace a habit with another one or eliminate it outright. The downside of habits (inertia) is that they most often don’t serve your true desires – yet you repeat them without wanting to.

It’s important to let go of them and not allow anyone or anything with unclean intentions to control you.

You’ll learn to see the non material world and discern what or who might be behind your habits. But for now, accept this as a given: it’s advisable to get rid of habits.

And, by the way, keeping a diary helps greatly with this. When you write in your diary at the end of the day, including elements of review, you feel as if you’re emptying yourself internally – you’ve put everything on paper, and you feel free. There are no more thoughts or worries – only freedom and calm.

By the 9th grade, I had re read the entire school library twice, as well as extensive book collections from my friends’ mothers. When I’d come to the school library and ask «Have you got anything new?», the librarian would reply: «You know all the books by heart – go and see what’s there».

After hearing my Mentor’s words about breaking habits, the first thing I did was stop reading books – and for many years, I didn’t touch them at all.

By letting go of this habit, I realized that when I used to read books compulsively – for days on end (I could finish a thick book in a single day) – I was living in fictional worlds, trying to escape reality. Once I stopped reading, I had to pay attention to the real world.

Of course, reading books gave me many benefits too – but that’s for later. Right now, we’re talking about habits.

When I picked up books again many years later, I began following another of my Mentor’s rules: «Read a book like this: read a paragraph, underline an important phrase, and practice it for a week. A week later, pick up the book again – underline a second phrase from another paragraph, and practice that».

I’m referring here to educational books that foster personal growth, as that’s what I mostly began to study later on.

Another memorable example was comparing knowledge to a backpack: imagine you’re setting off on a long journey, but instead of packing only what you need, you stuff your backpack with a bunch of random things. What will happen? You’re unlikely to enjoy carrying such a heavy load the whole way.

Knowledge is the same kind of baggage on your shoulders. When you learn and immediately apply your knowledge, honing your skills, knowledge has value. But when you merely «swallow» literature, it can turn into mental clutter. You know it, but how do you use it

Therefore, Theory Is Good – But Practice + Theory = Excellent

Another important point: breaking habits gives you a fresh perspective and broadens your horizons.

Habits and beliefs are a kind of internal psychological supports – the walls of the imagined world, your personal reality. Things you’re confident about give you a sense of solidness and reliability: «I know – this is how it is. I’m sure».

Both your inner world and the outer world consist of such «supports» – made up and imagined things that often have little to do with reality.

All that we see is but a single appearance.

Far from the surface of the world to its depths.

Consider the obvious in the world insignificant,

For the secret essence of things is not visible.

– Omar Khayyam

This is one of my favourite verses by Omar Khayyam – and he’s right, as he is about so many things. Of course, the secret essence is visible to those who see – or to those who are honest with themselves and live ethically.

Still, what people in the material world tend to accept as unshakable truth is worth re evaluating.

When a person’s beliefs (supports) collapse, they feel lost. At least, that’s the sensation – because their fragile, self constructed world is falling apart. And once the veil lifts from their eyes, they have to face reality.

You lived believing that white is white and black is black; that this person is a fool, that one is beautiful, and another always behaves strangely.

But when you re examine your inner world, your beliefs, and your attitudes toward people, objects, and events, it may well turn out that black is actually white – and vice versa. And «that person» isn’t a fool at all. You realize this once you pull out of yourself the childhood belief that «anyone who doesn’t get up with their left foot first is a fool». I’m slightly exaggerating, but essentially, that’s how it is.

When you begin to dismantle your inner world into its parts, it becomes obvious how many unearned labels you’ve pinned on others – and on yourself, too. Now you have to shake all that off.

This relates to the topic of energy blockages caused by beliefs – but we’ll cover that a bit later.

Regarding pinning labels on others: the certainty that «this person is a fool» or «this person is good» also gives a sense of security – you know what to expect from them. And so, you feel as if you’re controlling your reality.

By slapping labels on people – convinced they’re «always like this» and «act like that» – you create a sense of stability and protection from surprises in your world. Imagine if you didn’t think anything about a person – then every one of their actions would be unpredictable and unexpected. And doesn’t the unknown scare us?

Of course, it doesn’t – if you’re in control of your life. But here’s the question: are you really in control?

That’s why breaking habits – including the habit of thinking in a certain way about someone or something – is an important step on the path of self development and self knowledge. It tears down inner screens and lets you see the truth without prejudice.

This matters because the laws of God and the Universe, in some respects, differ greatly from the rules of society.

For many years I pondered the earthly life,

There’s nothing unknown to me under the moon.

I know that I know nothing at all —

This is the final truth I have uncovered.

– Omar Khayyam

And again, this is Omar Khayyam. The point here is about the mind: the brain «remembers», but our consciousness is always fluid and pure. We don’t need to carry the weight of knowledge with us – we can see and understand knowledge and truth at any moment we wish. This is the capacity of our soul.

IV. Absolute Gratitude. Eliminating All Negativity

In his book Sending Love to the World, Klaus J. Joul wrote a phrase that immediately stuck with me: «Think carefully before picking your nose, because at that moment, at least 4–6 souls are watching you from above and learning from you».

You are never alone – there are always beings nearby who are helping you or learning from you. These may be Beings of a Higher Order who don’t have physical bodies. Or they may be those who do have physical bodies, or who once lived on Earth, or your Guardian Angel.

At every moment, souls and beings with pure intentions care for you – like a brother cares for a sister, or a mother for her child. You are dear and important to them, just as any close or beloved person is to you. They worry when things aren’t going well for you, and they’re immensely happy when they can help you. They learn from you or help you realize something.

This is the subtle world, and it deserves our constant, absolute gratitude. Therefore, cultivate the habit of:

•      never devaluing your own actions;

•      not cursing the world when things go «wrong»;

•      not complaining about fate;

•      instead, expressing gratitude to the world and to those who help – in every moment.

You may notice that everyone on the path of spiritual development carries this inner love and gratitude toward the world. These beings help you willingly.

Put yourself in their place: imagine you’re constantly helping someone, and they keep saying everything is still bad – and even scold you. Would you keep helping them?

The more gratitude you feel, the more souls and pure beings want to help you – simply because they enjoy being near you, and they like you. And their help is truly precious.

If life deceives you,

Don’t be sad, don’t be angry.

In your heart, accept the future.

Believe – a joyful day will come.

The heart lives in the future,

The present feels bleak.

Everything is fleeting, everything will pass.

What passes will become dear.

I memorized this poem in my youth. It inspires cheerfulness and optimism!

Of course, the present isn’t really bleak – but it’s worth remembering that the sun will always come into your life.

At the end of this book, I’ll share several techniques to cultivate these qualities.

I. Energetic Structure. Chakras. Energy Blocks

Whether you know it or believe it, we each have not only a physical body but also an energetic structure.

Running down the center of the body from top to bottom is the Energetic Flow – our eternal Source of Energy and our connection to the Cosmos, to God. Around the body lies a universal crystalline lattice. When it’s intact, you are fully protected.

You are your soul united with the body. Your soul is nourished by divine energy, which reaches you through the energetic centers – the chakras.

Each chakra corresponds to:

•      a specific sphere of your life;

•      your thinking;

•      your perception of the world;

•      and also to certain bodily organs.

1. Muladhara – the first, root chakra (located in the perineum area).

It holds ancestral programs and patterns (from parents, grandparents, etc.), programs from past lives, and self preservation instincts.

Organs: lower spine, legs, lower intestines, etc.

2. Svadhisthana – the second, sacral chakra (2 finger widths below the navel).

Governs sexual energy, childbirth, lineage continuation; holds the money channel and clairvoyance.

Orgpacked: reproductive organs, large intestines, lower spine, etc.

3. Manipura – the third chakra (solar plexus level).

Governs self confidence, social relations, self realization.

Organs: stomach, pancreas, kidneys, adrenal glands, etc.

4. Anahata – the fourth chakra (center of the chest, heart level).

The chakra of feelings, higher love, connection with the Creator, the love of the Creator, responsibility for life, sensing another person, reading their energy field.

Organs: thymus, heart, circulatory system, diaphragm, etc.

5. Vishuddha – the fifth chakra (throat level).

Expression of desires through voice, materialization of desires via voice, will, the right to speak and be heard, the power of word and voice.

Organs: throat, trachea, thyroid gland, cervical vertebrae, etc.

6. Ajna – the sixth chakra (center of the forehead).

The third eye, intuition, divine wisdom, spiritual sight, seeing the truth.