At the start of something new, nothing is known for sure because nothing has occurred upon which to base a plan or a decision. The basic axioms need to be set first, before prudent advancement is really possible. We must clearly determine the specific area of interest and rules of involvement or else later there will be uncertainty about fundamentals.

As new horizons are perceived, it is certain that our revised viewpoint will at first contain unresolved qualities, because such is the nature of all things. Each new idea becomes known only when its counterpart is considered, whether to push forward or give way, whether to opt for this or for that.

Alone, the mind is an untrustworthy organ of understanding so the heart must also be engaged if our values are to be expressed sincerely. When we are moved most strongly by the heart, then such activation can be reckless, assertive, courageous and purposeful, yet will realize only harmony and joy.

Thus at the beginning of any adventure, what previously was only dormant potential is now vibrant with emotion and purpose: its motion generates vibration. There is excitement. This is life itself. Things change position; there are separations and reformations, endings and new configurations.

Focusing this turbulent life force is the awesome task of a mighty will, operating through a precise vision, to produce a laser beam of intent. This power of will shapes uncommitted energy into the exact form that reflects this vision: what you 'see' is what you get, and seeing is active not passive.

If we lose concentration, then the result is clouded and shadowy and requires the corrective processes of refinement. This is the process of feedback, which can teach humility and help us to develop awareness of our interpretations; also it binds us into considerate relationship, so that character can be smoothed out.

Despite errors and pains, faith is never lost and another new beginning is always guaranteed. The constant restating of original blessing is evidence of innocence and purity, and shows that hope is eternal; faith is a birth-right.

Our interaction with others gives rise to an ever-increasing sense that we are unique in our beliefs, needs, dreams and attitudes. This sense of individuality is heightened exactly because identity itself is a reflection, having its definition only in relationship with others.

In each brief contact we have with others, it matters very little what role we choose to play out, since all aspects of the self need to be promoted and projected. There is no limit to the variations possible and no legitimate requirement to favour this over that.

We may, however, need and seek self-reassurance and so repeatedly practise aspects of personality until we have gained validation for our naïve attempts to experience life on our own terms – with no other purpose than self-rehearsal.

This process facilitates self-awareness. It does not guarantee it however, because we need to reach out and attempt to understand what is being shown to us, and its significance. We can laugh with the stage comedian and release trivial tensions, or we can delve deeper into his wisdom to reach understandings and release on a deeper level.

Then we will know that self-expression is a gateway to develop personal power, and that the power of personality is evolved only in the confident unique expression of self.

Day after day, in every situation, life holds up a mirror to itself through us and to us. This is the essence-secret, hidden by dint of its perceived improbability

It is our choice whether to indulge in idle diversions or to seek, and therefore find a glimpse of the truth of transcendence within each seemingly insignificant event that we encounter.

Despite huge social pressure upon a person to obey the rules and do what is thought appropriate by conventional ethics and practice, some are capable of rejecting such bondage that comes from reluctant or unthinking conformity, and find their own way to relate to the community that supports them.

Although it may not appear so, reality is, in truth, personal. Each and every feeling, belief and opinion is an expression of this, and these all have ramifications in our life circumstances. Give full play to them!

Naturally, there are forces of empathy and familiarity that binds an individual to a collective reality that shows in culture and tradition. However – notwithstanding the benefits of a degree of acceptance of social norms – each of us characterizes our own take on this, as indeed we must.

By doing so, we necessarily dedicate ourselves and our lives to the best interests of the community of which we are part. We are part of the whole and, without us doing what we feel right, there cannot be full engagement.

This is in no way different from a personal imperative to dramatise our wants and needs through the group, as a path of self-actualisation. How could we be ourselves if separated from the context of our traditions and culture? Where is the meaning in that?

A real breadth of community involvement is therefore a sign of one who is truly self-oriented, having the wisdom and sensitivity to understand that each must serve the other if harmony is to emerge.

The individual is thus silhouetted against the background of his country, each exploiting the other in the process of expressing a general principle in specific terms. And if each would relax into this truism, then personal and communal interests would be more profoundly in accord.

In all that we do and feel, we experience the uniqueness of the world that we alone inhabit. If the feelings are not in alignment with our sense of rightness, then it is because something is not right. This is probably because we have moved too far away from the childlike sense that joy is our birthright. Wish-fulfillment is our optimum life-strategy; being utterly naïve is to be true to oneself. 

The image of two lovers taking a stroll in a quiet, beautiful setting, speaks of an experience of happiness without the burden of accountability. The moment is itself enough to justify its value as a valid and important experience, when no extraneous forces are allowed to press upon us any unwelcome responsibility.  We need not even respond to society’s requirements, knowing that such innocent joy is self-evidently good.

Such an act of faith is a guarantee that potentialities of character will blossom and thrive. It demonstrates the all-important self-confidence that brings a sparkle both to material and spiritual realities. Confidence is powerful magic that generates further confidence and somehow leads to material success and spiritual freedom.

Taking this idea to its exaltation, we see that what is often called selfishness is in fact the spiritually valid principle of enlightened self-interest. No meaning can be derived from behavior that does not serve oneself. Nor does power have any purpose except continuously and persistently to promote our own reality in which our own interests are well served.

All our resources therefore are to be focused with complete commitment to serve the high purpose of enjoyment. Joy is sublime, so enjoyment is that which moves us towards sublime self-realization. When the least opportunity presents itself, then we strike! We affirm joy; we pursue enjoyment – as a path of awakened self-liberation.

Whatever sense we may have of responsibility, it must first and last be in service of ourselves, or it simply lacks authenticity and is almost certainly an arising of hidden fears or guilt. Of course we have a measure of sensitivity to the needs of others, and yet that consideration is an elegance that takes second place to the primary duty of continual self-disclosure.

This wisdom is considered too permissive to be acceptable to mainstream society, who marginalizes those who are strong in their personal power and have no willingness to conform to the fear-based morality systems of the majority. Self-indulgence, which often triggers criticism, is only really a danger for those who practice this philosophy without a minimal degree of spiritual awareness – in other words conscience.

A triangle is particularly well balanced; wings suggest flight. Here we have a pointer towards an especially well-grounded person who is continually enthusiastic, ever zealous about self development.

Three aspects of individuality are encountered and refined in our interaction with our situations and environment. These are our skills, loyalties and values. Through these we make ourselves known to our self.

It is of key importance to appreciate the profound value of our impulses. As life throws up its adventures and challenges, we will know who we are through the purity of these original impulses and, no matter what occurs, our essential nature will hold us in good stead if we trust them.

Life is necessarily a transformative sequence of events that processes the inner nature of a person through endless experiences. The many aspects of one’s personality and desires are the proof of one’s deepest enduring vision of self.

The goal of life is to determine what we hold to be good and true. Do we assert light over darkness? And for us – what is light?

The basic self goes through unending tests of worth, the higher self unending examinations of conscience – and through these processes, refinement is assured.

Without such an approach we are left with nothing more than the dismissal of every ordinary experience as inconvenient, even pointless, except the extent to which it offers pleasure and promotes in us a blissful state of obliviousness to the truth of who we are and what we are doing.

The self has a direction, and life is the expression of that. It is unimpeachable. We are not victims of circumstances or external forces, we are not subject to another’s will unless it is our will to be so. This is the set of life, it is so.

The square symbolizes materiality because it illustrates the principle of four, as does physicality through the four elements. Yet it is all symbolic, even materiality itself is illusion when taken separately from its cause.

Despite its illusionary quality, materiality has a valid, in fact, an extremely important function, and that is to serve. Every single human impulse is readily translated into material expression, so that physicality serves to make known what otherwise would only exist in the realm of imagination and thought.

The more passionate is the degree of impulse, and the more self-motivated is the energy behind it, the more solidly obvious is the manifestation of it. Thus there is a measurement process that has an incorruptible legitimacy.

The fourness of materiality also points to its orderliness. Whatever we accept into consciousness becomes well ordered within the structure of all other aspects of reality, leaving no doubt as to its meaning and strength.

It does take strength to assert oneself against the many forces that constantly push and pull from all sides, and we must not surrender to the frustrations that arise, or else the integrity of true self will be lost to distortion.

Yet, for all that, life is essentially sustaining. It takes no more than the exact right amount of struggle and the exact right amount of surrender to keep a person on track.

The nature of reality is not made clear to us except insofar as we are able to create for ourselves a well-defined identity. This clarity of identity progresses in direct proportion to the degree of proficiency we develop as we learn how to control events.

The mastery over externals is by no means total, and yet is greater according to how well we can divide our attention. Animals have no such facility; it is a measure of being human to know how to divide our focus enough to determine between this and that – as a matter of choosing what has little urgent consequence and what is actually important now.

So the developed person can choose where to put their attention and shift its focus from what is no longer pressing to what now deserves our mind’s concentration – according to conscience, convenience or expediency.

It is because we have this ability that we come to realise the principles by which to discriminate between what we actually find of greater or lesser importance, and so make informed decisions that enact these higher values. In so doing, we better define who we are.

Also, as a result of this facility, we can express great versatility of action, always moving towards the most likely activity by which to approach an appropriate, currently important, goal.

There’s a need for care since, depending on how well we respond to what life throws up, our shifting attention could so easily be directed wastefully, becoming no more than an impotent, unthinking scattering of resources.

However, when properly understood, it allows for us to participate fully and powerfully in any number of interpenetrating realms of existence simultaneously. This is much more a true representation of the nature of reality as recorded within our identity, whose corresponding potential has a limitless reach and breadth going immeasurably beyond our best efforts of imagination.

A person who gazes into a crystal ball is attempting to access an aspect of the mind that needs to be stimulated by non-rational techniques. Often called right-brain intelligence, this half of the mind’s understanding is found through the soft surrender to intuition.

Through the marrying of this with rational thought, we are able to perceive with much greater acuteness the linkage between what is imagined and what comes to pass. We actually have the capacity to bring to mind an entire universe, to grasp its operation principles, and to learn of the tools by which to manipulate it.

Rather surprisingly, we find it to be entirely subjective. The bigger, cosmic picture, though indeed accessible, is only accessible through personal experience, with all the uniqueness, prejudice and ambiguity that that entails. We see that our perception of who we are, with all its convoluted oddities, is none other than a perfectly authentic, graphic representation of our slant on outer reality.

We come truly to understand that what we imagine is the map of what we will come to experience.

The world and the individual are thus in a cosmic interactive partnership, each in time reflecting the other in every mood and every situation.

So this allows a fore view of what is to come, which can be used, with care, in order to shape attitudes and strategies by which to organise events to suit our personal convenience.

We are advised to be aware that, taken beyond a helpful level, such ability inclines us towards idle curiosity. Why seek information about the future if we have not the willingness to shape it? Gazing upon it will shape it – that is cosmic law – so are we clear enough, energetic enough, to deal with the implications and consequences of that?

What is so often imagined to be a creative spin on reality can be nothing more than a witless distortion of values, a twisted perspective of events. Although truth is a subjective, unique experience, ones interpretation surely needs to be kept within the boundaries of reasonableness. Some renderings are simply silly and entirely unworkable as useful models of life.

What is needed is a continuous readjustment of understanding that can only really be brought about through a careful assimilation of personal encounter. Measuring this experience against other viewpoints will provide a degree of objectivity that helps to find a more genuine picture of what is valid for you.

This brings empty concept into the realms of personal significance, so that collective ideals take form within the value system of the individual. And that set of values is an important component of how reality is perceived.

There arises new insight as a direct result of bringing theoretical knowledge into the hard truths of real encounter. These realizations are reorientations on emotional, mental and indeed physical levels. You can feel them change you.

The wisdom of the race is constantly subject to a renewal process that depends entirely upon the dynamic interplay between the idea of collective reality, and the fact of personal experience.

This is by process of trial and error – the feedback system of life. It works on many levels and keeps fresh the heritage that we are collectively keeping revitalised, which has exceptional worth in every aspect of life. It works; the consequential knowledge is a validation of this.

Eventually, bit by bit the eternal progression of refinement leaves its mark. It is seen at the highest level that in each and every aspect of divine truth, a singular principle is dramatising itself in a multiple of forms: One in the many.

It is perfectly meaningful to approach life with a reckless sense of liberation, with unfettered confidence that it is simply a dance of sorts, whose purpose is to facilitate the exhibition of each and every special aspect and potential of selfhood.

This approach is supported when one trusts that the relationship between an individual and nature itself is essentially friendly. What could show this more than spirit and nature together dancing down the sun like an innocent girl child?

Evidence is found for this also in the very fact of the life-giving properties bestowed upon us by natural elements. Do we not all feel invigorated by the wind, rain, sun and stars?

What is going on, in and through the individual, is the operation of universal law reworking reality by sorting and resorting, sifting and shifting, in an ever-dynamic review and reveal process.

As a direct result of his enthusiastic willingness to participate in this continuous dynamism, at whatever expenditure of effort, the individual attracts great good fortune – whose fruits are felt as simple, reliable, constant, abundance.

The test of awareness for this degree has to do with finding the correct balance between complancy and struggle. For want of a measure of realistic caution against the entropic pull of scarcity, some could suffer delusions of self-sufficiency instead of appropriate self-serving activity.

Everything returns to Source to be purified; this is an eternal cosmic law, which maintains the integrity of all and everything in its non-stop waves of eternal change. A lifetime of vigorous action pulls the individual away from unification for a speck of cosmic time. It is folly to believe that such activity matters much, and yet foolhardiness to think it does not. To act anyway, knowing it is reckless and pointless is evidence of a very inspired wisdom.

I am. I exist. I am alive. Beingness itself is the first and most mysterious truth. It is self-evident and incontrovertible – nothing can deny existence. So here is the primary cause of faith – the fact of being – and out of it is born optimism. As life opens up more opportunities for self-disclosure, optimism rewards itself with a deepening of faith.

Vitality is made known by its appetite for new experiences. Curiosity and the need for adventure are twin desires that pull us all into undiscovered regions of potential. In this way all new impulses are given form, as the twigs and branches that give greater and richer diversity to shape the metaphorical tree of life.

Similarly, personality is shaped as we seek reassurance and validation that what we dream has value and is appreciated – that it serves to beautify life. This process is continuous and ever-lasting, simply a reflection of the universal pattern of twigs and branches. Thus our dreams become real, embodied in us and expressed as new facets of an evolving persona.

Pursuit of self-fulfilment is directed with courageous enthusiasm towards new frontiers. Rivers are there to ford, mountains to climb. The very process of overcoming obstacles is welcomed as the only route to development. A pioneer is concerned with stepping bravely where no-one has been before, and gaining the advantages of being first.

Arrival is not attractive as a final destination; it is simply a resting place. Fulfilment of dreams would only offer evidence of the poverty of one’s capacity to dream, which has no truth here. We are at the gate of the secret garden, the beginning of the celebration of all desire. The prospect is abundance; a cornucopia reveals itself to be beyond the reach of appetite for a normal person.

Yet there is work to do!  Fruit does not jump off the branch into the mouth, and dreams are ten-a-penny without effort to realize them. Time spent a-dreaming has to be measured against time spent a-doing. Dreams are powerful, creative urges that bind subtle feelings into substantial images. For dreams to come true these images have to become thought and deeds – and that requires effort.

A sense of the eternal comes through the heart as naïve optimism, the arrogance of youth that is as blessed as it is charmed. This arrogance sees an unlimited future of desires fulfilled, only then to be replaced by new desire newly fulfilled – in a never ending tropical garden constantly and simultaneously in fruit, in flower, and in bud.