The spiritual path is often referred to as:

• Soul Work
• Conscious Development
• Spiritual Evolution
• Spiritual Development

Whatever we call it, it is important to note a few of the primary issues that arise on the path.

The Inhibiting Role of the Inner Critic

The superego or inner critic is that little voice in our heads that damns us if we do or damns us if we don’t. Some people refer to the superego as the conscience, but this conscience is not objective. It is stuck in the past and rules our life and daily experience with a relentless tyranny.

The superego or inner critic is often referred to as the anti-libidinal soul as it functions to repress the life force not free it. Freud saw the superego’s role as one of managing the unconscious forces in the psyche.

The superego is a necessary element in human psychological development, but it is not necessary for a psychologically healthy adult. A psychologically healthy developed person can rely on their innate intelligence, logic and common sense to determine what is right or wrong in most situations. Normal human beings don’t need a coercive force constantly judging them.

Of course, what I refer to as normal is not the average Joe you meet on the street. Many people today lack the capacity to make healthy decisions. Their decision making process is dominated by abberations in their psyche. They are, in effect, in a reactive mode most of their lives being dominated by unresolved issues from the past.

Work on the superego or inner critic is absolutely essential for spiritual Inner Work. Working on the superego helps to create the space for change, the space for us to have and learn from our experience in present time.

The Positive Power of Emptiness

When we have space for our experience, the soul unfolds. Space is the opposite of the contracted places in the body that keep our lives running in circles. Most of us are familiar with the sense of endless repetition in our lives. The same old lessons seem to keep surfacing in our lives.

The dynamism of Space on the psyche is what allows the old to dissolve and fade away. What dissolves are old images about who and what we are. This dissolution can be quite challenging because who we think we are is dissolving. Our historical|familiar identity is what dissolves.

The resulting Space is where the new|deeper|fresh sense of self is revealed. Expansion of Consciousness is more about losing what is false than getting something. The something we are seeking is what we already are. It is just obscured. So, spiritual growth is more about remembering than finding something new.

Living in the Moment

If we have the Space to explore our experience, we will find ourselves moving more and more into the moment. The soul is trapped in the past. Present experience for most is under the influence|tyranny of the past. Our experience is mostly the past being projected onto the present.

Many people became aware of the NOW through the recent book releases of Ekhart Tolle and A.H. Almaas.

Living in the now is not a mental state, a state of alertness or a matter of more focused attention. All of these factors can be more heightened when we experience the now, but in and of themselves, they do not define the now. The NOW supersedes time and space. When we experience the now, the familiar flow of events changes dramatically. Though events continue to happen with the flow of time, our experience becomes so immediate, that time loses significance except in terms of orienting things. Our experience is no longer dominated by the past or concerns with the future.

Even though some people learn lucid dreaming as children, it has been proven that “waking up” during the dream is a learnable skill even for most adults. The most important factor is for potential lucid dreamers to have a strong intention to learn, or they will be disappointed. Having said this, here are some things to consider if lucid dreaming is right for you.

One of the most important factors for learning lucid dreaming is having good dream recall. After all, how can you become aware you are dreaming if you don’t even remember your dreams in the first place? Luckily, remembering dreams is also a learnable skill for most people; all it takes is some patience, and a journal beside the bed to capture dream fragments after waking up. This is the first connection of many between the waking world and the dreaming world that needs to be made in order to succeed at lucid dreaming.

Next, it is a fact that most excellent lucid dreamers have a better-than-average sense of balance. Vestibular activity plays a big role in consciousness, whether we are dreaming or awake. Therefore, beginners will have better luck learning to lucid dream if they also have an ongoing exercise practice that develops their balance. Some examples are yoga, tai chi, gymnastics, and the martial arts.

Finally, the most successful beginner lucid dreamers also are working on developing their minds during their waking life as well as their dreaming life. There are lots of ways to build brain power during the day, such as gardening, having a meditation practice, playing competitive sports, and board games like Scrabble or Risk. Lucid dreaming isn’t for everyone, but if you can remember your dreams, develop your body’s balance, and keep a mind-development regime, you will easily find success in becoming aware during the dream state.

For example, Dr. Bruce Lipton is a noted physician and biologist who has studied the biology of belief. His experiments have shown how living cells grow toward positive energy source, as well as shrink from and die when exposed to negative energy inputs.

Spiritual healing prayer is a common occurrence in the New Testament Gospel stories of Jesus the Christ. Christian spiritual healing takes its lead from the mission that Jesus gave his followers to heal the sick.

There are several spiritual healing techniques that healing prayer can use. One method involves placing healing hands on or near a person or even animals to release energy healing. Meditation is another healing technique which can involve visualizing being well as an illness or sickness leaves the body. Spiritual healing prayer is found in many faith traditions in different forms, including Reiki, chakras, yoga and more.

My personal favorite form of energy healing is to use The Healing Codes developed by Dr. Alex Loyd and his partner, Dr. Ben Johnson. The Healing Codes are meant to release stress caused by destructive cellular memories from the body, so the body has the freedom to heal itself. Many times the negative emotional side of past experiences weighs on the mind and body, so that a person becomes ill.

These codes address the areas of wrong thinking and build up virtues and heart values that underly our interpretation of events. I have used the Healing Codes as a form of spiritual healing prayer for more than a year and the results have given me a great deal of inner freedom as well as relief from a number of physical ailments. Experiencing the love of God through healing prayers has helped me live better every day.