Take the path of self-understanding

I’ve got to say something about my "fortune-telling" industry. At 12, I was reading Linda Goodman’s "cookbook type" of astrology books. When I was a teenager, I could read palms and tarot cards based on intuition. To better my skill, I bought some light pocketbooks sold cheaply in the bookstore. Reading them helped enhance my fertile imagination in adding a richness of symbolical interpretation of the palm’s lines or the tarot card’s visual composition. Through the years, I would go to card and psychic readers to hear what they had to say and study their styles. Sometimes, I went to them to see if they picked up the same things I saw for myself. Not once did I come out of those sessions a better or more enlightened person. More often, I hung on to their every word. None of them opened any path towards change.

I doubt if any will really do. Majority of them read to earn a living. Others have great power trips. They exist a dime a dozen and will give character readings, and especially readings on love life and financial situations. A lot of psychic readers capitalize on people’s fears and weaknesses as well as their curiosity and ignorance of the unknown. Majority of the readings are vague and general and apply to a lot of people. While they practise a "spiritual" trade, not one will talk about spirituality. Yet many of you, depending on your own level of awareness, still cling to and believe everything said. Controlled or manipulated, you have handed over your conscious and even unconscious power of decision-making or discernment to someone else.

The professional reader, characterized by one whose palms are crossed with silver, reads your perceptions, energy fields and auras. Readings have a life only for as long as the thought form remains within your mind. The moment you consciously change gears and instead begin trying to carve your own course of action, the energies are altered. I’ve come across a couple of interesting psychic readers that I feel I can give my fair share of comments. There are those who

• Create settings for sessions complete with magic paraphernalia of the mystical;

• Really have the gift but are so difficult to catch since their lives are a mess;

• Love to point out a catastrophe or negative event saying–Hinula ko ‘yun!;

• Threateningly say... "Mark my words... it will really happen!";

• Had a pocketbook tarot card-easy reader manual and would refer to it repeatedly;

• Say sweeping statements like ‘You will be lucky in love, money and fame and everything’s coming up roses’;

• Pretend they are keepers of some great mysterious power;

• Have tried to read me and I ended up giving them a reading;

• Sensationalize everything in the press.

Or here’s my take about feng shui or geomancy. The modern mind has totally twisted a spiritual practice of fixing one’s surroundings in harmony with the spiritual forces into a money-making business. The main objective of feng shui believers is that they have to have their house "checked and fixed," so they can make oodles of money. Second priority is a happy home with much good luck. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with all this really–it’s just that majority seem to have lost the perspective by always gearing towards prosperity. I really believe that no amount of fixing up of your establishment or home can bring positive vibrations if the people living or working there are so negatives.

Why do I write about the fortune-telling industry? As a guide for many of you who are on the journey of self-understanding, and who may allow your minds and spirits to be held captive. Which brings me to the point I want to make in this article: Nothing beats the path of self-understanding done responsibly with your eye on your spiritual development. Self-understanding will bring about transformation. Self-understanding is about breaking your emotional and mental boundaries that hinder your growth, and seeing where you are in your own evolution as a human being. You have to take your own life into your hands, your own mind into your control, your own spirit into its expansion. I believe that instead of going to someone else, there is nothing better than trying to develop your own insights and intuition. And sure, use anything possible that would help you to raise your awareness and sharpen your discernment–crystals, runes, watching synchronicity, and even the Bible may prove to be a surprise! Knowing one’s self is the key to empowerment. The secret is to find a tool that can be used. It is wise to use anything within reach and reason. The ways are numerous if you just venture out to look for them. Some examples: the Enneagram, Yoga, Numerology, Astrology, Psychology, Meditation, Self-Help workshops and books. Centering prayer and meditation is tops! If you put as much effort in understanding and working out your inner self as much as you do your outer persona, no doubt you will be making the world a better place. And you wouldn’t even need feng shui to have a happy home.

I have seen many people who used astrology as a tool for self-understanding. But majority know of it only as horoscopes printed in the papers. Often, these are too general and off the mark because people read their birthday signs. The secret is reading the ascendants or first house of your individual chart (which is obtained upon having a birth chart cast). And no, astrology is not a sin, as professed by many close-minded fundamentalists who do not understand what it is about at all.

Knowing astrology, I have come to experience that this sacred tool shows one’s destiny pattern in God’s universe where we can infuse our free will. It cannot be taken lightly by those who know its nature. Those who are honestly looking to understanding themselves must respect it. It may be taken as a guide to living and not studied only when things are in conflict in one’s life.

I believe everyone must make conscious attempts at growth rather than sit passively through experiences and blaming everyone else for the outcome. The many people I have talked to and counseled have always held the illusion that all things seem to be beyond their control because of painful life circumstances that conspire against their peace. On the contrary, these difficult and painful periods of our lives are challenges and catalysts to force us to change. And this is precisely what I tell people: that the reason I studied astrology is not to be controlled by the stars but to learn how to live in harmony with their changing patterns–thus lessening the pains and frustrations of a life whose constant is change. And being open to change spurs one towards deeper awareness. It is a cycle that cannot be denied.

Then again, there are times in your life that you may need another ear, guidance and healing; or an alternative to your spiritual director, friendly nun or priest. And you look towards the "fortune-telling scene." I can share this: I have wisened up after my initial forays into the "fortune-telling trade" of my youth. How I wish that the trade industry would turn into one of enlightened service. Psychic and spiritual counseling is a game of control and ego unless love really begins to enter the picture. Only when the psychic counselors begin to embody and exude love in the purest way the Master, the Christ taught could the other person really change, even if you have to pay for their services in money. In the vast open field of the psychic industry, there are also a number of really gifted and highly sensitive individuals open to the paranormal world. But it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. They have become healers and also do general psychic counseling, often, just by reading auras and seeing into your soul. The real ones are the quiet ones who go about their lives touching other lives with no thought of celebrity and fame, ego or greed. They comprise a small group misunderstood by society, often branded as weird, are using their sensitive gifts to bridge the gap between our world and the many dimensions beyond this.

It is my hope that during the times of your life when you seek for them amidst the "fortune-telling industry scene," that you meet those are the enlightened.

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E-mail me at: jej1@easycall.com.ph