257 Inspiration

We receive inspiration from two main sources. The first is self-contained. It consists of creative thinking, remembering and ‘body intelligence’. For example, because the memory of how to do it is imprinted in their consciousness, skilled mechanics know straight away why an engine won’t start and professional musicians can tune in to a piece of music and play along without necessarily rehearsing.

We also receive inspiration from without. Spiritual gifts come to us in the form of ideas. Many geniuses believed that they were tuning in to a higher form of consciousness. Einstein, Louis Pasteur, Edison, Alexander Fleming, Mozart and Ludwig Van Beethoven believed they were tapping into a source of inspiration beyond their own minds and were merely a channel through which ideas flowed. The Prophet Mohammed was illiterate, yet he made profound statements about science and the natural world that turned out to be amazingly accurate.

Where did this come from? ‘It cannot be done by willpower,’ said the composer Johannes Brahms when asked from where his inspiration came. ‘When I feel the urge to compose, I begin by appealing directly to my maker. I immediately feel vibrations that thrill my whole being. In this exalted state, I see clearly what is obscure in my ordinary moods, then I feel capable of drawing inspiration from above.’

258 You Are a Channel

You are no less a channel for CI than Edison, Brahms and the rest – we all are. All the knowledge that ever was or will be already exists. We think we are expanding the boundaries of knowledge, but this is untrue – the knowledge is already there. We simply find out what has always been. The means of sending radio signals, e-mails and text messages, travelling by air, generating nuclear power and carrying out organ transplants existed before humans discovered them. We didn’t create the knowledge, we uncovered it.

To be the best channel you can, you must allow the inspiration to flow through you. Are you resisting by refusing to believe you have this power? Are you throttling it by frantic activity and over-intellectualising? Enter the silence through prayer and meditation, then you are ready to receive spiritual ideas, inspiration and everything you need to fulfil your purpose.

259 How To Stimulate Creative Thinking

When we feel inspired, our minds transcend their previous limitations, our energy levels burgeon and ideas flow. To enter this marvellous state, access your Superconscious:

• 1.Be calm and still. Silence the mental chatter. Only then can you go beyond your conscious mind and commune with your inner wisdom.
• 2.Be clear on what you want and open to imaginative ideas. Ask for guidance, then mentally step aside.
• 3.Be patient. The Superconscious cannot be hurried. It continues to work at its own pace when you’ve turned your attention to other things. Often a fully formed solution presents itself.

260 Problem–Solving

A similar approach can be used for solving intractable problems. Simply ask your Superconscious a question, preferably when in a relaxed state. Believe you’ll be given the right answer. You’ll know, because you’ll feel it throughout your body.

The best questions are those which presuppose a favourable outcome, such as:

• What’s the best solution to this problem?
• What can I do next?
• What can I learn from this?
• What else can I do that I haven’t already thought of?

The answer may come at any time or when you least expect, in a dream, a chance remark or when chilled out. Be sure to act on it. If you don’t like the answer and ignore it, you’ll only make the problem worse!

261 Sleep On It

There’s plenty of evidence that the sleeping mind solves problems more efficiently than the waking mind. Most of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde was dreamed, as was the second half of Richard Bach’s best-seller Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (the first part had been gathering dust on his shelf for eight years). Elias Howe was given the means of perfecting the sewing machine in a dream, and Alfred Russel Wallace, a nineteenth-century naturalist, had a similar experience. He was in bed with a fever when he dreamed a theory of natural selection. He wrote to Charles Darwin, who borrowed the idea and published The Origin of Species soon after.

You can use this information for your benefit. Write down the problem and read it through just before you go to sleep. Ask your Superconscious to work on it for you during the night. Keep a pen and pad at your bedside and, if an idea comes, write it down immediately. Many good ideas are lost if they are not recorded straight away.

262 Try It Out

Geniuses stand out not just because they have brilliant ideas, but because they do something with them. Have you ever had a good idea and done nothing about it, only to discover subsequently that someone else thought of it too and made it a success? They trusted their inner guidance and acted on it – you didn’t!

Genius, as Albert Einstein said, is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Brahms concurred. ‘I wish to impress on you that my compositions are not the fruits of inspiration alone,’ he said, ‘but also severe, painstaking toil.’ Many outstanding ideas come to nothing because they are not acted upon.

263 Telepathy

Telepathy is Superconscious communication. Messages are passed from one person to another through no visible or scientifically explicable channel. Mental fields extend around brains just as the fields of transmission extend around mobile phones. Some individuals are able to extend their mental fields over huge distances and make contact with others’ mental fields.

The following experiment usually succeeds far more often than would be expected by sheer chance. Ask a friend to help you. Write a word or number on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope without letting your friend know the contents.

Sit together facing away from each other in a darkened room, eyes closed and relaxed. Imagine you are transmitting the contents of the envelope to your friend. Concentrate all your mental energy on it. Ask your friend to concentrate on visualising or sensing what’s on the paper. After five or ten minutes, ask them to tell you what they ‘saw’. Often the first thing that comes into their mind will be correct.

Do this on a regular basis over a period of several months, increasing the complexity of the material to include simple pictures, photographs or diagrams. You will be astonished at the results.

264 Mediumship and Clairvoyance

Mediums claim to communicate with the dead. Some of the messages they convey, apparently from people who have passed on, are astonishing. But do these messages really come from the dead or is it trickery? Do they get the client to reveal things about themselves through finely tuned observation and clever questioning then feed it back, as some would argue?

I believe it’s neither of these. Our minds reach out and affect each other at an energy level over time and distance. Somehow psychics are able to tune in to these mental energy fields. The totality of mental energy is not confined to the minds of people currently in a body, nor is it restricted by our notion of time, because in the quantum field, time can flow both forwards and backwards.

Mediums try to interpret the ideas and impressions they receive in terms we can understand. We tend to project our limited understanding onto things and give them shape according to our beliefs and perceptual framework. It’s much easier to visualise a person who has passed on as if they were still in their human form than to visualise a tiny fragment of an energy field!

265 Trust Your Superconscious

Surveys reveal that more than half of us believe in tarot cards and palmistry, and nearly half in mind reading. Sales of pendulums, dowsing rods, crystals and other New Age paraphernalia have rocketed in recent years, and most of us think we know someone who is psychic. There is nothing wrong with any of this, as long as we remember that the props themselves are unimportant. They are merely tools which help some access their Superconscious.

We all have access to the universal energy field, but some have learned to make better contact than others. Seek help from them from time to time by all means, but don’t hand responsibility for your life over to someone else. Instead, develop your own Superconscious powers. You can strengthen them just as you would build strength into your body through exercise, and when you place your trust in them, they never let you down.

266 Synchronicity

Synchronicity is a term which describes what happens when two or more favourable events come together apparently by coincidence. But is there such a thing as a coincidence?

On a spiritual level, no. In the grand scheme of things, everything is designed to help us to grow – it’s how life has been set up. Everyone knows superconsciously what they need to learn. Synchronicity occurs when two or more superconscious minds conspire to bring people together to create meaningful learning experiences.

Synchronicity can’t be dismissed because it happens so often. We’ve all heard of people who got timely help from a stranger or find the answer to a nagging problem in a magazine by chance, and don’t we all look back on painful experiences and realise they had a deeper meaning for us?

Synchronicity happens; there are no accidents or coincidences because everything is governed by universal law. Raising our awareness of it strengthens our intuition and speeds our spiritual progress in many helpful ways.

267 Spiritual Vision

Spiritual vision enables us to look beyond appearances and see Spirit working in all things.

A hundred years ago, spiritual vision led to the creation of a very special community in a quiet corner of Devon. For over three hundred years, Buckfast Abbey was nothing more than a heap of stones, having been virtually destroyed in the sixteenth century. Then, in 1882, the landowner decided to offer the site to a small group of French monks.

With nothing more than a vision and a faded print of the original building, the monks drew up plans to restore the abbey to its former glories. ‘You will smile,’ wrote the Abbot to a friend, ‘but you know that I am only thirty. In another thirty years time, I shall not be so very old, and during all that time I shall apply myself to this task without ceasing. Given time and patience one might construct a world.’

Although the monks had only £5 between them and the loan of a horse and cart, work on the new church commenced in 1907. Only one of the monks had any prior experience as a stonemason. Local supporters donated the bells, stained glass, font, lighting and furnishings. Meanwhile, the monks grew vegetables, kept bees, pigs and dairy cattle, and sold the famous Buckfast Tonic Wine to raise funds.

The scaffolding was finally removed in December 1938. ‘All that you see here is truly the fruit of faith,’ said the Abbot in his inaugural address. ‘We have had no other talent except the talent and genius of faith.’ Three weeks later, he died.

Anyone who visits this beautiful place cannot help but marvel at their achievement, a testament to spiritual vision, faith, determination and the creative energy that flows through and from our spiritual core.

268 Listen To Teacher

Once the Superconscious is awakened, it cannot be silenced. It is like a wise teacher, always on hand to offer guidance and support.

Life is a school and we’re always in the right class for us because the Inner Teacher (Higher Self) places us in situations from which we can learn. Difficulties and obstacles indicate a refusal to give up beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us, or a failure to grasp their significance. If we don’t get the point first time, our inner teacher ensures we attract plenty of opportunities to get it right in the future.

To the uninitiated, these are nothing more than chance events, but once we’re aware of synchronicity working in our lives we know they have a purpose. We look for the messages and reflect on them.

When we’ve learned a lesson, the difficulties and obstacles melt away, we experience a warm inner glow and move on. This is the Inner Teacher’s way of saying, ‘well done’ and moving us on to the next level.