The result very rarely is good, as either the escape is impossible or we land up in a worse situation.

The next thing is to fight the circumstance. The more we try, the more desperate we get, the more tired and unhappy we make ourselves. Frustration takes us into self-blame, self-pity and self-degradation.

The biggest mistake is to then intellectualize – to philosophize. In most cases, this is also a mental escape, or a formula to more unhappiness.

Acceptance is the key!

As soon as we accept, we realize that we are in the present situation due to a divine reason. In the womb of acceptance lies a sense of duty to give off our best and enjoy doing our part. Not in spite of, but because of the dictate of the situation.

As soon as this happens, the universe steps in. In recognizing divine duty, we surrender. The universe motivates us to make happier choices for ourselves and others. We turn into happy oysters! We decide to make the best of the situation. The irritant spec of sand is given love. It turns into a pearl. Difficult and teeth wrenching labor pain produces the child of change. We are made instruments to produce a dawn for a better tomorrow.

In transforming our belief, we transform ourselves and become instruments of change! We recognize and thank the true purpose of having been put into the stuck place of a rock and a hard place.

Acceptance and surrender are the keys. They will render the positive transformation.

To perform partly and give up is another common error. We must carry it to the end as dictated by the circumstance. Missing by an inch or a mile will not make heroes. Reach the finish line. Goal! Only total faith will get us there.

So if we are feeling stuck, total acceptance, total faith and total surrender is the way to go.

Total transformation is a guarantee.

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Meaning of the Mandala

The mandala is a specially created geometric symbol. The mandala represents both the outside world in which we live as well as the world within us. For this reason, the symmetrical design of the mandala is intended to draw the eye toward its center core where we can reflect deeply on being a whole and complete person and an essential element of the universe.

Origin of the Mandala

Mandalas originated in India, but were mainly used in Tibetan Buddhism. This ancient art form was practiced by the Tibetan monks as far back as 2,500 years ago. In a ritual spanning 9 days of intensive concentration, the monks would create a mandala made of very fine colored sand. Each design, bearing intrinsic iconography, symbolized the deep spirituality within the universe. The mandala was created to enlighten the mind and facilitate the healing of the body, mind and spirit through meditation. After completion, the mandala was destroyed by the monks who created it. The destruction was a significant aspect of the ceremony because it signified the letting go of the imperfections of life that entrapped people.

Why Mandalas Work

For centuries, the mandala has always been regarded as a sacred device and conductor of positive cosmic energies. These are subtle positive energies, which strengthen our auras. In everyday life, mandalas help create the positive energies needed to help us through hardships, especially supporting us during unfavorable planetary positions or difficult times.

Used as a meditative object, the mandala aims to reinforce our awareness of that present moment in which we live. Too often, it is difficult for us to put things into perspective, to understand a situation fully, or even to understand ourselves. Keep in mind that in our day-to-day lives, we are constantly drifting from one thought to another often losing our focus. Using the mandala during meditation helps us to attain a deep level of concentration, enhances creative visualizations and achieves quicker and better results through the intensity of our meditation. The ability to fully focus our attention on a thought or circumstance, therefore, empties our mind of everything else. It is at this moment that we feel whole, living for that present moment, and connecting with our inner self.

Because mandalas have a calming and relaxing effect on the mind and body, they are used to help heal and empower us. Through the meditative process, mandalas help us to focus on a situation and activate our mind power, thereby initiating the healing process. They can help us to attain money, love, prosperity, harmony and greater success, whatever our aspiration may be.

Mandalas help us to review our lives, visualize our desires, and assess the necessary steps we need to take toward fulfilling our goals. Mandalas are about self-exploration, understanding and knowing our place in the universe and acting to attain positivity in our lives.

- Edgar Cayce

The topic of soul mates has become an area of great interest and discussion among people. The word is very loosely used in everyday parlance to mean lover, sexual partner, husband, a person to whom there is a great attraction, or in some cases where people suffer fromvictim consciousness, to even believe that the purpose in this lifetime is to suffer a life sentence with a disagreeable spouse. All of these are, or could be connected, and are incomplete at the same time.

Soul mate is another soul with whom you have a soul connection. It is very important to take away any myth that a soul has preferences or wants of a certain nature. Instead, it is important to understand through the past life reincarnation theory that the soul is within the body of the person. As soon as a personality is given to the soul, it has preferences and desires.

Through the sum total of these desires, wants, preferences and needs, the person is born into a certain life, or as understood on the lighter vibrational essence, is on a particular wavelength. Other souls are also on this wavelength due to a similarity of thought, word, action, preferences, etc. On a particular vibrational wave band,we find souls who are grappling with similar problems and have identical wants, needs, preferences, thoughts, etc.

These souls have had connections into each other and need each other, work and help each other, or love each other (even hate!) There is an individual chord, which binds these souls together for a particular cosmic purpose. This binding together is the soul connection.

If life is to be viewed as one whole illusory game going on for eons, then souls are connected to each other and are playmates in this fabulous cosmic game of fun. The Hindu scriptures refer to them as leela.

In this play, drama, or game, there could be many acts,and since we are dealing with a continuous soap opera with each lifetime being viewed as an episode, we are bound to meet these soul mates on this playground of life. We learn, teach and grow with each other.

One does not have to be profoundly spiritually elevated to acknowledge that for this beautiful play, there is the undercurrent of the cosmic script written by destiny with its pen of finality; yet, each player has a certain amount of free will or maybe a great amount of free will, which we exercise to select our team in this interplay. We select lovers, family, members, coworkers and friends.

One also does not have to do too much research to acknowledge that the team that we select is from the vibrational wave band upon which we as souls reside; therefore we obviously recognize who these souls are.

Those with whom we have played in earlier acts or lifetimes, we recognize as a known connection. In an instant, we recognize that there is some unfinished business to be completed or that we have had some good done to us in a past life, which we are forced through choice or circumstance to replay.

I have purposely used replay in the earlier paragraph to bring the reader to a comfort zone of understanding; yet, enquire within the reader’s mind, “Why would a soul play with many multitude of dimensions be only categorized on a 2 dimensional plane in the inventory of good, bad, or debit, credit?”

Nor do I like to use the word replay where one soul has been wronged and is therefore in the garb of a person to seek revenge. Hollywood has done a good job, but spiritual enquiry goes deeper and subtler for the meaning of meeting repeatedly in subsequent lifetimes.

If I am to use the modern day phrase of to page or paging, then think that in meeting or selecting soul mates we repage in order to resume the same soul dialogue which we left off in a past life or play. However, look at the irony — we repage but do not recall (the past!)

Although the mind cannot register the past life, the soul does know the other souls with whom the contact is to be established in the present lifetime. We bump into thousands of people but out of nowhere, a face appears and some strange vibrational telepathic soul language tells both people-this is the one! This connection maybe for a coworker, a boss, a friend, a lover, or a life partner.

Soul mates may have never met in earlier lifetimes. They may be souls who have met for the first time but feel that they are a perfect match or tuned perfectly for an understanding between each other. These could be best friends, partners who take up a project from living together or even to rob a bank! But the beautiful thing is that they are fine-tuned with each other.

When soul mates have been lovers in past lives, and are lovers again taking off from where they had left off in the previous life, the timing, understanding and match are perfect. They appear to be two incomplete halves that connect to make complete halves that connect to make a whole. This is the highest, purest form and most wonderful form of love. These lives are special, and to reach this state, who knows how many past lives have been spent together to get this perfect gift. It is the happiest, most sublime life on earth. These soul mates are special-they are twin souls.

- Honoré Balzac

There is no doubt that the intrigue of Reincarnation and Past Life Recall have prompted so many to continuously seek readings. This has been one of my pet subjects of research both through readings of scriptures, especially Hindu scriptures, as well as through the readings I have done.

I would first like to discuss the myths that surround this wonderful and mystical subject. Of course, the big question at the very outset is whether or not one believes in the fact that the soul has transmigrated from one body into another through different lifetimes; or, is this a onetime journey? No amount of proof would convince the wannabe disbeliever. I respect their opinion but would like to address the myths in the minds of the disbelievers.

Myth 1: We again and again return in the human form.

Hindu scriptures state that there are 84,000,000 types of different yivas or lives that one could take, anything from the sea world to insects, birds, animals, and then the highest form–the human form.

I would leave the wise ones like the Discovery Channel orNational Geographic to inquire into the number 84,000,000. What is more important as spiritual thinkers is how could the soul return in the human form only? Yes, it can take the human form again and again, but I cannot accept that it would be the human form only. Bad, negative deeds would surely put the soul into a lower form of life in order for it to climb back into the human form through better deeds

Myth 2: We return into newer lifetimes to be punished.

If God, Universe, or whoever is the highest, purest, most complete and indestructible form that makes the universe move and work at His command, and if He has created a cosmic reason and purpose for this whole wonderful creation to work, why would he be so petty as to police negative deeds? Yes, to think of Him as the all-pervading master who sends the souls back to learn lessons is definitely more plausible.

Myth 3: We return repeatedly to finish ‘unfinished work.’

I am sure I would have to come back so many times if my soul carries my lazy streak! No, I think it is easier to comprehend that I am a work in progress myself and through gain and fall, I reach a state where I do not have to come back again.

Myth 4: It is we as souls who decide whether or not we want to come back.

I definitely do not think so! I think through a process of purification, one reaches a state of total surrender which gives us the access code to become one with the ONE, the God creator. At this point, there is no my decision or His divine decision; and taking both lightly in humor, but through nirvana or a state of total realization or spiritual merger, there is no joint decision either. It just happens that the soul loves its individual identity and having crossed over the plane of duality does not exist any more. The drop of water has entered the ocean and is now the ocean. Rebirth is not possible any more and ceases to exist.

Myth 5: Some souls need not have come back, but they are so spiritual that they decide to come back to ‘help’ others.

As souls, we do not make decisions. As beings with souls within us, we make decisions. Some people are so spiritually elevated that they naturally make the decision to help others. Well, in helping the masses, they definitely collect brownie points to totally purify themselves, but they definitely did not decide to return to help others.

Simply stated, according to the time and place that we are born in, and the purpose we choose in life, we should try to do our best deeds through a spiritual insight keeping in mind we wish to be purified. The realization and consciousness will keep bringing the desired change. In a past life reading, I prefer not to tell the person who he/she was and not give data that does not help in the present life of the person. Instead, it is a simple story of the soul to know the simple, easy changes, acceptance and actions that would help the querent on their beautiful soul journey.