What Rules You?

There is no spiritual journey that comes with instructions.

You need to seek knowledge—especially knowledge of yourself—and then learn how to apply that knowledge to your own life.

That is how knowledge becomes wisdom.

When you are constantly seeking instructions and following authorities outside of yourself, you only learn how to apply information the way someone else told you to apply it. You are learning their way. Their interpretation. Their rules.

At some point, that stops being a spiritual journey and becomes following a leader.

Someone else cannot tell you exactly how to listen to your higher self.

You have to learn to listen within.

A spiritual path is not a set of instructions. It is a personal journey. A personal path guided by your own consciousness, intuition, experience and higher self.

You will have teachers.

You must read books.

You should partake in traditions.

You can learn from people who have spent their entire lives studying something you know nothing about.

Please do.

But gaining wisdom and following instructions are not the same thing.

When you constantly need someone outside of yourself to tell you what to do, what to believe, what not to believe, what you are allowed to explore and what you should be afraid of, you have surrendered an enormous amount of inner authority over your own mind.

True sovereignty comes from being self-led.

Spirituality has no rulebook

Instructions belong to systems.

Belief systems that ascribe to doctrines, rituals, rules and approved practices.

Religion and ritual have always been intertwined. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Abrahamic traditions contain levels of power, inductions, sacred words, symbolic actions, ceremonial objects, prayer and prescribed practices. Catholic communion literally involves consuming bread and wine understood sacramentally as the body and blood of Christ.

But call something magic or ritualistic and suddenly people get uncomfortable.

Okay.

Humans have been using ritual, symbolism, prayer, intention and ceremony to interact with the sacred since the beginning of time.

Wicca is another example. Modern Wicca developed as an organized religion in the twentieth century, with a man named Gerald Gardner playing the foundational role in its development and popularization. It has traditions and prescribed practices because it is a religious system.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a system.

But a system is not the same thing as spirituality itself.

Spirituality does not come with nor require a list of instructions.

Wisdom does not come from memorizing a list of rules.

Wisdom comes from learning, experiencing, questioning, observing and eventually understanding something within yourself.

Learn the Principles. Then Think.

This is why I am interested in universal principles and metaphysics.

Principles are not instructions.

They are ideas to investigate.

Consciousness. Vibration. Frequency. Psychology. Alchemy. Cause and effect. The relationship between our internal world and the way we experience the external one.

Some of these things can be measured scientifically. Some belong to philosophy, psychology or metaphysics. Some are spiritual theories about the nature of consciousness and reality.

I don't need all of them to be apprived by one lineage in order to explore them.

I want to know more.

I want to ask questions.

I want to investigate what happens when ancient spiritual ideas intersect with modern understandings of the mind, matter, vibration, frequency, consciousness and human psychology.

And then I want to decide what I believe.

Who Has Control of Your Mind?

If I believe something and you don't, why should my belief have power over you?

If someone tells you something is dangerous, evil, forbidden or capable of harming you, do you immediately accept it as universal truth?

Or do you investigate it?

When you operate from fear, you become extremely easy to control.

Fear makes us look outside ourselves for protection, reassurance and authority.

So ask yourself:

What do I believe I need protection from?

Who am I scared of? Why am I scared of them? Where did that fear come from? Is it based on something I have experienced? Something I have investigated? Or something somebody told me to fear? When you understand yourself—your beliefs, your reactions, your fears, your desires, your patterns—you become much harder to manipulate.

You begin to develop sovereignty over your own inner world.

Not control over the entire universe.

Control over yourself.

Your attention. Your emotions. Your reactions. Your choices. Your energy. Your mind.

Stop Telling Me Where I Am Allowed to Look

You cannot deeply get to know yourself while simultaneously being terrified of exploring the world.

Don't look here.

Don't learn this.

Don't read that.

Don't practice this.

Don't trust those people.

Only learn this.

Only believe that.

At some point, you have to ask:

Why, and who gains th power from these collective belief systems?

Why shouldn't I learn about it?

Knowledge does not require agreement.

I can learn about a religion without joining it.

I can study a philosophy without adopting it.

I can investigate a spiritual practice without making it my identity.

I can listen to someone without making them my leader.

I can change my mind.

I can take what is useful and leave what isn't.

That is what discernment is for.

If you never allow yourself to encounter anything outside of what you already believe, you aren't exercising discernment.

You're exercising obedience.

Stop Looking Everywhere but Within

We look for ourselves everywhere.

In a job.

In a style.

In a relationship.

In a spiritual community.

In a culture.

In an identity.

In what other people think about us.

We want to be likable.

We want to be accepted.

We want to belong.

And sometimes we care so much about what other people think of us that we never stop to ask what we think of ourselves.

Who are you when nobody else gets to label you?

What do you believe when nobody else is there to approve of your answer?

What do you want when you aren't trying to make yourself understandable to everyone else?

When you know who you are, other people's labels become much less important.

You don't have to ascribe to them.

You don't have to defend yourself against every interpretation of you.

You don't have to become whatever somebody else has decided you should be.

You can know yourself.

Accountability Is Power

Knowing yourself requires accountability.

Accountability is one of the surest ways to access your own power.

Not because everything that happens to you is your fault.

It isn't.

The world isn't always fair.

Things happen that we did not choose and cannot control.

But once something has happened, there is power in asking:

Now what can I do?

What is mine to change?

What can I learn?

What can I do differently?

Where do I still have agency?

What am I going to do with the circumstances I have?

The more responsibility you take for the part of your life that actually belongs to you, the less time you spend waiting for something outside of yourself to rescue you.

Stop seeking outside yourself for everything you already possess within yourself.

Seek Knowledge

Seek knowledge.

Not instructions.

Seek wisdom.

Not a leader to follow.

Learn from people without surrendering yourself to them.

Question what you are taught.

Question what you believe.

Question what frightens you.

Question me.

You do not need another human being to have unnecessary domain over your inner world, so be conscious of how readily you offer that power away.

Create space to trust yourself.

Think before you give your energy away.

Learn.

Explore.

Experience.

Apply.

Become wise.

Become discerning.

Become self-led.

Step into your power. Do it for you.

And watch what begins to find you when you stop searching outside yourself for permission to be aware of who you naturally are.

with LOVE,

Aja