Living Your Truth Beyond The Veils Of Illusion
When you awaken to who you really are — beyond your physical body, thoughts, and emotions — you become fully conscious. You begin to live your life beyond the veils of illusion.
This is enlightenment: a state of being in which you have a clear inner realization that you are more than just your body, mind, or personality. It is the recognition of your soul, your divine essence, your true place within the greater fabric of all creation.
Enlightenment is not reserved for saints, sages, or spiritual teachers. It is a living potential within each of us. Nor is it merely a poetic or mystical concept. Enlightenment is a profound existential truth rooted in inner transformation and spiritual transcendence. It is freedom from illusion — the veil of appearances that clouds our perception and keeps us bound to fear, ego, and limitation.
Enlightenment is a return to clarity, authenticity, and the radiant awareness of the light within.
When you are enlightened, you see life clearly. You no longer blindly respond to external expectations, conditioned behaviors, or unresolved wounds. Instead, you live from a place of inner truth and spiritual sovereignty. You recognize your connection to all that is, and your choices begin to reflect this deeper awareness.
However, enlightenment is not an escape from the material world. You still live in it, but you are no longer deceived or controlled by it. You remain grounded, present, and fully engaged in life — but now with a heart full of peace and a mind aligned with higher wisdom.
The Touching Tale Of The Praying Hands
In the fifteenth century, in a tiny village near Nuremberg, Germany, lived a family with 18 children. Yes, eighteen! To put food on the table for this mob, the father and head of the household, a goldsmith by trade, worked nearly 18 hours a day at his trade, as well as any other paying job he could find in the neighborhood.
Despite their seemingly hopeless situation, Albrecht and Albert, two of the older children, had a dream. They both wanted to pursue their talent for art, but they were well aware that their father would never be financially able to send either of them to an art academy.
After many long discussions at night in their crowded bed, the two boys finally worked out a pact. They would toss a coin. The loser would go down to the nearby mines and use his earnings to support his brother, who would attend the academy.
Then, after four years, when the brother who won the coin toss finished his studies, he in turn would support the mining brother to also attend the academy – either by selling his artwork or, if necessary, by working in the mines.
They tossed a coin one Sunday morning. Albrecht Dürer won the toss and went to Nuremberg to study art. Albert went down into the dangerous mines and spent the next four years financing his brother, whose creative work at the academy was almost immediately a sensation.
Albrecht’s etchings, woodcuts, and oils were far superior to those of most of his fellow students and even his professors, and by the time he graduated he was beginning to earn substantial fees for his commissioned works.
The Difference Between ‘Psychic’ And ‘Intuitive’
The terms “psychic” and “intuitive” are often used interchangeably, but there is a fundamental difference between the two. Understanding this distinction can enhance one’s spiritual practice, deepen your self-awareness, and clarify the role these abilities play in navigating energy, conscious living and spiritual awareness.
The term “psychic” refers to the ability to access information through a special non-physical or spiritual system of perception, more often called the psychic senses or the clair senses. This ability allows a person with psychic ability to perceive or sense information without using the five physical senses. Psychic perception involves tuning into unseen frequencies and receiving impressions that are inaccessible to the five ordinary senses.
Psychic perception therefore involves reaching outward to access information from external sources. This can include tuning into other people’s energies, telepathy, communicating with the spirit realm, exploring the Akashic Records, or channeling from the universal consciousness.
The term “intuitive” refers to a the ability to access information within. Intuitive perception involves connecting with your higher self or soul essence, tapping into the innate wisdom, guidance and truth that resides within you. Unlike the psychic process of acquiring information, intuition is less about “getting” and more about already “having”-a natural inner knowing or awareness that arises effortlessly.
Why Your Spirit Helpers Choose To Work With You
I have learned through spirit communication that everyone on earth is guided by someone in the spirit world, even though they may not be aware of it. In fact, most people go through life receiving spirit’s protection and support every day without ever being aware of it.
These spirit helpers, ranging from our ancestors and loved ones on the other side, to shamanic totems and nature spirits, spirit guides and guardians, ascended masters and angels, all serve as beacons of light, love and wisdom and provide vital support for our personal and spiritual growth.
But their involvement in our lives is far from random or accidental. These beings are connected or drawn to us for reasons beyond our earthly existence, to help us fulfill our soul’s mission and contribute to the greater good of universal spiritual evolution.
Our spirit helpers connect with us here on the earth plane to guide, teach, protect and support us. Their roles transcend the individual, as they also serve a higher purpose — to assist with the collective evolution of all souls, the expansion of the universe, and to be in service to the divine.
Understanding why these spirit beings choose to work with us offers profound insights into the nature of our spiritual journey, the interconnectedness of souls, and how our actions, thoughts and intentions ripple out to affect the whole.
The Ancient Wisdom Of The Two Wolves
The story of the Two Wolves holds a special place among my childhood favorites. The moral of this Native American wisdom tale, thought to have originated with the Cherokee tribe, serves as a daily guiding light in my life.
I must confess, there is some sentimental bias on my part, as this story also brings back lovely memories of my remarkable grandfather, Sequoia, a former medicine man and chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Variations of the story exist in various Native American cultures, and it typically goes like this:
One evening, an old Cherokee is teaching his granddaughter about life and says, “My daughter, a fight is going on inside all of us each day. It is the battle between the two wolves.”
“One wolf is evil — anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good — joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The granddaughter thinks about it for a minute and then asks her grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
Follow Your Passion And Truth
In Native American tradition, human existence and well-being is based on the Medicine Wheel, also known as the Sacred Hoop, that consists of the Four Directions, Father Sky, Mother Earth, and the Spirit Tree. Together these ‘spokes’ of the wheel honor all aspects of human existence, growth, balance, and well-being: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
In each lifetime, we are destined to achieve progress in one or more of these areas until, finally, after many incarnations, all the ‘spokes’ of our wheel are complete – all the way from the inner hub to the outer rim. At that point, we have completed our various missions through many incarnations in a myriad of schoolrooms, and we finally achieve ascended mastery.
When all our spokes are complete, we leave this dense, earthly dimension and arrive at the highest plane of existence, the realm of the Great Spirit, traditionally known as the ‘Hunting Grounds of the Ancestors,’ and since the arrival of Christianity, as ‘Heaven.’
In this state we never need to descend again, and will remain infinitely in the higher dimension. We are liberated from the endless cycle of rebirth and reach a new level of consciousness and enlightened existence, known as nirvana in Buddhism, moksha in Hindusim, and eternal life in Christianity.
As a result, from a spiritual stand-point, we are offered a smorgasbord of options and choices that we may need for our particular journey in this lifetime. The enthusiasm and passion we feel when we are guided to a particular path is spirit directing us toward the ‘curriculum’ we need to complete in order to achieve our ultimate goal of transcendence in one or more spokes of our wheel.
Reflections
Sitting on the porch. Rocking. Yes, rocking in my willow rocking chair, surrounded by the smell of petrichor – that delightful odor the earth gifts us with when fresh rain is coming down after a long, dry spell. The aroma of the freshly hung chile ristras greets me in the Santa Fe, New Mexico tradition at this time of year, when the growing season is done and the picking of the season’s ripe offerings has begun. Richness abounds with the aromas of the petrichor and the strung pods of red chile blending in the softness of the evening breeze.
The automatic flood light and the blue laser lights have come on, as they do every day at dusk, to illuminate the waterfall in the garden, although it’s still a bit early for them to shine their brightest. Not quite dark enough yet, but soon it will be. I just fed my precious four-legged fur daughter her dinner. Now that my day is done and another week has gone by, I am contemplating whether or not I have done well this week.
Yes, I believe so! I have learned so much and have grasped many new concepts. I also renewed my awareness of some familiar concepts that were in need of repetition, so I could complete some hard earned lessons. And I found resolution to some newer viewpoints on old issues. Whew! I feel I’ve been turned wrong side out in just one week, only to realize it is the other way around. I was wrong-side-out before. Now I’m right-side-in, or more so at least.
I look up from my musings to see the lights. It is dark now and they’re shining brightly against the dark night sky. The lasers look like blue fireflies as they pinpoint their magical presence. The synchronicity feels deeply significant. At the end of another week, after much breaking down of old thought patterns, I see the flood light and laser lights reflecting the realization that I am different now than last week, or at any time before.