Masters of the Spirit World

QUESTION: Masters, I find self-discipline a difficult thing to achieve. I practice to be in a more spiritual realm where I will not judge others and judgment will pass through me. I try to care for my physical, mental and spiritual bodies but just as I feel I am living truth with a sense of love and light, I self sabotage and the old habits and cravings and laziness creeps back. Although I lose a feeling of being inspired, guided and light when this occurs, I do feel comfortable. It’s as if deep down I don’t want this growth. Am I just lazy and don’t want it enough or could there be negative influences around me or emotional blockages that need to be released or is it not time yet for clarity – still processing and learning? ~Donna, Australia

ANSWER: As you may have concluded, self-discipline is one of your major life lessons this time around. You may more easily find your discipline by increasing the amount of your self-love. People cannot sabotage themselves when they love everything they do and have a firm idea of the overall intention for their life.

Your old habits are the belief systems you permit to control your daily life. Since you have freedom of choice, you, and you alone, determine which rules and regulations you choose to use to direct your life. It is comfortable to sit back and slide by with the rules others gave to you, so that you can blame them for not accomplishing that which you desire.

Discipline is assuming responsibility for your every action. Laziness is not caring about yourself and your direction in life. Concentrating on judgment is fine if you have already done your work on self-love. Falling backward may be considered as laziness but it is more the lack of self-confidence. You have a fear of the unknown, and the old that didn’t work is still more appealing than a future of unwritten outcomes.

The negativity that is blocking you is of your own making. Emotionally it is easier to stay still than to move forward. Start by examining how you feel about the way you are handling your life. Ask why anything you do not like is there. Ask where it comes from. These are your hesitancies, your blockages. These are the lessons. Learn that they don’t have to take center stage; push them into the background by thanking them for calling attention to things you had to work on, and get moving.

Work on loving yourself—not just for all the successes in your life, but for the failures or lessons, as well. Everything you do helps you grow in understanding and wisdom. Love that you allow this to happen. Work slowly and get comfortable with all the feelings life brings to you.

QUESTION: Masters, my wife and I have been married for 26 years but I feel our relationship is more karmic than anything. We have both done some hurtful things to the other over the years but neither of us is interested in separating from the other. (At least I speak for myself here.) Sometimes it seems like we stay together because of our children, but I feel we’d probably stay together even if we didn’t have children. Our feelings are polar opposites. When I’m happy, she’s not. When she’s happy, I’m not. But, when I’m away I want to be home, and I know when she’s away she wants to be home, too. Will you shed some light on this? Is this karmic, or is it just our way of experiencing duality, or is it something else? ~Tom, USA

ANSWER: It is time to start examining what your life, your singular path, means to you. What do you think your marriage is about? Saying things are “karmic” means you don’t feel you have any freedom in how things play out, but no one is pulling your strings. You are making the decisions. Each soul has total freedom of choice in setting up its lifetime.

You like sameness, or at least predictability. That is why you can’t wait to get home when you are away. You already know how your wife is going to react to every occurrence. When you are set into a pattern, it is like a rut. You think you can move forward only as long as you stay in that rut. Nothing is further from the truth; you can climb out any time you choose.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this type of living. Just don’t blame someone or something outside of you (karma) for it—you are making the choice. Because you and your wife are polar opposites, you have the sense that you are seeing the world. What you are getting is just enough experience that you don’t clamor for more. You are stuck in the comfortable familiar.

Your children are seeing one way that life may be lived. Staying together and choosing not to make different decisions about your life is not doing them any favors. They are seeing that you may live a nice life without taking responsibility to explore the world beyond or outside of your pattern.

The question becomes: what do you want your life to be?

QUESTION: Masters, one and a half years ago I started loving a guy on the phone. Nowadays some bitterness has come into our relationship because of his rude and non concerning behavior. What am I to do? Earlier he used to talk to me a lot on phone but after getting into his job he doesn’t talk a lot with me. I feel very bad because once I loved him a lot. I am thinking about a breakup but still it is difficult. Does he still love me? What should I do? Seriously I am not able to forget him. I cry a lot when I am all alone. ~Akshara, India

ANSWER: Your phone romance began during a time when he was bored and found it was fun to have someone fawning on every word he spoke. He could create and project an image of himself that he didn’t have to make real. He was trying out his sales and relationship techniques on you in a safe environment. Without personal contact he was safe to say and do anything he wanted.

His intention was to have you hang on every word he said, becoming dependent on his contacts. He wanted you to want him because it was great for his ego, which had been deflated in another relationship. He told you what he could sense you wanted to hear. He had very little invested in the emotions he was generating in you.

He does not love you and never loved you as anything other than as a woman he could manipulate through words. You so desperately need to be loved that even this minimal amount of energy made your heart sing. This is a good lesson for you in learning to value yourself more. It is the same as falling in love with a Bollywood star. Go out and meet someone face to face so you may see in his eyes if he is playing with you or is sincere.