Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I am your host today. We're going to be talking about introduction to my higher self. and how to connect with my higher self. So it's going to be a nice spiritual introduction today. But before we get started, if you enjoy this programming and enjoy this content, please like share and subscribe, and then feel free to share with your family and friends to enable others to benefit from this content. So today we're going to talk about how to connect with my higher self. In the Brahma Kumaris, which is the organization that I belong to, and the meditation that we practice. And by the way, in the description, you'll see all about what we do, but,, all of our classes, everything's offered free of charge. We teach meditation and spiritual knowledge. So one of the things, the very first lesson of this knowledge is that you are a soul. I'm a soul. So what's a soul, and so a soul means I am the living being. I am the spiritual consciousness. I am the consciousness, living consciousness that's inside this body. I'm a human being, which means I'm a soul and a body together, working together. So when we talk about the higher self. we need to talk a little bit about what higher means, right? And I'm going to describe it this way. There's an idea of what we think of would be the ideal, like the best, the highest, or what's good. What is good? If you can think of maybe a spiritual leader or God, or,, if you want to think of Jesus or Buddha or whatever,, those are like typical things that people think of when they think of higher. or, more divine or something like that. But today I want to talk about the self, the higher self. I have a Christian background and, there's this thing in Christianity in the Judeo Christian tradition, which is that God made us in his image. So what does that mean? What's the image of God? So God is a spirit. You could say God is a spirit. And even if you don't believe in God, it's fine. But what I'm getting at is that we have a spiritual nature. There's something about us that's not physical. And it's not dead energy. It's living energy. Like I'm alive. This body is made of energy, but the body, the hand doesn't know it's a hand. I know I'm alive, right? So it's living energy, but there's also a quality to that energy. Now, we say the original nature of the soul is peace, but maybe I don't feel peaceful a lot. Right? So if I want to learn about my higher self, I need to learn about what is the original nature of the self, of the soul. Like if I was a perfect human being, what would I be like? And we say that the soul has some original qualities that all souls have. So peace is one of them. Peace, love, happiness, wisdom, generosity, purity, silence, stillness, things like that. So when I'm looking at connecting with my higher self, we can choose some of those qualities to work with. So let's use peace as one of them. So if I'm going to say I want to connect with my higher self, I could say I want to connect with the peaceful self. I want to connect with myself as peace. So when we practice meditation, we're, we're bringing my attention inward and I'm associating myself with that higher quality. It could be love. It could be peace. It could be generosity, but I'm associating myself with that quality. Even if I have other behaviors or everything that I, not proud of, or maybe I think is wrong, or maybe I feel guilty or ashamed about, when I'm thinking about my higher self, I'm thinking that it is possible for me to be peaceful. It is possible for me to be good, let's say. That's not so easy for some of us, right? The reason I'm calling it the higher self is because I could call it God also. It works both ways in a sense that I'm associating myself with this quality that I maybe am not experiencing all the time. How do I do that? Well, first of all, you start with an idea that it's possible. So let's say I'm very sad. Let's say I feel myself sad a lot of times, or maybe I have regrets about different things in my life. Maybe I did before. And now I'm introducing this idea that, okay, I'm going to try to be connect with my higher self. Well, my higher self, well, what is that? Well, maybe my higher self doesn't feel regret. Maybe my higher self feels content. Maybe my higher self feels full of love. or understanding, right? You can also use the idea of higher self as to give me what I feel that I need. So let's say I feel like today this happened. I felt like I made a mistake, which nowadays after doing this spiritual practice for a long time. The word mistake doesn't really have that much meaning anymore because it happened and, I'm learning and I'm moving on. But today it felt like a mistake and it felt like I wasn't happy with myself and that kind of thing. But what would be good at that time would be to reach up to my higher self to give me or give myself that which I need. So in this case today, I needed patience. And I needed to be able to tolerate the, with kindness, the feelings that I was having. Think about it for a minute. You know, sometimes people, they can, reach out to a friend or, you know, pray and whatever, and that's fine. That's all good. Today I'm talking about actually tapping into your own inner resource. The higher self that is peaceful, the higher self that is understanding, higher self that is loving, merciful, benevolent, wise, right? One thing I wrote down here too, as is silence. How many of you have thought to associate yourself with silence? When I am in touch with silence, I'm also in touch with my higher self. And what's the benefit of silence? It's interesting that when we're so used to being so busy, silence feels like a, kind of like a death, like something's stopping. But when you get into this silence that I'm talking about, this kind of fullness of heart silence and the fullness of the, of being you, it actually feels like I'm being nurtured. in that silence. Many of you have probably experienced like in nature and things like that, like an experience where you were in like a silent nature scene and you weren't talking and you weren't moving, but you were able to connect with that energy around you, right? That silent energy around you. It wasn't totally silent, but there was a kind of a harmonious fullness of life. That's what it's like to connect with the higher self. I'm connecting. I'm associating myself with this fullness of life inside myself. I want to say that this is very easy to do. Very, very easy to do. We're going to practice now too. We'll practice together, but what I want you to do is I'm going to, I'm going to read out a couple of different qualities and I want you to think, I'm going to pick one for the exercise. So you pick one. Okay. So one is silence. One is peace, one is openness, one is love, generosity. Try those for now. So pick one of those. And as we do this exercise, I want you to associate yourself with that quality. Like somewhere inside me, I am that quality. So let's practice this for a moment. So you can either close your eyes or you can just look at me, that's fine. And just. Sit quietly in the seat for a minute and just think for a minute. Is it possible that I have a higher self? Like there's a, there's a cleaner, better me inside, let's say, that I can look up to, that I can feel good about, that I can use as a resource. And think about which quality you like out of those. I'm going to use peace because that's a good one to start with because that's a good, solid, stable quality. So I'm going to use peace. So I'm going to sit quietly and I'm going to just breathe for a minute. And then maybe I can notice that in my mind, my mind might be thinking and doing a couple of things. And so I'm going to now associate myself. I'm going to say that my original nature or my higher nature is peaceful. I could also say I am peace. I am a spiritual being. I am my higher self and me, it's myself, right, is peaceful. So I can also say I am peaceful. So little by little I can make myself that thing that I'm talking about. I am benevolent. I am peaceful. I am. and then let myself feel peace. I am a spiritual being and my nature is peaceful. This is the meditation practice that we do, right? But then how does it help me throughout the day? Like I'm not sitting in meditation. So how does that help me throughout the day? Well, I can remember, I can remember. So while I'm, we have a practice called, and I mentioned it in another episode, we have a practice called traffic control or mini meditation where we stop what we're doing for like two to three minutes and just remind myself that I'm a soul and my nature is peace. It's very, very simple, but it's powerful because you're stopping that other stuff that's going on in your head. And you're focusing on this and you're not just focusing on it, but you're associating with it. You're saying, I am that. It's a very powerful thing. You know, unconsciously we're telling ourselves that we are something all the time. I'm no good. I'm late. I'm, I made a mistake. I, this, I, I, I, I, I. How many things am I associating myself with all day that are maybe negative or disempowering? So in this case, I'm associating myself, higher self or my spiritual self, and I'm associating myself with that quality. So let's try it again. So let's say I am peaceful soul. I am a peaceful spiritual being. I'm also benevolent with a benevolent nature. I have a benevolent nature and maybe I can imagine the world and giving love or giving good wishes and peace to the world. How do I connect with my higher self? I connect with the qualities. of the spirit, the spiritual qualities, peace, love, power, bliss, purity. Just pick one, pick whichever one you want, and then sit there and associate yourself with it. I may not be feeling this right now, but my higher self is that thing. And now I'm going to associate myself with that. Maybe you could also imagine too, that your higher self is like watching over you. I know there used to be like an idea of a guardian angel, or sometimes people say God is watching over you. You can say you are watching over you also, doesn't have to be someone else. But we want to integrate this kind of spiritual knowledge in here, this kind of idea that it's not the human part. Now we're talking about the spirit part, the nonphysical part. I am a peaceful soul. I am an eternal living being, and my original nature is peace. That statement, if you practice that and allow that to create that feeling, we're starting to associate with something different than what we usually do. That's how Raja Yoga meditation works, actually. So you can say, like I said before, you can say that it's God, Also, you can say the supreme soul. You can say, I'm remembering God. God is the ocean of love, the ocean of peace. You can also say my higher self, I am a soul and my original nature is peace. So that's in the same way. Those are very similar. So that's what we can do when we meditate. But throughout the day, just try to remember that I can associate myself with those higher qualities and you can call that my higher self. So that's the way to connect with my higher self. At first it may not seem very natural and it's okay. The main thing is to think about the quality and not the physical part. What we're trying to do in meditation and Raj yoga and all this spirituality is we're trying to move away from the physical into the more energetic, the more spiritual, the more heart based experience. And if I can associate myself with a quality like peace, or a quality like love or a quality like benevolence. And that's going to make me feel better about myself over time. We have a lot of practice of looking at myself in a negative way, and it's going to take time. It's not going to automatically shift, but this is the practice we can do to connect. And I can call it my higher self. I can call it my pure self and I can connect anytime I wish. And the more I practice, the more I will benefit. It's not just the mind that benefits too. It's also the body. Cause we know that when whatever I'm thinking affects the body, right? So as I'm thinking of myself as peace, the body's experiencing peace also. So I'm going to stop there. This was a little bit shorter, but it was pretty, um, succinct as a practice. Think of yourself as a spiritual being. Think of yourself as having good qualities, spiritual qualities. And then throughout the day or when you're practicing meditation, associate yourself with those qualities. Peace. That's my quality. I am that I am peace. I am benevolent. I am loving. Yeah. Sometimes when we practice this, the old stuff will come up and just say, you know what? Maybe I don't experience it all the time, but I do believe that my higher self, I do believe that somewhere inside me, this is true. And it's okay because we all have to start somewhere. So I'll leave you with that for, for this week. And I hope that you practice and just even just take one of those qualities and practice that and say, Dr. Anne told me I have to remember that I'm a soul and by my nature is peace or my nature is love and practice that throughout the week and see what happens. Okay. I'll leave it there. Remember our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. aNd until next time, take care. Um, uh,
