MP3s of Relationship Intensive Are Now available

This collection of MP3s of talks and short dialogues from the April, 2010 intensive will help you meet life and those in your life with love and acceptance. Some of the topics are: what love is, how to experience love, what makes relationships work, taking responsibility for your feelings and your happiness, what to do with judgments, and staying in the present moment. 3 hours total. $9.95. These talks and dialogues were formerly only available on a DVD, which is no longer for sale. For more information, please visit:

http://www.radicalhappiness.com/recordings

From Getting Free: How to Move Beyond Conditioning and Be Happy

The different types of conditioning could be categorized as follows:

1.    Conditioning that helps us function in society, be safe, and fulfill our potential. Examples are rules and beliefs that promote safe, healthy, loving, and otherwise positive behavior. This type of conditioning is considered positive or at least neutral.

2.    Beliefs, prejudices, and opinions we acquire while growing up and continue to acquire from others, our culture and society, and books and other media. As children, and even as adults, we absorb both verbal and nonverbal messages from our environment. The type of conditioning we absorb this way is mostly negative, since most beliefs and certainly prejudices and opinions aren't true enough to serve us well. Even a belief such as, "women need taking care of," which seems like it could foster caring, is only true in some circumstances. Such beliefs, prejudices, and opinions are generalizations and, as such, have minimal value, and when applied inappropriately, do more damage than good.

3.    Beliefs, prejudices, and opinions we acquire as a result of an experience that we may or may not be consciously aware of. Much of our conditioning is made up of conclusions we've come to about life and about ourselves and others as a result of our experiences. Some of our beliefs, prejudices, and opinions are the result of conclusions we drew in previous lifetimes, which continue to influence our current lifetime. Like many beliefs, these conclusions often result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if you concluded you aren't lovable because you didn't get enough love as a child, that belief is likely to cause you to act as if you aren't lovable, and others will take you at your word. That's how beliefs create our reality, or at least our experience of it.

There are desires that come from the ego and desires, or intentions, that come from Essence. They are experienced similarly, as drives to do or say something that will help achieve that desire or intention. The main difference is that the ego tells stories about its desires and fuels them with emotions (e.g., “When I get this, everyone will look up to me”), while Essence simply moves us to do or say something that will bring about its intentions. When we are aligned with Essence, our actions and speech feel clear and clean, and they lead to the intended result, while listening to the egoic mind often leaves us feeling confused and conflicted about what we want and how to get what we want.

The other most obvious difference is that getting what the ego wants brings only brief satisfaction and happiness, while getting what Essence wants brings deep happiness and fulfillment. You know when you are aligned with Essence’s intentions by feelings of excitement, joy, fulfillment, peace, relaxation, and contentment. These same feelings may be present when the ego gets what it wants, but they are more like a lower octave of the feelings that arise from Essence, and they don't last.

From Living in the Now by Gina Lake, now available as an ebook for only $.99.

Most of you reading this are pretty clear that you aren't your personality. Spiritual experiences bring us the realization that we aren't just physical beings, but spiritual beings in a physical body. The human vehicle that Consciousness is inhabiting includes a mind, conditioning, an ego, and a personality. This human vehicle is programmed to behave and respond to life in a certain way.

Part of this programming is the ego, which every human being has. The ego gives us the sense that we are an individual. Without this, we wouldn't answer when someone called our name or be able to function. So the ego serves the Creator, the Oneness, by creating the illusion that we are separate individuals rather than all One, as we are in truth. In addition to causing a sense of being separate from other human beings, the ego causes us to have certain desires—the desire for money, power, security, safety, recognition, comfort, superiority, and so on. These desires actually stem from the sense of separateness, and they result in the various human emotions: anger, hatred, greed, lust, jealousy, pride, shame, guilt, fear, hopelessness, depression, resentment, envy, and sadness.