On a chilly Los Angeles evening, a group of some forty sweet Souls came to join with Dr. Paul Kaye, author and President of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) for an inner journey. The evening was sponsored by MSIA, and as Dr. Kaye noted, that name really says it all in terms of what the evening was about: Moving in our spiritual inner awareness, with resources that already exist inside of us.

We prepared ourselves for our journey with a simple exercise: Identify what is most important to us—what we most want in life, as a quality of living—and measure our current experience of that on a scale of 0-10 (0 = not present to 10 = fully present). Some of the things people shared as most important included inner peace, knowing our purpose, success, healing, and moving from grief to peace.

From that point, we moved into a journey of simple practices to grow in our awareness, and possibly enhance our inner experience of our chosen qualities. One way to share about the evening’s experience is inspired by Dr. Kaye himself, who has a great loving and affinity for Asian culture. What follows below is a sort of poem sharing some of what I heard and experienced during the evening:

Beginning

We often try to live from the outside-in.
With judgments, feeling like a victim.
Believing in “If only…”
Science tells us the outside-in approach doesn’t work.
It doesn’t last.

Living from the inside out, we are not lacking.
We are not comparing.
We are not putting ourselves down.
We don’t have to involve ourselves in those things.
It’s a choice.

Look to simple things to steady our course in life.

Silence

Spending two minutes listening to the stillness.

See what comes out of this for you.

Be aware of the quality you experience.

We’ll do this again later, and see if there’s a difference

The Light

We let things go into the Light.

This includes letting go of our “goal.”

We let it go into a higher Light, for the highest good.

We use the Light because it works.

Use what works. Otherwise let it go.

Forgiveness

Like another practice for our journey, forgiveness.

Forgiveness helps us to take the load off.

The Present

We can come into the present.

The gift of right now.

What if all that existed was this moment?

It can seem more exciting to live out of the now.

Actually, it is more exciting to live in the now.

Because your attention must be fully present.

Breathing

Focus on your breathing as a key to now.

Pay attention only to the rise and fall of your natural breathing.

You don’t need to use any special technique.

No matter what you have done, it doesn’t matter.

It’s not right now.

Just be present now for 10 seconds.

After 10 seconds, already you may have a deeper attunement with yourself.

When a disturbance comes, use one of the tools.

The human experience is full of being out of balance.

That is what moves us forward.

Wherever you are is the greatest blessing.

Because it is part of taking you higher.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

The spiritual being is a loving being.

Silence

Another two minutes of silent time.

What was it like for you this time?

Whatever happened, it was all done through moving in your spiritual inner awareness.

And giving yourself up to the Light, to a higher form.

See if you can hold the stillness.

See if you can life from it while chatting and laughing.

See if you can live from the inside out.

Dr. Kaye closed the evening noting how the practices we participated with during our journey are some of the practices included in the book “Momentum: Letting Love Lead”, a beautiful book written by Dr. John-Roger, the founder of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, and Dr. Kaye. The book is available online at Amazon.com and also at your local bookseller.

God bless us all!