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CHAPTER 1

Preface: On your horse Spartacus — The Spiritual Warrior

Courage is grace under pressure.

~ E. Hemingway

A new earth in the making

The world is undergoing an all-encompassing transformation that is pushing the individual to shift his focus inward and reclaim the right of innate bliss. On a vibrational level, people are irrevocably starting to understand that contrary to popular belief, happiness is not externally derived, and some friction is bound to be born out of that.

Mainstream news reports notes of chaos and fear with depression as the world's most widespread illness. People are aching more than ever for a fundamental explanation as to who they actually are and what they are meant to be doing within their anthropocentric and ego-ruled societies geared towards violence and self-destruction. But if this general air of malaise could be regarded as the desperate screech of the Inner Self longing to be heard, it would be possible to recognize the strike of the soul as it no longer wishes to live a life out of context. Everything that has been suppressed and denied is gearing up to take center stage, nudging not so subtly to reprogram the entire operating structure as human beings around values that no longer root in the old foundation of fear.

Gaia is undergoing the motions of a new day and luckily for her an increasing amount of people are awakening to discover an essentiality of human development in the conscious relinquishment of the comfort of old paradigms and setting out in an internal search for answers — an act of infinite courage that sees the individual assume a 360o angle of self-responsibility for their life creation. This modern warrior is being recruited to join in the most rebellious act mankind has ever seen: to commit to unconditionally love and respect themselves fully from today on. It will be a silent and internal revolution to break free from the matrix and recognize their true and limitless potential — because only in the absence of unconditional self-love can man be manipulated into creating his prison.

Adamantly armed with an endless thirst for knowledge and unreserved inner strength to carry through the fens of their illusionary self, they are the warriors who won't step down from the evolutionary mountain of self-consciousness. Pushed by an invisible force, they are nudged to look past the illusion of the ego self and reach inwardly for an integrated acquisition of conscious awareness.

This book is for them. To remind them that they are not alone, that they've never been, and that no matter how different or lost they may feel, they are loved — unconditionally so.

Darling, can't you hear me, S.O.S.

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

~ Walt Disney

Your Inner Self is waiting

Oh, but hello there. How wonderful of you to join me!

Let me put my invisible cigar out and drape my tartan quilt over my legs as you come closer to this astonishing fire I have just lit with the power of imagination. Uh that's nice isn't it? I think I can smell roasted marshmallows and caramelized chestnuts as the snow falls silently on this beautiful winter's evening of your soul. The stars are out and the setting couldn't be more favorable to be with you in this moment of your life and let you know that all of the power, the strength, and all the knowledge that you seek is hidden right inside of your being in this precise moment. That the happiness which you so rightly deserve and seek is never ever in the control of others (this constitutes your family, the politicians, the bus driver or God for that matter), full and absolute control to shape your life can solely stem from within YOU.

The title of this book wants you to remember that. It wants you to know that the part of you that shines, the one that can never truly die, no matter how much you have tried to ignore it or stuff it into the back of your wardrobe, is SOS'ing you right now from some deserted lost and found counter after you involuntarily abandoned it on your voyage — like an old cassette player you no longer needed. After all this time, it's still assured that you will remember it and someday show up and claim it as yours. It's looking at you right now as it's got your attention, slightly smug in its self-confidence that you couldn't get rid of it that easily. So come on then, we need to start working on jolting your memory to where the heck you have left it ... the world is a big place you know.

It's time to shut down the ever-imposing noise that surrounds you, the constant distractions that want you to look the opposite way of inwards, the ones that last for a fleeting moment only to leave you with crippling apathy and self-blame. It's time to shift your attention to inside of yourself and pay very close attention, my friend ... If you want to see miracles you better roll those sleeves up.

Baa-baa: The Following Mentality and personal responsibility

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

~ Jane Austen

Going your own way

Let me tell you about Max Hannigan, a dear friend of mine who waited a long time before realizing he had faked most of his happiness around what had been expected by the world instead of walking his own way. He was in his late forties by the time he'd started to sense something was off — working in the typical office environment, married, kids, mortgage, two garages, poodle, you know the crème de la crème with a cherry on top.

He wasn't sad per se, he felt like he had everything, he even believed to like his job — he loved having the money and being revered by his coworkers, his ego adored the attention of a promotion and got frustrated when it didn't get the drip-fed external validation that it needed. He grew on the false sense of security of being settled down and feeling like he fitted in, like he finally had a place in this world, as if he somehow had to earn the place! He never realized that just being was enough to give him the right to be happy, that it was okay to listen to that side of him that wanted to truly thrive, not just survive. But how could he hear that, after all he had as well as abandoned it to rot in some squalid downtown lost and found corner. The thorny part was his arrogance; his enormous ego had expanded to the size of Greenland and it wanted to hear no bells sounding apparent defeat, even if that actually heralded the acquisition of integrated and unconditional self-love and happiness.

All of his friends pretended to be happy too. They showed up every Sunday for the routine round of golf, proudly boasting about their recent purchases and holidays for everyone to admire. It was this game of who had more to show compared to others that had turned them completely deaf to the distant voice of their Inner selves as they continued to give in to their egos. They couldn't find the courage to ask what their hearts truly were yearning for because nobody had told them that it was okay to do so, and the risk of being labeled as different was blood-curdling in the most Scorsese kind of red.

Fitting in is most imperative for those who no longer value their own uniqueness; it hails from the pack animal mentality, right back to cave living. Following the herd has its perks in entry level rationale, or at least it did when we had to wrestle a wilder beast. For one it's safer; flock animals know this, they move following the main authority and do not ask questions as to why they do what they do. They feel the warmth of the bodies around them regardless of whether or not they are heading straight towards a cliff, which brings me to number 2. It's just easier. Following somebody else emancipates the individual from taking any hard-boiled decision. It's the Anti-Ikea mentality for the assembly of life: the pieces here come delivered already made, though the design is often cringe awful and with stains on the seats; any type of following requires less personal responsibility and effort, from following a religion, the world leaders, trends, beliefs. If anything goes wrong (and this is at number 3), the outcome can always be blamed on somebody else because it was never truly your wish or idea in the first place. Playing the game of life as the victim is easy, though the limitations are enormous because the victim never calls the real shots. Once we commit to the courageous act of becoming responsible for our Self, we bring back the power we have bestowed upon our exterior reality by responding to the call of our hearts — and nothing will feel safer than that.

Oh, and what happened to dear old Max, you ask? Well he was eventually struck by a serious case of the soul flu, the one that strikes at midnight and turns you paralyzed from the crown and down. Follow him on his journey as he goes from being the light in the wheelchair to the majestic light of conscious creation.

Tip: Next time you are faced with a choice, ask yourself what your Inner Self really wants, not what everybody else thinks is cool or right for you to do. Your Inner Self always knows best, always has done and always will do. And while you are at it, ask yourself why you would even consider the opinion of others in the first place. Do they define how you feel about yourself?

Being YOU ... wait ... who? Unconditional self-love

Those who were seen dancing were called insane by those who could not hear the music.

~ Nietzsche

How to integrate unconditional self-love

When we were young we thought the world to be amazing, full of mystery and joyous opportunities. We usually have to get through a lot of our adult lives to half-understand just how right we have been all along, and by then we've already started using Minoxidil for our receding hairlines (or the blue-tinted shampoo for the ladies).

You see, when it comes to self-awareness, often, or should I say always, it's not a case of having to learn new things, but rather unlearn everything we think we know, and remember what was inside us all along, before the mind became corrupted with conditioned and self-limiting thoughts. Before the infamous parasite called fear managed to sneak in and multiply like rabbits in a prairie. It is the chipping away process one must undertake to uncover their true and glorious essence, the masterpiece sculpture waiting to be found underneath all the acquired rubble.

Unfortunately, many people hoard illusions, the false sense of security, the misunderstood notion of being unworthy in the eyes of others if they don't follow what has been laid ahead of them, someone else's expectations, if not their parents' then society's or their culture's. They create a false sense of Self that is rooted in fear and hurt and directly identified with their ego — one where they no longer recognize who they truly are at their core, forever seeking their own inner love and abundance from the mercy of others. Human beings are so desperate to be loved and accepted from the outside which in itself is bordering on farcical given that most people do not know how to love and respect themselves in the first place. Many would go through hell and fire to look for this love externally, several never to return — if only they had known that they didn't have to go anywhere at all.

The slippery aspect is that without unconditional self-love, it isn't possible to achieve personal responsibility. And without personal responsibility, the concept of awareness does not become part of the immediate toolbox, which means that entrusting the power to shape life to the size that best fits the individual is given away to everybody else except to oneself — essentially throwing the right of happiness away for free, just like that, like olive oil down the drain.

People are indoctrinated early on into following restrictive patterns and belief systems and become automatically accustomed to invisible boxes of identity they are certain they need to fit in a society expert in exerting control while imposing limits. You would be a mad man to even question this, after all few people would want to stand alone against the machine.

That's when people start settling for average, more often than not even for mediocre. Because their friend Sally does, their neighbor Dave has done it always, and not to mention their parents who taught them early on that they were loved conditionally, rewarded by their love conditionally, a rule most have carried into their own love relationships as they grew older. Aided by the increasingly fear-based culture, people are taught that a competitive strike is healthy (it could be if self-love was integrated), that it is really still about the crowning of the 'strongest' or the more 'intelligent' or the 'prettiest', although someone, somewhere, has missed introducing the importance of crowning the honor of the most loving. The educational system is often one-dimensional and uniform for all, though everyone is bestowed with individuality and a unique soul expression. Society measures 'intelligence' predominantly by how much information brains are able to hoard, where creative and emotional intelligence is rewarded the least, yet these are the very qualities humanity is yearning for the most.

As soon as self-responsibility becomes an integral part of the individual, it becomes apparent to see that what the world truly needs is more people who can love themselves unconditionally — without this love, life will keep moving out of inner self context and forever be sealed in the grace of something external and unsustainable.

The journey towards the famous unconditional self-love, the one where you don't judge yourself constantly for every thought or action, where you find the will to forgive yourself, where you don't live your life for the acceptance from others because you value and respect yourself first, is the only journey you should consider taking this year. Trust me on that––it will take you to the most exotic and exhilarating places you have ever visited. Remember, who you naturally are is abundant and divine — who you show up as at the party of life is your own image and self-conditioning; when you stop having a problem with who you are, the real you shines through.

Tip: When you have a spare and quiet moment alone, go ahead and hug yourself, as tightly as possible. Hug yourself the way only children do, with your arms close to the neck and face, even if you feel a little silly doing it. Bend your head into your arms and take a real deep breath. Then start this type of dialogue where the inquirer is the three-dimensional you and the responder is your Inner Self. If you feel screwy talking out loud, you can keep the conversation in your mind where you feel absolutely safe. Repeat this Tip every day either in the morning or in the evening for as many days as you can bear it. Let the conversation unfold and progress in the most loving and proactive manner as you learn to be patient and forgiving towards yourself.

You: Do you love me?

IS: Yes.

You: Are you sure?

IS: Oh, yes, very much so.

You: But why? I'm so (enter whatever inadequate feeling you may have about yourself).

IS: I love you, unequivocally so. You don't have to be any other way than what you naturally are.

The corner of Max: Max had started to feel an unwonted pull towards his Inner Self, the one he had grown to forget. The first little panic attack struck on that golf course, just as he was about to swing the driver club into the air. Luckily for the fairy of ignorance, however, the whole episode was quickly fixed with a bottle of Coors Light and another strong dosage of self-denial. For now, Max still seemed to be able to keep his act together ... for now. After all, his ego was still the master ruler in the Kingdom of those asleep.

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Excerpted from "I'll Meet You At The Lost And Found"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Sam Glory.
Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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