Month: July 2013

I would like to think I know a little about a lot of things in life. But I’ve learned there are a lot of things in life I don’t know very much about at all. For the longest time I gave the illusion to most people that I was a “Mr. Know It All”. Today I’m working on doing what I can to change that impression.

Does anyone really like a “Know It All”?

Growing up in grade school I often raised my hand and had the answer to many of my teachers’ questions. Of course it gave me the reputation of being a nerd and people picked on me incessantly because of it. As I grew older, I continued this pattern and believed I knew something about everything. One of the greatest downfalls that has come along with that is something I’m still working on. Unfortunately, I’ve had the tendency to use the Internet to look things up on the fly when someone makes a statement that I don’t believe is true. While I have often found inconsistencies in what people are saying and pointed it out to them, it’s also left me in an unfavorable light where I just seem like that annoying “Know It All”. Not only has this turned people off from wanting to get to know me, it has also prevented me from learning anything new. The best comparison I can make to this is to a full glass of water. What happens when one tries to pour anymore water into that full glass…? It overflows.

Though my journey of growth and healing to become closer to God, I have continuously been emptying out much of that glass of water so as to remain open to furthering my learning in life. In Buddhism, there’s a wise saying that says “as soon a student begins to think they know everything, the reality is that they really know nothing at all.” God continues to show me how profound this statement is. Each day now I ask to be emptied of my ego based belief systems that have kept me being that “Know It All”.

For many people, like myself was for the longest time, the world can become a fixed and rigid circle with its own inner belief systems. When anything that comes up to that circle is different from within it, it’s often rejected with many “Know It All” statements. One great example of this is how too many of the religions today are teaching its followers that homosexuality is an abomination from God. When in reality, if people were able to expand beyond their rigid circles of knowledge, they might see that gay people are loved by God too and that is the way God intended them to be. That’s just one of the many things I have expanded in my understanding and each time it happens, I continue to remember that to remain teachable, I have to allow myself room to expand.

I don’t wish to be that “Mr. Know It All” anymore. It only impedes my spiritual progress in life and pushes people away. It also gives power to my ego and limits my ability to grow healthier and be more loving to everyone. I think the next time someone around me says something that I believe is wrong, I won’t look it up on the Internet or try to correct them. Instead, I will try to remain silent and just listen for once. Who knows, maybe in doing that, God might help me learn something new…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Karma is a word that has its roots tracing back millennia to the Buddhism and Hinduism religions. It’s also becoming a word that’s being widely used these days as well. I have heard many in recent times using the phrase “karma’a a bitch…” and have often wondered if those people know what they’re really saying when they verbalize those words. Ironically, many of them are doing behaviors themselves that would constitute the concept of bad karma.

So what is karma? Simply put, it’s the law of cause and effect. Or in easier terms, “one reaps what one sows”. I have been delving into understanding this belief much more over the past few years of my life since making the decision to clean my whole life up on every level.

Up until March of 2010, I had functioned in what could be labeled as doing a lot of negative karma daily. I was very selfish and self-centered and went out of my way to get what I wanted at whatever the price, even if it hurt others. My words were often vicious and nasty to those closest around me. I seduced and maintained relationships with married men. I often lied, cheated, and backstabbed to “move ahead” in life. In doing all of this, I took what Christians label as “free will” to the fullest extent possible. But eventually, I grew more and more miserable. In the midst of all that misery, I prayed to God to go through whatever I needed to go through, to rid myself of all the pain I had caused others and myself, so as to heal and never repeat those behaviors ever again. Within a month, my life had become riddled with tremendous pain and has persisted ever since. Many of the healers and practitioners I have seen, as well as the Shaman I currently use as a spiritual teacher, have all said that my pain is the release of all that negative karma, because I essentially had asked for it in prayer.

Given that it seemed like such a big word to me, I chose to understand karma in a much easier way by making it synonymous with the word energy. Good karma became positive energy and bad karma became negative energy where each could be stored in and around my whole being. So during all those extremely selfish years of my life, I believe I took on a lot of negative energy and unfortunately, I wasn’t doing much in the way of putting out the opposite of that with positive energy. What has been even more frustrating is when I think about the idea of reincarnation. Many of those Eastern religions also believe that a soul can be re-birthed again and again, life after life, solely to learn new spiritual lessons and become more enlightened. Having already had a few past life experiences occur about ten years ago, I have accepted truth to this concept as well. Sadly, though that I have had to come to the belief that many of the negative behaviors I was doing in this life, I was also doing in my previous ones as well. Thus, this has led me to believe that my negative energy release process is both of this life and all previous ones.

So far, I really have no hard core proof to the concept of any of this that I am writing about. But frankly, it is something that keeps me going now because there have been no medical or scientific answers to all the pain and suffering I’ve been going through for over three years now. If truly all of what I am going through is the release of all that negative energy I conceived in this life and previous ones as well, I’m totally for it. That’s only because I believe that on the other side of that release process will be a closer relationship with God where I’m not blocked by desires to go out and live in free will and act out more of the “bad karma” I once regularly did.

If anything, I’m trying to put positive energy, or the “good karma”, out into the universe now through most of what I do each day. The main reason why I write articles, such as this, everyday is to send out more love, hope, and spiritual healing into this world. I often speak about my recovery from addictions at places such as hospitals and detox centers to provide that same thing for those still suffering from addictions. I also try to do kind deeds all the time to brighten up other people’s days. But most importantly, I take time everyday to pray, meditate, and recite mantras to assist in my own release process, and I do everything I can to maintain a healthy body, mind, and soul as well.

So does karma exist? I can’t answer that. But what I can answer though is that at least I know I’m doing now what I can to correct all those former behaviors and actions that I did which added nothing but more pain and anguish to the world and myself. And I’m also doing what I can to love everyone equally a lot more than I ever used to. From taking this new path alone, I can at least say I’m a lot happier than I ever used to be when I was doing what those Eastern religions would classify as a lot of “bad karma”.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I may be in my 40’s now but that hasn’t stopped me from tapping into the little kid that still lives within me. Each and every one of us has a little boy or girl still inside. Unfortunately, too many of us are told to put on our “big boy or girl pants” or to just plain grow up. While in some moments that may be important, there are plenty of others where it’s equally as important to remember and honor one’s inner child.

For years, I neglected my own. During all that time, I hung around people who I allowed to abuse me. In each of those terrible moments, I could feel a little kid inside me crying and wanting to feel loved and accepted. I ignored those pleas and cries and avoided doing most of the things that this little child within liked doing. My whole world gravitated towards being a strict and closed minded adult. As a result, I grew more and more miserable and found it harder to smile about anything. When I finally removed all the people in my life that told me I had to be a certain way, that were toxic, or that didn’t accept me for me, I began to honor my inner child. As time has moved forward since then, I have tried to do things daily that honor this little kid that lives within me.

One of those happens on many mornings where I wake up and grab myself a bowl of some type of cereal and watch cartoons, mostly superhero based. It was something I did throughout all of my childhood that brought me great joy and truthfully still does. There are many other things as well though that I do now to respect the little boy that lives within me who I once did my best to keep tucked away. I go out for gooey ice cream sundaes. I jump up on shopping carts and ride on them when I’m leaving a store. I make goofy faces and odd noises. I play board games. I mix weird food combinations together just to see what it tastes like. I like to make roaring fires and toast marshmallows. I sleep next to a teddy bear. I enjoy telling corny jokes that an eight year old might say. I take great pleasure in playing in the sand at the beach. And well, I could go on and on.

It’s not that I am a kid all the time either. I have learned in my closer relationship with God that life is all about balance. There are times I know I need to be a grown up and there are times I know it’s ok to be a kid. The main point though is allowing both to exist equally. Too many adults are doing what I did for years where they feel as if they need to “act their age” all the time. I have found in doing so, it only brought on more sadness and misery because I neglected a part of someone still living inside me.

I encourage everyone today to take a moment, breathe, and do your best to find and spend some time with your inner child. I’m sure there was at least one time in your life where you loved being a kid and were able to find great happiness and delight in doing something simple. Try to focus in on remembering just one of those things and then do it. You might actually find it brings a huge smile onto your face and allows you to feel something you haven’t felt in a very long time…the joy of being a kid again.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson