Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness

The following are two snippets from the latest issue of The Culture of Awareness Weekly Newsletter, which I offer for $11.11 a month.

The snippets are from the ‘enlightenment discussion’ and ‘planetary healing’ segments, and you can read the segments in their entirety (along with the introductory segment, the reader’s question segment and the conclusion) by subscribing via the ‘subscribe’ button at the bottom of this post.

income from the newsletter helps my family and I get by, and every subscription is needed and appreciated. We could really use subscriptions right now, so if you enjoy these previews and you can contribute, feel free to consider a monthly subscription.

Hello, and welcome to the one hundred and thirty-fourth issue of The Culture of Awareness Weekly Newsletter.

This week, we’ll talk about making a positive impact on the world. We’ll also talk about the benefits of enjoying the simple things in life; we’ll talk about the return to a naturally rooted lifestyle for this week’s planetary healing; and I’ll answer a reader’s question about the number thirteen’s continuous appearance on the dollar bill.

(…)

Now, for this week’s Enlightenment Discussion

Note: I’m considering changing this segment back into the ‘Channeled Discussion’ that used to be in its place, which some of you might remember. Like it used to, it’ll feature an intuitive message from what I call ‘The Voice Within’, which you might call the ‘Higher Self’, and I figure it’s a good way to practice channeling again.

For now, I hope you enjoy this discussion about enlightenment.

Enjoying the simple things in life is a crucial stepping stone to enlightenment. We don’t need to strive so hard to enlighten ourselves – all we need to do is relax, release our mind-centered tension and take a look around (and within).

When we do, we’ll realize that Source is in everything. Everything in existence is a sacred embodiment of our creator, including us, and realizing this is the first step to living in harmony with everything around us.

We don’t need any big spiritual practices to find enlightenment, and all we need to do is sit back and admire the beauty and perfection of Source’s infinite creation.

Enlightenment seems like a hard goal that requires endless, diligent meditation and other spiritual practices, and while those practices are important and helpful, they aren’t the sole way back to an enlightened frame of mind.

Keep in mind that I haven’t attained enlightenment and I don’t intend to come across as someone who has, but from my perspective, the best way to attain it isn’t to sternly meditate until we reach a higher frame of mind. I think the best way to attain it is to embody it right here, right now; to live as if we already have it.

We can walk the earth as enlightened beings if we let ourselves, and all we have to do is transcend all of the mind-driven commotion that keeps us from simply living our lives, in joy and appreciation for this heavenly (and sometimes hellish) world.

(End snippet)

Now, for this week’s Planetary Healing

We talked last week about the little things we can do to heal the planet, and this week, I’d like to talk about returning to a natural lifestyle and changing the world with the inspiration that can result. I’ve probably written about returning to our natural ways before, but I want to talk a little more about it here because of its importance to healing the world.

It might go without saying that we can’t make any real planetary changes if our lifestyle still hurts the earth, and while some pollution-causing lifestyle changes seem unavoidable or inescapable, there are things we can do to reduce our negative impact.

The best thing we can do right now is question our lifestyle to determine if there’s anything we can scrap or do better. We’ll want to watch how much we throw away each day and what kinds of things we throw away, for example, because as we know, they go right to a landfill that pollutes the earth.

We obviously have to do something with our trash, but landfills pollute the world as much as anything else and we’ll want to make sure we send as little to a landfill as possible. Even if it doesn’t seem like it’ll make a difference, every act, big or small, ultimately helps change things.

Living a naturally rooted lifestyle entails living off the earth; consuming foods we know are natural and healthy and doing what we can to make sure we pollute as little as possible. All that’s really required for a natural lifestyle is the willingness to be simple and humble about things, and it doesn’t have to be difficult.

It might require us to make some big lifestyle changes, but for the most part, it only requires humility, simplicity and the willingness to determine if the things we do each day hurt or help.

(End snippet)