Alan Seale is a highly sought after leadership and transformation coach. He has led workshops and keynote presentations at the Kripalu Center in Lenox, MA; the International Coach Federation annual conference in St. Louis, MO; the South Bay Organizational Development Network in Silicon Valley, CA; and similar events nationally. He is the author of Intuitive Living and Soul Vision;Life Mission. He lives in Rochester, New York.

CHAPTER 1

Finding the Path

Welcome to this wondrous journey into you. Me, you might ask? Yes, you. For ifyou want to find Spirit, if you want to find God, if you want to know Love andhow this marvelous universe works, you must take the journey into you. As youdo, you will begin to uncover extraordinary parts of you that you never knewwere there. And you will come to much more profound understandings about partsyou thought you already knew very well. The deeper you go in spiritual self-discovery,the higher you can fly in conscious awareness of all that surroundsyou, seen and unseen, heard and unheard, known and unknown, thought andunthought. Sounds simple? It is. Sounds difficult? It is.

For now, welcome to the path—your path. It belongs to no one but you. Sometimesit will feel like you are creating it as you go, and other times it will appearto have been created for you. This is the mystical path, plain and simple— apath of co-creation, serendipity, miracles, and day-to-day, moment-tomomenthuman experience.

We all have experiences of Spirit and intuition in our own way. There is nosingle way. What is important is that people who so desire find their way, findtheir own sense of spirituality and its unfolding journey, and come to knowtheir own intuitive process, their own sense of Love and its movement throughtheir lives. This book is a result of my own spiritual and mystical journey todate. It has been a journey of awakening to the essence of who I am and thetruth that is me, leading to the constant and powerful presence of intuitiveunderstanding—profound communication with myself and with Spirit.

The words on these pages and the ideas they present all have come from someaspect of "doing the work"—daily meditation, Spirit Circles, teaching classesand workshops, clairvoyant counseling sessions and readings with individualclients, long and solitary drives from my country house to my city office andstudio, walking the earth, and living with and in Spirit. What I want to sharewith you is the richness of life that can come from developing your intuitivegifts through a more acute awareness of Spirit, a process that involvesself-discovery and leads to self-empowerment. This journey moves far beyond thefascination level of "psychic phenomena" and enters the domain of the soul.Developing intuitive gifts is an in-depth process of journeying to the core ofyour being and removing any and all obstacles that might separate you from thefullness of Love. The more we work through and let go of our own excess baggage,the clearer and brighter the soul shines out, and the easier it is for us simplyto become one with Spirit, the Universal Mind or God-force, granting access toall of the knowledge and wisdom that is there for us.

I certainly can't say that my journey with Spirit has been without doubt,skepticism, frustration, or conflict; but I must also say that I can't imaginenot taking the journey. From my earliest years, I was a child of curiosity andvision, always seeking the next step, the next place to go in order to perfect askill or to find out who I really was. Growing up in Kentucky and Indiana, Ifollowed my father through many of his daily activities as a Protestantminister. As active as I was in all the church affairs, I found myself searchingfor more. I knew that there had to be a bigger picture. It wasn't until manyyears later that I would begin to see into the other realms of possibilities.

My conscious awakening began in the early 1980s. I had completed graduatedegrees in church music and voice performance, joined the voice faculty of awell-known college conservatory, and had begun serving as organist andchoirmaster in a church. As I taught singers and dealt with some of my ownpersonal issues, I began to realize that I was embarking on a journey thatperhaps not everyone was actively pursuing. I realized that I was searchingdeeper inside myself and striving harder for an understanding about life and itsmysteries than most people I knew. I began seeing many parallels between thefreedom of singing and the freedom of life; yet I was still trapped within theconfines of a former belief system.

Over the next several years, I began reading books, practicing meditation, andtaking classes and workshops. I began to embrace the possibilities of otherrealms of awareness, and of the validity of experiences which had no rationalexplanation. As my daily meditation practice developed, I began to feel asthough somehow I was being "taught." I would perceive thoughts or understandconcepts that I had never considered or understood before. I received a lot ofguidance for helping a friend, Mac, who had recently been diagnosed with AIDS.Spirit helped me understand the powerful spiritual healing that was occurring inthe midst of Mac's debilitating illness. For many years he had been a very angryman. Through his illness he was able to let go of his anger, so that when deathcame two years later, he was a very peaceful man. Walking that difficult dailypath with Mac was much easier with the guidance and insight from Spirit. As wesat and talked and struggled with his anger, fear, depression, and sadness, Iwould often think, "How can I possibly help him—I have no words or answers." Andthen Spirit would give me the words or lead me to a deeper place of compassionfrom which to listen.

As time went on, I began to understand the unfolding of my own life from a muchlarger perspective. It was as if Spirit was communicating with me throughthought-forms. I would just "know" which choice to make, what my nextprofessional steps should be, where I needed to go, and who I needed to see. Onmany occasions I found myself going someplace simply because an inner voice saidI had to go. Once there I would meet someone important to my journey, or have aconversation that would lead to a shift in perception about something in mylife. Only then would I know why I had felt so compelled to go there.

After a year or so of this form of communication, I began to hear specificwords, as if a voice was speaking to me. The voice, as I perceived it, was notinside my head, but rather just above my head, speaking directly down into mythoughts. I was not hearing Spirit speak through my outer sense of hearing or myears, but rather through an inner sense of sound perception.

At this point I placed a tape recorder beside my meditation chair. When I beganto perceive that voice speaking, I turned on the tape recorder and simply spokewhat I was hearing. After a while, I discovered I no longer needed first tolisten to the voice and then repeat the information, but could simply let thevoice speak through me. There was tremendous energy and love within thisexperience. As I listened to the tape, transcribing the wisdom and guidance fromSpirit, I was hearing my own voice, yet obviously another energy moving throughit. I continued this process for many months, receiving the teaching fromSpirit, transcribing the tapes, and yet not being sure what I was to do withthis information.

Not yet working with a teacher on a regular basis, I traveled to see JoeyCrinita, a fantastic spiritualist medium from Toronto. I had taken workshopswith Joey and knew that he could help me better understand what was happening inmy meditation. As I shared my transcriptions with him, Joey helped me see thatwithin them was an entire weekend workshop, and that Spirit was asking me toteach this material. I experienced tremendous resistance to this assignment,thinking that I could not possibly be ready to do such a thing. But, in spite ofmy resistance, I organized and taught several workshops.

Over the next couple of years I taught more workshops, and the work was bothsatisfying and appreciated. People spoke of the powerful healing energy therewas in my singing and in my teaching, and how much love they felt just being inmy presence. I accepted a lot of ego stroking, and basked in that for a while,until something in me screamed out, "Stop! What are you doing?" Suddenly I wasconfronted with fear and confusion. I didn't know why I had this gift ofcommunicating with Spirit; why I should have these unexplainable mysticalexperiences; why I had been given what seemed to me to be a tremendousresponsibility. I didn't want any part of it. I just wanted to lead a "normal"life. What was "awakening" inside of me made me very uncomfortable—souncomfortable that I just wanted to go "back to sleep." I stopped teachingclasses and all intentional or conscious communication with Spirit.

Some months after ceasing these activities, I was singing a recital for auniversity audience, and, for the first time in my life, experienced stagefright. Well-prepared and very excited about singing a program of songs that Iloved, I went bounding out onto the stage as was my habit, started the firstsong, and suddenly was terrified. I had never experienced such anxiety in mylife. In that moment I thought that I would never be able to get through theconcert. I wanted to run as fast as I possibly could from the stage, from thehall, from singing, from anyone I knew, from God, from everything. I didn't knowwhy I was afraid or what I was afraid of; I just knew that I would have doneanything in that moment to get out of there. Over the course of the next severalmonths, this problem only got worse. Each concert was paralyzing to me. I wouldsomehow make it through, and tapes and reviews would tell me that they wereactually quite wonderful concerts, but I was miserable. Finally, after a NewYork City concert of love songs on Valentine's Day, I said to myself that ifthis was how it was going to be, I had to stop singing. I couldn't take itanymore.

Through all of my doubts and resistance I had at least maintained my meditationpractice, but had refused any direct communication with Spirit. I came home fromthe concert hall that night, sat down in my meditation chair, and demanded fromSpirit some understanding about what was happening to me. I was all ready for afight, when Spirit very gently and lovingly responded, Welcome back. That wascertainly a surprise to me. The answer was so still and peaceful andembracing. Welcome back. Spirit went on to explain that what was happening to mewas a result of abandoning my gifts. What was manifesting as fear was actuallymy resistance to allowing Love to flow through me in my singing. I would get onthe stage, all that Love energy would come surging up through my body, and Iwould subconsciously try to push it back down. I interpreted the resulting innerconflict as fear. If I would only let go of the resistance and resume mycommunion with Spirit, my fears would dissolve.

I knew then that I had no choice but to actively resume my spiritual quest, mymystical journey. I began to work with a series of teachers in the Spiritualisttradition who helped facilitate my journey so that I would no longer step in theway of its unfolding. Spirit also worked through several friends who encouragedand finally convinced me to begin teaching classes again.

As I began to teach and resume my personal work with Spirit, it was like cominghome again—home to me, the essence of me. For so long, I had been running awayfrom home. I had been trying desperately to create a "normal" life for myself,one that I thought would be simple and without risk or challenge, one that wouldbe "comfortable." But that was not to be my path. The lesson for me wassurrender—surrender to Spirit, to guide me through a journey that was mine, notsomeone else's. Incidentally, the performance fears vanished immediately aswell.

My journey remains full of challenges, conflicts, "growth opportunities," but italso remains full of joy and love and, at times, even bliss. My life has becomea constant dialogue with Spirit. I begin every day in meditation, thankingSpirit for being with me and guiding me through every activity—teaching voicelessons, counseling clients, singing, writing, practicing the organ, composing,making decisions, teaching classes. With each passing day, I feel more peaceful,and less attached to outcomes: peaceful with being led by Spirit through eachexperience, and peaceful with exploring my intuitive gifts and seeing where Iseem to be led next. I am very often surprised at where I find myself, forSpirit's guidance often leads me to unexpected turns. However, those turns haveopened into wondrous new avenues of possibilities. My singing has expandedbeyond the classical realm to also include cabaret and musical theater as I haveopened the door to the songwriter within me. A CD recording of my songs has beenreleased. I continue to teach singers and work with performers helping themrecognize and release physical and emotional energy blocks in their work. I havecompleted seminary training, been ordained as an Interfaith Minister, and am theMinister of Music in a church. I look at my father and realize that we are doingthe same work, but following different pathways. Spirit is working with me inmany ways, and works with us all in many different ways, speaking many languagesso that all may, in their own time, hear the words.

A Lifelong Path

Though some of the concepts presented here may seem simplistic—"just do thisand everything will be perfect"—I fully realize that their application in dailyliving is often difficult and, at times, seemingly impossible. However, it is inday-to-day living that we face our inner struggles, conflicts, and growth andtake the small steps that all go together to make up the journey. It is also inour day-to-day living that we learn to trust our intuitive guidance. As Mark, oneof the students in my classes, says so clearly, "Doing the work means living inan awareness that every experience of every day is a part of the learning andgrowth process."

Spirit is pure Love. The journey in its fullest sense means surrendering toSpirit—an ultimate giving over of our lives to Spirit, and how It wishes to workthrough us. Spirit is the supreme teacher and healer. But It does not alwayscreate an easy pathway for us. Sometimes Spirit flows through us with the gentlehealing balm of a peacefully flowing river. At other times It rages through uslike torrential rapids, seeming to create havoc in our lives. Both kinds ofexperience are often part of the healing and learning process. Spirit createspathways through which we can learn—pathways that can lead to clearerunderstanding of ourselves and our circumstances, and to a higher level ofawareness. When we surrender fully to Spirit, we become at the same time studentand teacher, parent and child, lover and beloved. Our path is not one ofavoiding fears or conflicts, or of keeping them carefully managed and undercontrol. It is a path of walking through fears, inner conflicts, personalissues, so that we can see them clearly, heighten our awareness, and open to thevast intuitive knowledge, wisdom, and guidance that the universe makes availableto us through working with Spirit.

This journey is about allowing mystical experiences to enter our lives—experiencesof joy and bliss and satisfaction that are inexpressible in words,but that to us are holy and sacred; experiences in which we know our onenesswith the divine at the very depths of our being. It is about letting Spiritenter in and work through us. As a Western civilization, we have separated thesacred and the secular in our lives. However, in indigenous cultures, wherethere is more of an Earth based spirituality, there is no distinction betweensacred and secular. Some modern-day religions consider these Earth-basedspiritual beliefs primitive or pagan, but it seems to me that they are theenlightened ones. They honor the sacred nature of all of creation—the wisdom ofthe Great Mystery that flows through every plant, animal, element, person. Thesacred is an integrated part of everyday life of all people, not just a selectedfew. In indigenous cultures, supernatural experiences begin in childhood and areencouraged by the elders as a part of daily life. It is considered quite normalto work with Spirit, to see beyond the realm of physical sight, to experienceprecognitive dreams.