These days, it seems that many people that I meet in person or online are seeking to find a path or a way to achieve a more balanced life. Sounds pretty vague, right? When one starts probing what that person is seeking to find, it’s a state of grounded balance; one that can handle the ups and downs of life with a calm attitude or flow. Life these days is chaotic and unstable. It seems more people are seeking to find a way to deal with the ebb and flow of emotions of ourselves but also the emotions expressed by others that often impact us in ways we can’t always perceive or handle. If you are “seeking” something more for your life, a sort of spiritual guide, this post — and the book featured below written by author, Richard L. Haight– might be your ticket!This is Richard’s post as guest blogger of the day!
(PS.. check out Amazon.com for the book. It’s for sale now in hard copy and in Kindle format. Read an excerpt
PLUS WIN a copy through October 29, 2016!
Enter for a chance to win one of 10 signed first-edition hardcovers of The Unbound Soul with the original cover! Click Here!]
Wag the Author: How the Birthing of a Book Guided My Life
by Richard L. Haight
Discover:
- How martial arts training helped a child overcome illiteracy
- How the book writes the life of an author
- How to transcend will-power.
Recently, due to the publishing of my book, The Unbound Soul: Applied Spirituality, I was contacted by my oldest and best childhood friend, whom I long ago lost contact with. As we were catching up on the decades of our lives, he informed me that when I was a young child, I had promised his mother that someday I was going to write a book about the adventures of our childhood. I had no recollection of telling her this, and considering that I hated reading as a child and was functionally illiterate until my teens, it was hard to imagine that I had made such a statement. The crazy things kids say, right?
I told my friend that I had no memory of that promise, so he asked how I had come to write The Unbound Soul. I had not considered the story of the book’s creation or the aftermath of its publishing as topics of interest, but as soon as I started talking about it, I realized that indeed it might be an interesting story. I hope that you will enjoy reading about it.
Throughout my life, I have experienced a great number of visions and mystical experiences that have served to drive my purpose and path. When I was 21 years old I became close friends with a spiritualist reverend, who repeatedly told me that I had to start writing down all of my experiences. She suggested that I keep a daily journal because, as she would often repeat,
“Spirit is speaking through you, and you need to write it all down or risk losing important information.”
At the time I was a very poor writer, but I bought a notebook and started journaling anyway.
Although I didn’t journal every day, I did write the interesting stuff—the visions and mystical experiences, whenever they occurred. I wrote only as it felt necessary. There would be long gaps of time between journal entries, followed by flurries of content as something extraordinary happened in my life.
When I turned 24, I made it my life’s mission to search out and discover the source of these visions and their meaning. I had a feeling that something powerful was coming through trying to reach out to the world, but I didn’t know how to reach the information that was building at the edge of my awareness, just beyond accessibility.
As a result of a powerful vision, I moved to Japan to study ancient practices. I felt that through learning martial and healing arts I could get at the information bunching up just behind the walls of my mind. I spent 15 years training in the sword, staff, and aiki-jujutsu, as well as a therapy art called sotai-ho I earned master’s licenses in these arts. Then I had a vision that led me back to the United States, where I opened my own school of martial, meditation, and healing arts.
At the end of one of my meditation seminars, I felt a powerful knowing- visceral feeling in my body:it was time to write a book. For years, I had been building up information and stories in my journal, but the entire time I had been writing it I had no idea how it would come together into a book. Suddenly, I knew exactly how the book would start. I knew that I was to write the story of my life and tell how that story wove the tapestry of spiritual unfoldment, and how spiritual unfoldment wove the tapestry of my life because it’s through our lives that spiritual unfoldment occurs.
Once I began writing, I couldn’t stop. I never experienced an issue with writer’s block. The only barriers to writing were exhaustion and other duties required to maintain physical existence. I began writing in mid-July 2015 and finished the first draft on November 17 of that same year. It took just four months to come together, but I cannot honestly call it my writing. Truthfully, this book had a life of its own, using my body as a vehicle to come into the world.
The way that the book was written is quite different from how I suspect most books are written. The Unbound Soul was written from a deep state of awareness, beyond what most people would consider meditation, yet it was not a trance state. My job in writing was to be aware of when I was “there” versus when my mind was doing the writing. I would go back and reread everything I wrote, again and again searching for the taint of mind to correct it. This activity served as a tremendously effective training tool through which I discovered the frequencies of mind and consciousness and how the understanding of those frequencies unbinds the soul to result in enlightenment.
Although the book is a memoir of my life, detailing the most important visions, the mystical experiences, and adventures that lead to enlightenment, it actually transcends my life as an extremely clear and powerful ‘how-to’that will be of service to anyone at any stage of the awakening process, so long as they have interest. How could a book like this come through a person who rarely reads, never studied writing, and was functionally illiterate until his mid-teens?
I owe a lot of gratitude to martial arts training, which I began at age 12. One of the most important qualities that aided me in my life’s search came directly from the study of traditional martial arts. I’m speaking of persistence. I am not talking about will-power, which is often a battle of ego and has a high energy expenditure. I am referring to something more like the power that motivates a baby to keep trying to walk, even after it falls down countless times. That’s not will-power; that’s persistence born of instinct. For some reason (and for most people,) that type of persistence is lost as they grow older. Martial arts helped me to keep persistence alive. Ultimately, it is that persistence that has given me the ability to follow through and overcome all obstacles blocking the understanding of what was just beyond my awareness, ultimately culminating in the writing of The Unbound Soul.
Rekindling persistence is possible for anyone who has the interest. It starts by simply intending to accomplish without feeding the mental and emotional inner voices that are speaking against success. When there is the thought or feeling, “I can’t”, simply take no interest in it. There is no need to fight back with positive words like, “I can”. Does a baby do that? Of course not, yet they accomplish. To fight negativity with positivity is to use will-power. Instead, simply lose faith in the monologue completely and enjoy accomplishing without the egoic struggle.
Oh, -and remember- babies take small steps.
Richard L. Haight
About the author:
Richard L. Haight is an instructor of martial, meditation, and healing arts. During his 15 years in Japan, training in the ancient martial arts, he earned master’s licenses in martial and therapeutic arts. During his life, a series of profound visions has guided him to the realization of the Oneness of which the ancient spiritual masters often spoke. Through his new book, The Unbound Soul, his meditation, and martial arts seminars, Richard is spreading a practical method of spiritual awakening that is free of all constraints. Richard now lives and teaches in Oregon, U.S.A.
The Unbound Soul: Applied Spirituality
- Enjoy an adventure-filled memoir of world travel, ancient arts, the secrets of the mind/body, the earth, the universe, and spiritual awakening
- Learn to overcome the obstacles within that have been preventing you from actualizing the purpose that is trying to flow through you
- Step out of the prison of the mind and discover the hidden truth within, waiting to be revealed
Book giveaway from September 29 to October 29, 2016!
Enter for a chance to win one of 10 signed first-edition hardcovers of The Unbound Soul with the original cover! Click Here!]
Richard Haight is variously described as:
Inspirational speaker;
Life Coach;
founder of Richard Haight’s School of Martial, Meditation & Healing Arts;
Author of The Unbound Soul
Follow me on these social platforms:
website: http://www.richardhaight.net/index.html
Facebook,
YouTube,
LA-Story.com and I would like to express our appreciation of Richard L. Haight’s contribution to our guest blogger series.
Stevie Wilson,
LA-Story.com
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