Going Within

IF WE ARE NOT IN HARMONY WITH OURSELVES, HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY BE IN HARMONY WITH THE WORLD WE INHABIT?

I am learning that it is my choice to perceive the world in a more optimistic and positive light because it is also my choice to perceive myself that way. Every single day is a lesson in the old adage that the transformation of the world we see begins with the transformation of how we see ourselves. Everything begins at home and the choices we make within the Self.

I am shifting from feelings of helplessness about having any effect in helping to change the world to a position that recognizes the power within me. A great awakening is taking place. Individuals all across the world are tapping in to their internal power to elevate their lives to a higher octave of happiness and productivity. Sharing the search, and the techniques of searching, is only a part of the help we can give one another.
Going Within
offers keys for enlightening one’s inner perceptions. It is a kind of personal road map to achieving spiritual clarity.

Bantam Books by Shirley MacLaine
Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed

DANCING IN THE LIGHT
“DON’T FALL OFF THE MOUNTAIN”
GOING WITHIN
IT’S ALL IN THE PLAYING
OUT ON A LIMB
YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE
DANCE WHILE YOU CAN
MY LUCKY STARS

For

Sachi
Mother
Kathleen
And
Bella
and all the other women
and
men who seek
the spiritual feminine in themselves

And for
Ian and Betty Ballantine,
who were there from the beginning

One should start with oneself
But never end with oneself.

Contents

      
Author’s Preface

  1  
The Seminar

  2  
The Ancient New Age

  3  
Dealing with the “Reality” of Stress

  4  
Meditate and Ye Shall Find

  5  
Superconsciousness and the Higher Self

  6  
The New Age and Rational Thought

  7  
A Rainbow of Expression

  8  
Meditating on the Chakras

  9  
Crystals

10  
Sound Meditation

11  
Sex and the Chakras

12  
All Time at Once

13  
Spiritual Adventures

14  
Light from Within

15  
My Body as Ultimate Atoms of Awareness

16  
Childlike Pursuit

CODA Science and God?

Author’s Preface

I have been having an extraordinary adventure for the past seven years. Some would call it an adventure in cosmic consciousness, and while I would agree with that, I would also add that it is an adventure which enjoys the advantage of extremely pragmatic, down-to-earth application in real life.

I am learning that it is my choice to perceive the world in a more optimistic and positive light because I am learning that it is also my choice to perceive myself that way. Every single day is a lesson in the old adage that the transformation of the world we see begins with the transformation of how we see ourselves. Everything begins at home and the choices we make within the Self.

I used to hear these words and privately feel that
this was simple “selfishness” or even dangerously self-centered fantasy. No longer. To me, this concept has become a giant truth. “Know thyself”—and everything else follows. In fact I now realize that it is impossible for me to understand anything of the world, its inhabitants, their suffering, their conflicts or the full potential of life itself until I am in touch with these same currents and truths inside myself. To understand and love others begins with understanding and loving oneself.

These are issues of the spirit, not of the mind and body. When I began the investigation of understanding the spiritual aspect of my nature
and
that of everyone else, the missing pieces of the puzzle of the human condition began to fall into place.

The study took work, discipline, and a concentrated effort in unraveling the ancient techniques of what I call spiritual technology. The more I applied the tools of what I investigated, the more I found my own experience, my own attitudes, and my own perceptions transforming my life into a more positive and peaceful adventure.

As the millenium approaches and a new century beckons, the complications of living are becoming more challenging. Millions of people all over the world are seeking to transform and improve their lives. They are painfully aware that the answers for a changed world are not coming from sources outside of themselves. The answers lie within.

That is what this book is about. GOING WITHIN
offers keys for enlightening one’s inner perceptions. It is a kind of personal roadmap for achieving spiritual clarity that can make the transformation in inner attitude improve outer reality. Hopefully my own search, with its methods, techniques, and new approaches, can be helpful to those who are also seeking to reduce conflict, anger, confusion and stress in their lives.

This book grew out of the year I spent crisscrossing the country conducting seminars on inner transformation. Never before had I spent such quality time with so many people engaged in their own desire for improvement. The intense, face-to-face contact and sharing of deep, powerful and honest emotional struggles in our dangerously complicated world helped me articulate and shape the journey I was making myself. Together we became more skilled in the techniques of meditation and visualization. Together we deepened our understanding of our intuitive gifts and of the body’s esoteric centers of energy and their role in both physical and emotional healing. Together we strengthened our belief that each one of us has the responsibility to create the world in which we choose to live.

I don’t expect that any of us will succeed in transforming ourselves into a state of peaceful bliss in this lifetime. But each one of us
can
help to leave a better world fit for our children to live in, a world that is more trusting in the belief that inside each of us is a wealth of power to learn how to love and to change.

This is indeed a difficult and sometimes threatening time for all of us. But it is also an astonishing opportunity for growth if we choose to look at it that way. The very urgency of the need for change will accelerate the metamorphosis required to proceed into the next century and the next millenium.

The longest journey begins with the first step. Perhaps the longest journey is the journey within. It is never too late to begin.

1

The Seminar

The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.

I
walked into the Grand Ballroom, down the center aisle, lightly touched the wireless microphone nestled neatly into my sweater at the throat, cleared my voice, braced my shoulders, and climbed onto the makeshift stage.

I turned around and looked out into the faces of fifteen hundred people who had come to experience a weekend of spiritual investigation with me.

I would be standing on this stage for about eighteen hours, with no real idea of the emotional and spiritual needs and questions of the crowd until they spontaneously expressed themselves. Knowing from professional experience that every audience is different, I was still aware that this was no ordinary audience. This was a collective of individuals, every single one of whom had a story and a prior life and a particular need that had brought him or her to this place at this time. It was anybody’s guess what would
happen. I stood before them, wondering what they would do.

As I looked out over the crowd I was suddenly stunned at the fact that my life had brought me to this point. In a timeless moment I flashed back to myself as a small girl of three, wearing a four-leaf-clover hat, with an apple clutched firmly in hand as I faced an audience to sing “An Apple for the Teacher.” Had I begun as a performer even then in order to perfect the craft of communication so that fifty years later I could attempt to make simple sense of complicated concepts of spirituality? Had it all been leading to this? I took a deep breath.

I’ve always known that I am basically a communicating performer—that is, someone more challenged on a stage than in the safe environment of a movie studio. I need personal contact with others. I need to know how I am doing. And now I needed to “feel” others who were on the same path as I was. The letters, phone calls, and interviews that had resulted from my books and my
Out on a Limb
miniseries were not sufficient now. I needed to go deeper, in myself as well as with others who also wanted to explore within themselves. I was hungry for an exchange that would be mutually helpful.

I studied their faces and reflected upon what had brought us all here. I was about to conduct a series
of weekend seminars all across America, having chosen this method of communication because it was personal and because I wanted to give back some of the knowledge I had been privileged to gain from others much more evolved and educated than myself. I wanted to be with people who were working seriously on their own searches. I also secretly wanted to find out if it was really possible to communicate such esoteric concepts in a structured manner that would make pragmatic and logical sense. Could we, among us, bring spiritual questions down to Earth?

This very question has been responsible for my doubts, even fear, of having to give up my professional approach to presentation. By that I mean I always needed to feel prepared and well rehearsed before I appeared in front of people. I needed to learn a prepared text when I made a speech; I needed to know my lines before I sang a song or acted a scene. I had always carefully prepared my shows, with an orchestra, backup dancers, and all the highly skilled hoopla of costumes and lighting that are the building blocks of such a show. And even though, invariably, extemporaneous material arose out of the varying reactions of each audience, I was comfortable with ad-libbing in that situation because the spontaneity arose out of knowing what I was doing.