The Dance Into Divinity Blog Has Relocated

Dear Friend,

This blog has been relocated to my website. To subscribe and read more posts, please visit: http://www.avitalmiller.com/#!blog/c1qqv

Thank you for continuing on this journey with me.

Love,
Avital

Why I Started Reading Tarot: Little Miracles After My Mother’s Passing

​Up until the final days of my mother’s life, she continually expressed her wish for the family to be more connected. In December of 2012, during a weekend seclusion, I was meditating once more on my white bed before going to sleep. All of a sudden I felt love pouring out of me for my mother in a way I had never felt before, and felt she was going to die very soon. She had cancer for seven years but I was not told her present condition had a time limit.

The next morning I called my mother and booked a flight to see her in Atlanta. I approached the visit as if it could be my last time seeing her without mentioning that. I did not want to state anything to encourage her passing away any sooner if it was not meant to be. However I did talk with her about the process of dying and shared stories I have heard from people who were pronounced dead yet came back to life. I told her how those people got to visit their loved ones. She said she would like to create some sort of signal so we would know she was there, yet we did not actually come up with one.

During the visit she had a pure carefree child-like joy in her that I had never seen before. She also seemed to become more energized so I thought she was ok and I could go home to California. Shortly after returning home my place of work, Crystal Clarity Publishers, was cleaning out our warehouse. The space was going to be reconstructed into offices and we had to get rid of everything. I came upon a set of angel cards with curiosity and they told me I could keep them.

I took those cards into my annual seclusion between Christmas time and New Years. I still had the premonition that my mother would pass away soon. Thus I used the seclusion time to pray for my mother and for completion in our relationship. Normally I review the previous year but that time I did a whole life review. And I read the angel cards everyday. I kept waiting for a call stating my mother was going soon, especially after I picked the card named Sonya who assures, “I bring you a message from your deceased loved one: ‘I am happy, at peace, and I love very much. Please don’t worry about me.’” That seclusion was a really deep time for me.


Sure enough I got the call late on December 31 and was able to get a flight on January 2. My mother passed away while I was flying. I’ll have to save all of the stories of that adventure for another blog. The funeral happened the next day in Washington DC. Afterwards most of the women in the immediate family and my mother’s partner found ourselves at my aunt’s house. While it was a shock, we thought our time would be better spent doing the things my mother enjoyed like watching her favorite movie, The Frisco Kid. We all remembered how loudly she laughed everytime she saw it. As we went to bed that night my sister asked me if my mother could visit in her dreams. Remembering my mother’s wish to visit us, I replied, “Sure. Why not? Just ask for her to come.”

The next day somehow I got the idea it would be fun to do angel card readings for others. I asked a family member who I thought would be open. She agreed and to my surprise the whole family gathered around to view the reading. Since the reading went quite nicely, my sister asked for one too. She wanted to know what message my mother had for her. She picked three cards and I started interpreting them. As I was speaking she was squirming in her seat. She was always very expressive so I did not think much of it at first. After a few more moments of her anguish getting bigger I asked her what that was about. She said in her dream the night before she saw a man with blue eyes and blonde hair, just like the man on one of the cards she picked. In the dream she asked him his name and it was the same name as that on the card.

After that all the rest of my family members were sold on these angel card readings and had one for themselves. I realized that the cards created a space to open up that would not have happened without their encouragement. We shared deeper feelings and things about ourselves than I had ever noticed us express. It seemed my mother got her wish for the family to be more united and for her to visit us. My family expressed how impressed they were at what an expert I seemed with those cards. Then I let them know I had only gotten those cards a week ago, yet had been offering spiritual counseling for a few years.

I continued to read those angel cards for myself and for friends. At a certain point I wanted more options than what was offered in that 44 card deck and bought a deck modeled after the full 78 card Tarot set. After two more years of doing readings for my friends they told me I should get paid for doing them. Coincidentally I was signed up to teach and perform at a fair where I could get a discount on a booth. I decided to take the dive.

Despite knowing the other readers would have more experience with Tarot, I trusted I had something to offer from being deeply on the spiritual path for over ten years. Since I am not enlightened, I believe any future predictions I make are only based on a possibility from this present moment and the capacity of my consciousness to see. Thus I tried to focus more on offering people guidance to live fully in the current moment than predicting what will happen in the future. I was amazed to see people sit down with strain on their faces and worry in their bodies and walk away in complete relief with a big smile knowing they had an action plan to help ease their current conflicts. I have since signed up to read at more fairs and offer readings in person or long distance through skype. It has been a great gift to offer this service and I hope to continue to do so.

If you would like to set up an appointment with me or find out more about which fairs I will read at, please visit: Tarot Readings with Avital

My Favorite Tarot and Angel Cards:

   

Where is God?: A Yogic Perspective

Isn’t God more than a person? Doesn't God dwell within us? Isn't everything God? These are some of the questions I have been hearing from friends that I thought to address. There is much more that could be shared or elaborated on, but that is what future blogs are for. :)

On my second night at Ananda in 2004 my Yoga Teacher Training class was asked to define “God.” I furiously wrote a page about how I hate the idea of a man sitting in a chair in the heavens judging us and how religion has caused many wars. On the back of the page I wrote about how I prefer to believe in things like peace and love. We were then asked to share what we wrote. I sat quietly because I did not want to share anything negative. I listened, though, to how everyone in the group described the term “God” as concepts like peace and love. My eyes were completely opened to another way of looking at God. With a new understanding of the word God I thought there should be a new word to represent this new concept. For a long time I ignored the word when I heard or read it in the texts of Ananda. After a while I had forgiven and forgotten my old discomfort associated with the word and allowed it to generate a new meaning.

With a primarily Judeo-Christian culture, it is easy to refer to God as a male or female being outside of ourselves that we are trying to get to. For many of us it is easier to relate to God as a being similar to a human rather than an abstract concept because that is what we know. I believe the true intent of the spiritual path that I am on is to say God is within us. Our plight is to realize that fully within ourselves. I see some people get scared that they are being told they are not good enough or not perfect as they are. I believe everyone is; we just have to realize it. Thus this is the path of Self-Realization.

Now you may ask, how can we be content if we have not already realized our perfect state? We also have the right to stop judging what it means to be realized and let God decide. I don't think we have to know how close we are to ultimate realization nor can we make a judgment on the level of progress or distance from the goal. When you are pulling a nail out of a board you may not know how long the nail is or how hard it will be to pull it out. But if you keep trying, eventually it will come out.

As long as we are compelled to act, then we are trying to do something to fill a void. Just as the river always tries to return to the sea, I believe humans are always trying to become self-realized. Thus every action we take has that purpose, yet true enlightenment is an actionless state.

We come into being with egos when the soul identifies with the body. The physical science of operating that body in the simplest form requires food, water, breathing, and sleep. With that comes a proper balance of making enough money to supply those demands without so much stress to obstruct our breathing or time to take away from our sleep. And our egos crave much more.

A carpenter uses a hammer rather than the hammer controlling the carpenter. In the same manner we can learn to use our ego as a tool to support our aim towards self-realization rather than leading us in directions where we think our happiness comes from outside ourselves. So begins the process of seeking self-realization within and reducing outward activity.

Many yogis have been able to transcend beyond the need for food, breathing, or sleep using meditation techniques. Thus begins the journey beyond needing to take action to sustain the body. A greater layer of the ego dissolves as the soul no longer identifies with a body. That is when full contentment can reign. As we work through this process, if we can accept where we are without judgement, we can also feel a greater sense of contentment.

If God is within, why do some people feel they need a guru? When trying to learn to fly a plane if your intuition is perfect, you may be able to figure it out on your own. How many of us have such great intuition? You could also try playing with the controls until you get it right. With that method you might end up with a few crashes along the way and hopefully you live through them. Rather, you are going to find a teacher who can offer you a foundation of knowledge based from their expertise. From there you can go on to fly your own plane and create new models of planes to fly in different ways. I believe the guru intends to be used as a tool to get us to the place where we can fly on our own and connect directly with God. Here are a couple quotes from my guru that support that statement:

“For the guru is simply a channel for God’s power and wisdom. God is the true Guru.”—Paramhansa Yogananda

“The purpose of the guru is not to weaken your will. It is to teach you secrets of developing your inner power, until you can stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.” —Paramhansa Yogananda

The final thing I have been hearing a lot is an inference that it does not matter what we do because everything is God. Yes, everything is God. Murder and delusion are also God. Yet those are not things most of us wish to aspire to. What we also seek on my path is the truth and the highest vibration or consciousness possible.

The other path towards Self-Realization is about three and a half feet long from the base of the spine to the spiritual eye (point between the eyebrows). Once we are able to direct all of our energy to the spiritual eye, the crown chakra opens up and we can become fully realized. 

Our actions can either draw our energy down the spine, around in each chakra or energy center, or up the spine. What we are trying to do on my path is take the most direct route to God appropriate for each individual. Thus what causes our energy to go down or get stuck in repetitive cycles or dependency on outside sustenance is not what supports drawing all of our energy into the center of the spine and up. Which actions cause what direction of energy is what you get to define for yourself.

“Nothing works for long in this world. When disillusionment ensues, people turn away to seek their fulfillment elsewhere. This is a roundabout way to God, but it, too, reaches toward Him at least, inasmuch as repeated disappointments do, eventually, turn one’s heart to Him.”—The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita as explained by Paramhansa Yogananda

What is your most direct route towards realizing God within?