Once in a while, when reading English history, you come across the statement, "The King is dead! Long live the King!" At first glance, it sounds like one of those oxymorons; an apparently contradictory statement like, a "deafening silence," an "exact estimate," or "reality television."

What is meant, is that the old king has just died and been succeeded by the heir to the throne. So, the second part of the message, " Long live the King," refers to the new king.

Many spiritual seekers have witnessed decades of decline in the hierarchical, Old Reality concept of leadership. As The Shift progresses, more and more people look within for the ultimate guidance rather than giving their power away to self-styled leaders and gurus. Therefore, an appropriate statement for the concepts that apply to these times is...

"Guru is dead. Long live self-empowerment."

Guru worship is a currently-outmoded concept based upon the idea of hierarchies of power and control. The system of hierarchy was developed in medieval times when the leaders were those who had, basically, slaughtered their way to the top and then created a hierarchical caste system in order to choke off the competition and exploit as many peasants as possible. Today, in place of a feudal system of rulers and peasants, we have a self-empowered middle class, in nations which are represented by elected public servants.

Hierarchy, as a concept, is becoming rapidly redundant. In the New Reality, the concept of guru-ism is dying and, yet, the need for education and training still remains. Enter the concept of the facilitator.

A facilitator is a specialist who helps you achieve a specialized goal in education and/or self-development. Their task is to provide you with the resources that you need from them. Once you have gained the desired knowledge and/or skill, there is no need to remain with the facilitator because the task is now complete.

With your upgraded knowledge and skills, you will have acquired greater abilities and more personal empowerment than before. The next time you desire more training, it will likely be in a different specialty and, therefore, with a different specialist acting as your facilitator.

You could say that every non-fiction author or speaker is a facilitator because each one teaches their specialty. For example, because I have a wide range of interests, I have several partly-read books by different experts in their fields laying on my desk. Sometimes, because they're all so much fun to read, I have difficulty deciding which book to finish next. Right now, I'm in the middle of reading:

1. "The Presence Process" by Michael Brown, which is a meditative self-healing technique.

2. The latest, tenth book in the Kryon series, "A New Dispensation(Plain Talk For Confusing Times)" by Lee Carroll. His books just keep getting better and better.

3. An old copy of the 1953 classic, "Flying Saucers Have Landed" by George Adamaski, an early UFO contactee who, at the time, took the closest-ever photographs of a UFO using a powerful telescope. As a genuine contactee who became widely known to the public in the 1950s, his story and his character were widely attacked by those who didn't want the public to become aware of their own cosmic neighbors.

4. Laurence Gardner's "Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark" provides fascinating insights into both Biblical history and some current-day possibilities for enhanced longevity.

5. "Same Soul, Many Bodies" by seasoned hypnotherapy researcher Brian Weiss discusses the fascinating subject of future-life progression. Past-life regression into previous incarnations was accidentally discovered by early hypnotherapists. Later, an even more surprising discovery emerged, which sparked research into future-life progression: Unconsciously, people know a lot about their own future incarnations.

6. Last, but not least, "Astronomy for Dummies." Just my kind of book.

I do love to explore, and these specialists lead me along the pathways to knowledge that they have discovered.

Centuries ago, when people lacked the education and personal development that they have today, there was a place for unquestioning obedience to a guru. Times have changed: the New Reality is a very different place from the Old Reality.

Today, unquestioning obedience to a power outside of yourself prevents the very spirit of inquiry that you need in order to become self-empowered. While you can always seek out facilitators to help you acquire specialized skills, the best answers to your questions will always come from within you.

Your inner being is your complete being. It encompasses all aspects of your mind. Your inner being includes your conscious awareness, the vast resources of your subconscious memories and the connectedness of your soul to your spiritual source and the entire universe. The best expert in the world on your particular situation is your own inner being.

Encourage communication with your inner being. Listen when its whisperings of intuition float subtly into your awareness. Keep a log of all hunches, whether you follow them or not. Then, when you review them at a later date, you will see, to your amazement, how accurate they can become with just a little practice.

Owen Waters is editor and cofounder of Infinite Being LLC. He promotes a philosophy of spiritual empowerment through inner connection to the source of your ultimate potential. For more Spiritual Words of Empowerment subscribe to his free weekly newsletter. For the full picture, read Owen's book, The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness.

Peter Shepherd notes: As I expect you have noticed, the articles by Owen Waters are uniformly full of wisdom and insight... his books, therefore, are not to be missed. Owen's new e-book, Discover Your Purpose in Life, will not only show you how to discover the purpose of your inner being and your own destiny, it will take you on a voyage of inner discovery. On this journey, you will pass through the layers of what used to be unsolved mysteries. "At each step, we will go deeper still, always using the question 'why' to go deeper, until we reach the final layer and discover the answer to the ultimate mystery in life."

I believe the book offers precisely what many need to know, in order to launch their life into the spiritual dimension, and to be part of the new age of higher vibration consciousness. This amounts to knowing one's inner nature, and as a result, one's life purpose. The trinity of life, love and truth need to be experienced, not just 'known about,' and Owen's e-book gives enough guidance for that process of true illumination to take place. It's available at a special intro price at the moment and I highly recommend you to purchase.

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