A Plain Man's Cooking Guide

To Bake a Better Cake

When you begin cooking for the first time, you rely on a tried and trusted recipe - possibly one that your mother or grandmother has used many times.  If you make a cake to this recipe and it tastes all right, that gives you an experience to build on.

But it is only after having tasted the cake that you can sense that there may be another ingredient that could be added or omitted that would make the cake more 'cake like' next time.

So, as you gather experience in your baking, you can create new and exciting delights for yourself.  After a few cakes, grandmother's recipe may have been totally changed and modified.

There are very few people who have not, at one time or another (and most probably recently) asked "Who am I and what is life about?"  In all probability you have said, "There must be more to life than this."

And, having made the statement, part of their 'inner wisdom' has lead people on to where they are now.

Whether you believe it or not, it is that wisdom within you that has guided you throughout your life.  Some may be conscious of it, some may not ...

You know many things.  During your lifetime you have accumulated much wisdom and knowledge.  ... ( Let's face it, we are still alive ... 'so we must have got something right' ... )

This Wisdom is the part of you that knows that there is more to your life than you have so far experienced and accepted.

Because of where you are in your life, because of your life experiences you are able to recognise certain patterns and feelings.

Life, as you have experienced it so far, has been made up of many layers and images.   

If you were held up to a light you would see that your life (and your body) is made up of stories.You, your life is a series of stories, and your body is made up of a series of images that, for some reason or other you have held on to. Perhaps your family photograph album can best be used to illustrate this point.  

During your life you have had a series of experiences that has made you the person you are at this point in time.  It is very important that you recognise this

• That you accept your life so far is crucial to the person you are to become in the future.   All things that have come to make up you are perfect.

As you look at yourself, you see yourself only in a moment.   You cannot yet see the potential of who you are to become.

Every experience that has come to make up you has been had by you for a reason, yes even the so called unpleasant ones.  Even those experiences that have left lingering scars are perfect.

To acknowledge this is to accept yourself.  To accept yourself as you are now, is to allow the process of change to begin.

The greatest wisdom is to be able to recognise the perfection of the moment and then to allow that moment to change into another moment of perfection.

As you read this, take time to look at yourself.  Look at those things you value within yourself.  Even for those who say "there is nothing I value within myself", know that there is something.

You may have just never been given the permission to look at yourself positively.  If this is the case, then know that your ability to know what others with low self esteem feel like is something positive.  Everything we think of ourselves can be turned around to a positive view point.

• Remember always that a judgment positive or negative is merely a turn or a varied view point away.

As with the cake, so it is with your self and your self image.   You have been moulded by generations of beliefs that, in turn, have moulded your gene pool and your character.

We all begin life with a set of ingredients, but what is made of life depends on how we mix and change the ingredients to develop and change, accept and grow.

The energy we know as Kundalini is the flame that transmutes a set of raw ingredients into the final cake ... and keeps on cooking every time we change the recipe ... until such time as we accept that we are ... the perfect cake

"A Plain Man's Cooking Guide" was written, published and © by Transpersonal LifeStreams®, Tasmania, Australia. The URL's of this page are http://www.anunda.com/notebook/04.htm and http://www.lifestreams.com.au/notebook/04.htm.