Q: With what you know now, what advice do you wish you could have been given when you were just starting on your spiritual journey?

“Everyone’s journey is different so I appreciate that what has helped me may not be relevant to others. But I hope that by sharing honestly what I have experienced it may help and inspire others in a similar situation, so this answer is my own. It is not meant to apply to everyone.” Mark Zaretti

When I first discovered light and sound meditation it was 1998 and I was in my early 20s. I’d already done a lot of meditation but was “looking for something deeper“. Light and sound was what I had been looking for and I trusted my dear friend who I thank to this day for introducing me to the group involved. Here’s the first bit of advice I wish I’d been given:

(1) TRUST YOUR OWN INTUITION

You see in finding a group that could initiate me into light and sound I was confronted with a dilemma. I knew absolutely that this energy was what I was looking for but there was a lot that I was being told by the teachers of this group that didn’t sit with what I felt intuitively to be true. They told me that there was no such thing as a soul or reincarnation, that Jesus was a made up story, that their master was an avatar, basically that he was God. The idea of a spiritual hierarchy of ascended masters was dismissed.

I should have walked away but I knew the energy side of things was real and because I trusted their ability to give the energy I ended up falling into their beliefs, which were dictated by their master. To some extent I had no choice but to go along with it all as the alternative was to be “kicked off the path” and so like a few others who in private voiced their concerns, we persevered and endured in order to follow the journey to its conclusion.

Years later I was enlightened (yes the light and sound was the real deal) and started to go far beyond the limits of what I had been told by that group. By which time I had been ostracized from that group and after confronting their master about the poor treatment of people, I decided to leave them altogether.

Imagine my delight when I finally discovered there is a soul, that we do come back over many lifetimes and that the master was not exactly who or what he had claimed himself to be. It was about this time that I was shown a document written in 1986 by that master where he actually validated the existence of the Spiritual Hierarchy, ascended masters, and that he was not the only way to get initiation, contrary to his more recent teachings.

Thankfully I also rediscovered the truth that some of the ancient teachers including Lord Krishna, Quan yin and Jesus were actually real and began to find inspiration in their spiritual teachings (not in religion). This was a hard journey coming back to truth because over the 12 or so years involved in that group, I was literally brainwashed against my gut feeling and intuition into letting go of a lot of things that I felt were true deep down. So I beg you to always follow your intuition! The truth will ALWAYS come out.

Much of what I learnt about the soul, incarnation, Jesus and the truth about the Source (God) and where the energy really came from led me to the next thing I really wish I had been told right at the start:

(2) KEEP LOVE AT THE CORE OF ALL YOU DO

It sounds obvious but you would be surprised how many people lose sight of this. I’ve been guilty of this and I’ve seen it too many times in others. The spiritual journey is the journey to enlightenment and it is driven by LIGHT, which you meditate on. During my days meditating on spiritual light and sound energy under the guidance of the Path there was literally no mention of love. It wasn’t discussed at all, and being honest there was little demonstration of love from the teachers either, with a few great exceptions.

Don’t get me wrong there were some lovely people but many at the top never included love in their teachings. The attitude was very much “meditate, and if that doesn’t work, meditate some more“.

But love is and always has been at the core of everything. In fact I can tell you honestly having attained enlightenment that love is higher than light. It is true that you need the light in order to progress but it is also true that without love you can only progress so far.

So many people are obsessed with getting the light that they forget about love. I know I did for a while. Trust me on this, keep love at the core of everything and you’ll find it much easier to meditate on light and also to enjoy and benefit from the meditation.

Love is the bedrock of The Six Virtues and I have produced a complete series of videos exploring love in more detail. Love is actually so important that you cannot attain enlightenment unless you have love within yourself and this leads me on to the final bit of advice that I wish I’d been given:

(3) WORK ON YOUR SOUL JOURNEY

Again so many people make the mistake of focusing on the spiritual journey that they forget about the soul journey. I guess it could be because it is easier to be aware of spiritual progress because of the landmark revelations of light and eventually enlightenment. But the spiritual journey is one half of the coin, the other side is the soul journey and at the risk of giving the game away, neither journey ends upon enlightenment, which is actually “the beginning” of a life of amazing potential. But unless the soul is ready for it that potential never gets realised.

The soul journey really matters and just as point (2) suggests, love is at the core of your soul journey. To help you on your soul journey this website is full of guidance on how to develop your soul and I would start with “The WAY“.

I have also produced a number of podcasts where I explore the topic further: (1) Spirituality and the Virtues (2) Ego and (3) God.

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