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Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life

February 9, 2019 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Motivation Motivation? We just can’t do without it. It is the driving force of change, whether for good or bad. The current chaos in society is caused by conflicting pressures from those with vested interests, political or otherwise. The one thing they all have in common is motivation. As individuals, we become driven by pressure, too – when we feel strongly that something in us needs to change.

Motivation for good

Some people are very good at self-motivation. Others, like me, need to work at it. However, the best type of motivation is not something we should need to think about very much. Rather, it comes from within. Most of the things that drive us to action are desires for the pleasures and necessities of life. At one level or another, we seek satisfaction. Once we have found it, we soon look elsewhere for fulfilment. But if we let the mind become calm and open, the fripperies of life lose their attraction. Then all motivation for action comes from inside, from what some call the soul or inner spirit. What term we use doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we start to reconnect with our true nature and, in turn, Nature’s power grid.

Motivation nature power

The source of boundless energy and intelligence

When we become still, through relaxation and meditation, we become more open. Our natural state is one of openness, where intuition rather than calculation has its home. Instead of thinking, “I want to be like this,” or “I ought to do that,” we simply know the right thing to do. As a result, we stop wasting energy on things that don’t matter and have plenty for those that do. Nature provides us with the energy we need and our boundless field of intelligence, consciousness, gives us all necessary motivation. It really is a life-changer. And all we have to do is stop – just stop and be still.


Releasing the things that hold us back is the subject of our next evening workshop, Letting Go, on the 11th March 2019. More details and booking.

My third book, The Art of Not Doing shows how we can re-train our minds to find clarity and inner peace.

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Filed Under: The Art of Not Doing Tagged With: bliss, cause and effect, change, choice, consciousness, detox, diet, energy, forgiveness, happiness, humanity, karma, kindness, letting go, meditation, mindfulness, peace, power, release, spirituality, tranquillity, well-being, wellbeing, world peace, zen

Home improvements that strike at our essence

September 1, 2018 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Home with love

It is so fundamentally important to the spiritual, mental and emotional well-being, as well as the physical health, of the human race that each and every home is filled with love. It doesn’t matter if we live on our own or in a household of many. If love is absent, the home is not a healthy one. Although that is obvious, or should be, it may not be at the forefront of most people’s minds that the greater the love is where we live, the healthier it will be for everyone within it. This love isn’t something that we reserve for our nearest and dearest; it is love for the whole of one’s home environment.

Home should be a sanctuary

If there is love for the home, we have a deep respect for it and, most importantly, for everyone who steps into it. Our dwelling place should be one of sanctity and a refuge from the bustle of the outside world. We should feel happy and blessed as soon as we enter. To help with this, we can bless the house, not in a form of words necessarily. It can simply be from a level of feeling, which may be a mixture of gratitude and an intention of goodness.

Raising the energy of our home

By doing so we immediately uplift our surroundings. At some level everyone who enters receives a positive effect from the general energy of the place. Whether we live in a grand house with beautiful gardens or in an apartment or bedsit is immaterial. If every home on our planet were filled with warmth, joy and happiness, if every single dwelling radiated love and generosity of spirit, wouldn’t the world be an amazing place? Forget home improvements, just do the one improvement that fills it from the heart. The jobs and the gadgets can wait.


From Awakening Heart, the Blissful Path to Self Realisation available here

Our next evening workshop Beginning to See Light is on Monday 17th September 2018 at Wolseley Bridge, Staffordshire. Only a few places left. More details.

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  1. Home: four reasons why love in the home is crucial to your health
  2. Radiance and the energy effect: why we all need it
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Filed Under: Awakening Heart Tagged With: energy, family, happiness, health, home, inner peace, joy, kindness, love, self-realisation, wellbeing, world peace

Seeds of happiness – sowing the greatest investment

March 18, 2018 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Seeds from the garden of the mindSeeds of happiness are possibly the greatest investment we can make. Sowing them ensures good returns, exploits nobody, contributes to better health, slows down the ageing process, reduces stress levels and, oddly in our capitalist and commercial age, costs nothing.

Seeds or weeds?

The truth of the matter is that we are sowing seeds all the time. Actions and words affect those around us. We know that doing or saying the right things at the right time can have a positive, indeed sometimes a healing, effect. It is also surprisingly easy to go the other way and mess things up or put our foot in it. I know – I manage it often. Maybe we don’t think of this as planting seeds. But when we reflect and realise that all we say and everything we do are causes that produce effects, it’s not so difficult to see. Pleasant and helpful words are like seeds that produce beautiful flowers and productive actions are like planting nourishing vegetables or crops. Our thoughtless ones just lead to weeds.

The garden of the mind

The mind is very much like a garden. If we don’t look after it and tend it, it becomes a rampant jungle. Some people are fond of gardens like that but probably their neighbours are not so appreciative. When we begin to look after the mind, we might come across things we would rather not. A rusty old bed frame or bicycle wheel may lie well hidden in the weeds of an untidy garden. As we tidy up the mind, we may find old and useless things there, too. Relics from the past that are waiting to be sent to the recycling yard. With time and care, we can tidy up the clutter of our mind.Watering seeds

Cultivating seeds of happiness

Our words and actions are not autonomous. They result from our thoughts. How the mind is, is the key to everything. That means we have choice in how we respond to what life brings us. The more positive thoughts we have, the brighter the mind becomes. As we make our mood lighter, it becomes more difficult for negativity to take root. Amazingly, that is all we need to do sometimes. And right now in this beautiful but crazy world, it may be one of the most important things we can do.


If you like this, please subscribe to this blog, if you haven’t already. There are also some books!

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Filed Under: Happiness Tagged With: ageing, business, cause and effect, collective consciousness, consciousness, ethics, happiness, joy, kindness, loving kindness, mind, mindfulness, self-realisation, wellbeing

World peace is fragile – it’s no joke but we can all help

September 17, 2017 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

World peace is on a knife edge. The Secretary General of NATO has described the current state of affairs as “the most dangerous point in a generation“. That’s alarming, but it certainly isn’t hopeless.

World leaders need a hand, and it’s down to you and me, kidworld peace children

When things are this volatile, we look to the world’s national leaders for solutions. Like children, we turn to mum and dad to sort out the mess we have made. But the leaders are human beings, too. They have weaknesses as well as strengths, as do we. Their positions of power and authority come not from some divine right but from the people who place them there, whether by election or by default. From that point alone, we all bear some responsibility for world peace. Looking more deeply, there is the question of collective consciousness, and that’s where we really can do something effective.

Consciousness is the key to world peace

In spite of all the time and energy national leaders put into their work, we’re still in trouble. Why? Because humanity’s consciousness as a whole is immature. We’re still in kindergarten. Living with the attitude “what’s in it for me and my friends?” will no longer hack it. Looking after number one does not create stability. A touch of selflessness and kindness, on the other hand, can cure a great deal.

A more altruistic society is essential

Governments know this but struggle because they reflect the consciousness of the country they represent. Altruism may be an ideal but it is impossible for a nation even to move in that direction if its millions of citizens have no taste for it. But we can choose to be kinder and more compassionate. We can choose to live ethically. Many do so already but it is an attitude that needs to become mainstream rather than a niche fashion. Then a more altruistic society becomes possible and world peace more than a pipe dream.


The importance of loving kindness in society is examined more deeply in the book Awakening Heart: The Blissful Path to Self Realisation

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  2. Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life
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Filed Under: News Tagged With: cause and effect, collective consciousness, compassion, consciousness, happiness, humanity, kindness, loving kindness, peace, society, transformation, world peace

Mirror, mirror in my head – the biggest liar of them all?

June 3, 2017 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

The magic mirror in the tale of Snow White knew a thing or two. “Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who is the fairest of them all?” is not a question that is asked in our house. Our mirrors are not magic at all. In fact, as far as possible, we avoid them unless absolutely necessary. They don’t hide anything. They just throw back a reflection of “how it is”. But what about our internal mirror?

mirror of consciousnessThe mirror of consciousness

It is virtually impossible to describe consciousness in words, so the old teachers often used analogies. Consciousness is like a mirror, they would say, because it simply reflects what appears to it. A more modern analogy is that of a cinema or television screen. The screen does nothing. It is just the medium on which images appear.

So where do hate, love, anger and kindness come from?

There is far more kindness in the world than there is cruelty. But the message we keep seeing and hearing is that the whole planet is a disaster zone. Instead of seeing things as they are, we are influenced by what other people tell us or have told us in the past.

Our mirror is tainted. Smudges and scratches on the glass distort what we see. Not only do we see a narrow, partial picture rather than the whole, we become excited or upset at what we think we see.

Placing a judgment on everything is pretty exhausting. No wonder so many people become depressed. We need to work on it.

Start polishingpolishing mirror

How do we clean the internal mirror, the one in our head? After all, if everything we see is wrong, surely it is just going to get worse?

Okay, it will take quite a while to have a highly polished reflector. But we can start the process right now. The immediate thing is not to add to the distortion and dirty marks that are already there. We simply interrupt the cycle of making judgments. (That may also necessitate changing our newspaper!) We stop shouting “hooray” or “yah boo” at everything we see or read about.

A mirror of peace

Eventually the liar will give up – because no-one’s listening. Accepting things as they are, and importantly not necessarily condoning them, we begin to develop a mirror of peace. And surely that can only be a good thing.


Thanks for reading this. If you liked it, you may enjoy my book The Art of Not Doing

Evening workshop 5th June 2017 in Staffordshire “Pacifying the Mind”. Details here.

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Filed Under: The Art of Not Doing Tagged With: ancient wisdom, blame, cause and effect, consciousness, ego, kindness, positive thought, spirituality, tranquillity, wellbeing, wisdom, zen

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