Shakti Gawain - Living in the Light: Follow Your Inner Guidance to Create a New Life and a New World

Copyright 1986, 2011 by Shakti Gawain and Laurel King

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gawain, Shakti, date.

Living in the light : follow your inner guidance to create a new life and a new world / Shakti Gawain, with Laurel King. 25th anniversary ed.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Living in the light : a guide to personal and planetary transformation. C1998.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60868-048-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Meditation. I. King, Laurel. II. Title.

BF637.S4G392 2011

Originally published in 1986 by Whatever Publishing, now doing business as New World Library

First printing of 25th anniversary revised edition, December 2011

ISBN 978-1-60868-048-1

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated

to the wisdom within us all.

D ear Friends,

I am thrilled to be releasing the 25th anniversary edition of my book Living in the Light. I am also grateful for the opportunity to still be teaching and writing after all these years. I never set out to be an author or leader in any intentional way. The process of personal development fascinated me and I was reading books and attending workshops on metaphysics, psychology, and Eastern philosophy. I soon found myself leading workshops sharing the ideas and practices that were helping me. I thought sharing them with others might be helpful. I didnt even start with the idea of writing a book! I was actually just looking for a way to organize these ideas and experiences and thought I could offer a pamphlet to people who were interested. Twelve books later(!), my work has evolved beyond my wildest dreams, in a way I could never have planned. I am so appreciative of all the support I have received over these years.

To date, my books have been translated into over thirty-five languages and have sold over ten million copies. In the publishing world, this is certainly considered a successful career. More important to me, however, it means that the information I have found so powerful and helpful in my own life is being shared with millions of people all over the world. My vision is that my work is helping people to make changes in their lives that broaden their experience and deepen their connection with themselves and others. I am touched by the messages I receive daily through mail, email, Facebook, and Twitter from people who have been touched by my work and found my books helpful.

This book made a powerful impact when it was first released. With the global shifts taking place now, this book is more timely and relevant than ever, and doing our own inner work is more critical. I see this anniversary edition as an opportunity to remind original readers of what is possible and to connect with new readers in empowering them to ignite their path.

Over the years since I wrote the first edition, my understanding has developed and (hopefully) deepened through my own life experience and my work with others. I felt that there were many things I would say somewhat differently now, and that perhaps it would be valuable to my readers to hear more of my ongoing story as well as some of my older and wiser perspective.

One of the earliest workshops I attended was a course on developing healing power through intuition. At that time, I was still rather skeptical about this sort of thing and probably would never have gone to it except that my mother had taken the course and highly recommended it to me. I will never forget her description of a technique in which you can imagine what you want to have happen and it will very often come about. My mind felt doubtful about this but my heart made a leap and I remember thinking, Ever since I was a child, I have always known that there is magic that somehow, somewhere, magic really exists. This sounds like the closest thing to it that I have ever heard of.

I took the course and I was amazed! We started slowly and easily with simple techniques that anyone could accept and do, and gradually we worked our way into more unexplainable, but very powerful, processes. After five days, I had a strong psychic experience in which, for a period of several hours, I was able to consistently pick up specific information that I had no way of knowing except through my intuition. That experience began to dissolve some of the former limits on what I thought was possible.

One of the most important techniques I learned in that course was the basic technique of creative visualization relaxing deeply and then imagining a desired goal in your mind exactly the way you want it to be. I started to practice this technique and found that it was amazingly effective. Quite often the things I imagined came true quickly and in unexpected ways. I became fascinated with the possibilities and took some other classes and workshops on similar subjects. I began to use creative visualization techniques in my life regularly and to teach them to my friends. Soon I began to lead workshops and do private counseling, and eventually I wrote