It is so exciting to be able to write to you again, with a fresh perspective and an even fresher website! The development of keithruback.com was more than just placing pictures and words in special places, it was like a mirror that would reflect back to me my different stages of growth (or maybe those were just moods). Sometimes when I thought we had the perfect page design, I would go back and realize that I had changed since then and would have to tweak it a bit more. Without knowing it, that website was an integral part of me. If it was doing good, I was doing good; certainly not a problem as long as the internet was working!
That process of working with my website supported me in realizing how often I begin to identify with the things I do. In other words, at some point in the process of putting together that website, I "WAS" the website and if someone criticized a part of it, they were criticizing a part of me.
 What got me going on this was when I started wondering, Why?" At what point did a part of me decide that I was now the same as this html code. And one day it dawned on me - this idea of choosing our identities and it was all because of my beloved Fedora
I love my hat. At times I love it so much that I think of it as part of me, like a hand or my hair. I've integrated this hat into my hologram because people seem to treat me better when I wear it (I know, it's self-fulfilling prophecy at work but that's part of the point). Suppose that I've worn my hat for years, and it has become part of my identity but it starts to show some real wear and tear that I never noticed until it literally falls apart one cold morning.
So I go to buy a new fedora but there's a problem - they're all different. They aren't fitting right or every time I look in the mirror, the person looking back doesn't match my "hologram" - my picture of how I see myself. And (this is the important part) I've identified so deeply with this hologram, that I feel empty because there is no replacement that will work. And now, because the department store I entrusted my image to can no longer replace my hat, I live the rest of my life, hiding in my room, refusing food, squinting at the sun light, withering away into empty oblivion.
All of us do something similar (hopefully with a less dramatic ending), we attach our identity to something outside of us, it's normal. Eckhart Tolle would call it our story, it's the identity we embrace, "I'm a psychic", "I'm an executive", "I'm a loser" all of these phrases are part of our hologram and to the degree that we merge with it, it is to that degree that we are likely to be devastated by some external change. You see it with some people and their cars. They identify with their car. They wax it every day, park it a million miles a way from their location so it doesn't get scratched and if for any reason it started to roll down a hill, some people are so completely identified with their car they would throw themselves under a tire to save it! (now just substitute the word Car with anything you love).
I suspect you think this article going to segue into moral conclusion for everyone to release their image of themselves and embrace their spiritual non-materialistic side.
While that is certainly not a bad idea, it is not the point I most loudly want to make.
This article is a plea to simply be aware that you are choosing your identity (your hologram), which by itself means you are remembering that you aren't the hologram you're someone else choosing to identify with it. And that little piece of awareness changes everything.
Simply put: Choose to be aware that you're choosing. At a particular moment on my hunt for the perfect hat, i realized that I had given this hat great importance, but it didn't change a thing. I still wanted it, but now I was in touch with the knowledge that my desire was merely something I was honoring.
Your consciousness changes the outcome of everything and doesn't change the behavior one bit.
Example unconscious : Someone asks me to go to the movies with them. I really don't want to go but they're lonely, I feel guilty so I say, "Sure". I go, I hate it and I avoid them for the rest of the week but really don't know why.
Example conscious: Someone asks me to go to the movies with them. I really don't want to go but before I answer I take a second to review why I'm going and I ask if there is anything I can get out of going for myself. I realize I could enjoy the change of routine so I say "Sure." I go, love that I got out though the movie was still bad and had a great week.
Both behaviors identical. Both outcomes vastly different.
As we enter the time of Autumn and the internal cycle of harvest and hibernation, it's important that we more honestly magnify our own inner observer, that part of us that is willing to watch us and stay supportive of our behavior without letting us think we are the behavior. Let yourself experience all the choices you have available to you by simply taking less than 5 seconds to simply nudge yourself with a wink of awareness. If you love your car that much, know that a part of you is making that choice so that there is a fraction of awareness in you that knows that you aren't your car. You certainly aren't any of things that exist here on this plane (lucky you).
The only wrong choice is not choosing.
Until October
On Earth As It Is in Heaven
~Keith
Click here to get a reading from Rev. Ruback
In the spirit of the renewed edition of The Voice of Hope, it is my pleasure to welcome these two distinguished guests. Radleigh Valentine, whom many of you know as the father of our Tarot-Scopes (now Radleigh Scopes) on 12House.com has graciously agreed to forecast our Month Ahead and Anita Ahuja (host of the enormously popular "Lifting the Veil" radio show) have graciously agreed to provide the first article for the new Voice of Hope. This is a thrilling reunion for me and I hope you will enjoy this half as much as I do in presenting these two powerhouse talents. | 
