Q1. Hello, can you please introduce yourself? Readers would love to know more about you.
A1. My name is Ashr Gray and I am a Los Angeles based creative. I’m an artist and a songwriter, poet as well as the author of the spiritual process. I’m a father of 11 year old twin daughters. I’m a crew member at Trader Joe’s in Silverlake California and manager at Pathfiners, a recovery clubhouse where I also teach guided mantra meditations.
Q2. What were the key challenges you faced while writing your book “Way of the Conscious Creator”?
A2. The main challenge I faced was the amount of time that it’s taken to download the information and integrate it all into a working practice. This is something that slowly and organically has been manifesting since 2005.
Q3. What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?
A3. Throughout the years there’s been many books that have crossed my path that have influenced my thinking. There’s some recovery literature, some old esoteric texts, a course in miracles, the e-ching, law of success, ask and it is given. Then my own exploration into different yoga practices taught me about the use of mantras and breathing techniques. The main influence has been this intuitive interchange I’ve had with spiritual consciousness. I get this idea in my head and then do research on it and build up writing around it and then sculpt it and edit it like a piece of clay on a pottery wheel. After doing that for about 10 years all these elements started to fit together into the process introduced in this book. But at first I just had separate puzzle pieces. They didn’t necessarily fit into an order until I got far enough along with the practice and the awareness was able to show me how to lock them all together into workable form.
Q4. What’s your favourite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
A4. I love to get out to the desert. Joshua Tree or even Palm Springs has very healing and calming energy. I also really love all the ocean. And then Idlewild in the mountains above Palm Springs is a very special place Anything with water, desert or mountains I’m into. Being a single father with two kids and two jobs, I don’t get to get away too much. So I really enjoy taking solace in the places that are close to me when I can get away for a minute.
Q5. What inspired you to write the book ‘Way of the Conscious Creator’?
A5. I had a sincere desire to be a consistent and loving presence in the lives of my daughters who I have loved more than anything in the world. I was having a lot of trouble staying sober in traditional 12-step recovery fellowships. I started to see that my problem was more mental. My own established thought patterns were limiting the access I had to the more authentic higher parts of myself, my spiritually aligned higher self. I couldn’t access the well-being that was within my spirit because those thought patterns were creating dysregulating emotions such as anxiety and depression. I prayed earnestly for a solution that would help me stabilize and become someone who could consistently move through the world with a sense of joy and wholeness that would sustain me in being a great father and the loving member of the community. And this process was the answer to my prayers.
Q6. How long did it take you to write your book ‘Way of the Conscious Creator’?
A6. There are three books in the way the conscious creator trilogy, the first book, covers the first three measures the process. It’s done and available for other people to engage. Book two, the second triad, is written but it just needs to be properly edited. That should be out in a couple months. And I’m currently living in the third triad, book 3. Which is 70% written but it’s going to have new sections added in that illustrate my current experience moving through cancer treatment and other things that I’ve done to continue to create space to release the past and move into wholeness and joy. That book will be out by the end of the year. But the workup of material for this has been going on since 2004. So I’ve been working on this for 20 years now.
Q7. On what platforms can readers buy your books?
A7. Presently the book is available on wholenessandjoy.com and selects book stores around Los angeles. I’m going to be putting it up on Amazon later this month.
Q8. Tell us about the process of coming up with the book cover and the title ‘Way of the Conscious Creator’?
A8. The geometrical symbol represents the process itself. I don’t want to get into too much of the detail with it because it’s something that each practitioner will become aware of as they move through the process. But the basic jist is that there are three triads and each triad is broken down into three measures. Each measure in the process supports the Fulfillment of a fundamental need that we all have a spiritual being having a human experience. And this process itself is built upon three fundamental principles of being which are awareness, desire and willingness. The green circle represents wisdom and the handshake represents the union or creative collaboration between spiritual and human consciousness.
Q9. When writing a book how do you keep things fresh, for both your readers and also yourself?
A9. I was intuitively guided through this process so I would go through periods of extreme production and inspiration followed by periods of confusion and apathy. There were times when the inspiration would come and I would be writing like a madman. And then I would spend a couple of years just reflecting on what I wrote. And then integrating those writings into my life. So it’s always been fresh but there were times that I needed to know when to back off and just live my life and enjoy my moments. This was not the kind of thing I could just like to hyper focus on like a drug or some sort of addiction. It needed to have room to breathe and it needed to have room to integrate into me and change me. After all, if this wasn’t something that served my deep-seated desires to evolve beyond survival mode then how on earth could I responsibly recommend it to anybody else?
Q10. What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
A10. Well I don’t know if it’s a piece of advice but it’s something that I’ve learned going through this process. There will be writing that you do for yourself, for your own understanding, for your own evolution as a human being and as a creator. You might even put some of that writing out and make it commercial. But ultimately that writing was mainly for you and your own understanding. But then there will come a time that you do shift gears and put the emphasis on trying to gear your writing towards an audience. Then your writing will be focused on relatability, and bringing people into something that they can understand and benefit from as well.
Book is available here
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