any advice to become aligned with your higher self.

[VinceField]

Originally Posted by gracec09

Hello and good day.
if you have any advice to help with aligning with your higher self, or your true path please help.
Thank you.

Purify your mind of greed/attachment, ill-will/aversion, and ignorance/delusion through spiritual practice, particularly meditation and virtuous living.

Don't cling to the concept of Higher Self. Rather, focus on what you can do to bring your mind into the state that you desire. What does it mean to you to be aligned with your Higher Self?

Most, if not all humans hold the desire to attain true and lasting happiness as their highest goal, and the idea of aligning with Higher Self is likely born from that same desire. Put aside the mystical beliefs that will likely just lead to greater confusion and focus on the true goal and what you can actually do to achieve it.

The order I belong to perceives a very straight forward path to alignment with the higher self. The first act is to destroy the self as you know it. Death to the self. Tear yourself down to the core, throw off all your labels and preconceptions, and begin to start over. This should strip one down to the bare physical and material views (for the time being). Next one must commit - fully - to seeking out this attainment of their higher self above all else. This is certainly not as easy as it seems, and many people falter here where they are required to take control of their own destiny. We come here to a point of reception and meditation, where most people experience their life-changing spiritual experience, or equivalent. Around this time is where communication with the higher self should theoretically begin, though very briefly.

The next step would be for one to challenge their former self. Look at who you used to be, the morals, ideas, symbols, etc., and challenge them to overcome them in a healthy way. All those atheists caught up on hating religion, this is where they fail. Once we validate our new ideology we can begin to use that ideology to change the world in new ways. From here it becomes more possible for one to cause communication with their higher self to occur.

Finally, one must take to works of art, philosophy, religion, science, etc., of those who came before and find which of their discoveries work with modern knowledge and your own mind. This could be compared to the common term "necromancy", bringing the ideas of old back to life in the real world. Somewhere in this step of the journey communication with the higher self becomes vastly easier.

[lenvdb64]

For some this comes easy, for others, like myself, it took more hard work.

I had to unlearn a lot of the church concepts, and learn to develop a relationship with the Self.

I read a book (Awakening the Soul - Trilogy) by Bill Missett which helped me a lot: - http://www.mediacastle.com/bill/ats4.html

There was a meditation in there which I started doing first thing daily as I woke up:

Connecting the Mind/Soul/Heart
Then connecting this inner trinity of the mind / heart/ soul to the Higher Soul.

When I started to do this I felt surges and waves of kundalini energy rising up within me.

Then I had to learn a medium which I could use for communication. I started studying the Tarot as a means of Divination / communication.

This has been a powerful tool for me to work with.
SOUL speaks through images and feelings. Learn how to recognise them and work with them.

The Tree of Life (Kabbalistic) is also a great help for Self initiation.
The Soul within is depicted as your Inner Sun.
Visualise daily in meditation yourself facing the sun.
There is a Golden Dawn ritual which they use called the 4 adorations.
While I do not use these word by word, I visualise my inner Sun and say a daily adoration and prayer:

Hail unto Thee, my Sun, my Soul.
Hail unto Thee in thy rising, thy setting, thy power and thy beauty.
May I ever walk in thy Light, thy favour and blessing.
Hail unto thee from the depths of my being.

Adapt this as you see fit.

This is probably a bit more on the esoteric side rather than the New Age side. But it should get you fast results.

Trying to align and be happier is the issue here.

You ARE your higher self....and your lower self for that matter.

Unfortunately, this is as good as it gets. When we accept this and stop trying, life becomes much easier and you are free to be your real self.....and your real self does not try to be anything.

Does a dog sit and try to become more like a real dog? Or is it the case that since a dog doesn't have such problems, that they are free to sniff and run and play and just be a dog?

[lenvdb64]

The thing I had to learn about my Soul/HS is that layers and layers of conditioning, social and religious, as well as my ego, have hidden and concealed my HS deep within me. I had to start peeling away the layers of conditioning using the meditational techniques mentioned above.

This lead to a Soul Awakening of sorts. The first thing I felt compelled to do after I became awakened was to become a vegetarian.
Then I felt compelled to start reading books about the Soul, which helped me to cultivate my own Soul Awareness.
I studied the Esoteric Kabbalah - read the Dion Fortune book called the Mystical Qabalah, and the Israel Regardie book - A Garden of Pomegranates. It gave me some amazing insights into my Soul. The latter book has some very good guided meditations too, and I learned some of them.

1) Energising through breathing Daily (or the Middle Pillar ritual just as good or better!)
2) Basic protection - the LBRP ritual which has become a vital aspect of my work.
3) Aum chants, Ahm chants as part of meditational work as required.
4) Silencing the Mind meditation as part of my work as required.
5) Connecting with my Inner Sun/Soul in visualisation during meditation to do the Adoration mentioned above as required.

[Adzang]

Allow your life to flow like water and enjoy the journey. So many people try to control to much but if we release and and just flow lifes stepping stones arrive much sooner than later.
Let go of expectation free yourself.
be in awe over everything around you living and not living.
And I really like what all the others have said too. :)