It seems to me that it took the work of many people from many nations; from varied religious, personal, and cultural backgrounds, working together to gain our status as a new nation. So today, July 3rd , I look forward to adding the celebration of Interdependence Day to my 4th of July celebration this year. As I continue in my contemplation of Spiritual Liberation and the inherent Freedom that lives within each of us, just waiting to be unleashed, I pray that each of us is taking the next step in our journey of Awakening, knowing that God’s Grace is ever-present and ever-available to support that journey.
This week, I have spent time looking at the things that seem to block the process of awakening and limit our ability to open to the Infinite Possibility of Spirit, so that we might begin to rewire those habits and patterns that need adjusting if each of us is to continue growing into the most conscious and enlightened version of ourselves. As I reflect, I can see two additional challenges that I experience on occasion. In case these are helpful to anyone reading, I will share them here today.
We are all aware that human beings are hard-wired to avoid intense pain and discomfort, as this assists us in our survival as individuals and as a species. But have you considered that it is equally difficult for most people to make room for positive experiences and energies? As a species, we do not yet seem to have developed the fundamental conditioning to accept, much less expect, the experience of intense joy. In general, we seem to be most comfortable keeping things within a certain range, somewhere close to average, on the spectrum of human experience. This tendency makes opening to possibility more challenging.
As a species, we are not yet hard-wired to accept and experience the positive intensity that Spiritual Awakening brings into our experience. Maybe this is because in our human evolutionary history, we have spent so much time and energy merely surviving, that we haven’t had as many opportunities to experience intense joy or to come into contact with the ecstasy that extreme positive experiences unleash on our nervous systems. And so, faced with the opportunity for intense joy, one might shy away, recognizing that the joyful sensations will not last; maybe avoiding the ups to escape feeling the downs. There may be an unconscious unwillingness to feel the good, expecting that doing so is setting us up for a fall. How do we break this habit? Maybe spending time every day inviting the Good to unfold in greater ways in my life would point me in the right direction. Maybe paying greater attention to what is happening in every moment, noticing when the possibility of Good is before me, and saying a conscious and resounding YES…stepping into the possibility Wholeheartedly, willing to experience the fullness of Joy in this moment, no matter what the next moment may bring.
Another limitation to experiencing infinite possibility in our lives involves the concept of time. We are beings that live our lives according to the clock. It seems beneficial that we have made agreements about the structuring of our lives. Clock time helps us to work together, to do business…in general, to create a sense of order in how we co-exist with one another. The problem is that having this as an embodied way of being and interacting, and arranging our lives along a timeline, we are often looking ahead, planning what is to come next. And as spiritual students and seekers, this habit of looking ahead leads us to the belief that spiritual awakening is going to happen somewhere in the future. Our conception of time can only imagine change or transformation happening over time. And when we imagine our awakening on a timeline, that says that it’s not the case now. “I will become enlightened in some future moment…or lifetime.”
The Truth is that Spiritual Awakening is happening in every moment…it only happens in the now. All we need to do to experience it is give up the insistence that it isn’t available now and consciously step into what is…in all of its perfection, no matter what it looks like. Spiritual Awakening is a perpetual state of Being. Infinite Possibility is alive in every moment. Our choice comes in choosing to step into it, or not. Divinity is alive within us, just as we are alive within It, all the time. God is eternally expressing Itself, always available. Our choice comes in moving in the direction of accepting and embodying Its Presence, or not.
I have heard it said that we are each on a uniquely-experienced version of the same path, the path that leads us to know ourselves as we truly are, and to live as Love in action. As is stated in the Course in Miracles, “It is a required course. Only the time that you take it is voluntary…you can elect what you want to take at a given time.” That being the case, what am I ready to experience in my journey of awakening? What will it take to move in the direction of my highest expression and greatest possibility? Will I willingly open to a greater sense of possibility than I have ever known before, or will I wait for Life to direct me?
This morning, I read a quote from the book of Zechariah. It said, “This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people, and they will say, The Lord is our God.’”
Sometimes it feels like we are being put into the fire…we, humanity and the world, the third part in the Wholeness or Trinity that is God. We are being purified; all that is unlike Love, Peace, Joy, Beauty, and Freedom is being burned away. And it can be extremely painful to look at all that is unfolding right now…people believing and living from a sense of separation from one another and earth.
How good it is to be reminded that Ultimate Good is always unfolding and evolving…that I have a choice whether to ground myself in limitation or possibility…that every one of my choices matter. And how Good it is to know that Joy is always available, that Peace and Contentment are but one choice away as I step into this great Awakening. Each of us is an alchemist with the Power of God moving always in, through, as and all around us. Each of us has the Power to transform our experience of life and of our world. And one by one, as we do, we are part of a global transformation like nothing we have seen before.
May we all choose to be Awake to the Infinite Possibility, available here and now…
May we be well…stay in touch…know our unity…and thrive!
And may we know the Absolute Beauty and Wonder of this Grace-filled, once-in-a lifetime day…