In, Through, Up & Out

Had a bad day, a sad day, a down day lately?   It happens, as the expression goes, to the best of us. Despite our spiritual foundation, our commitment to spiritual practice, self-awareness, familiarity with the terrain of our personal mind field, we can be tripped up, and fall from a state grace, joy, or peace.  When this happens, our response can make all the difference as to how we climb back to our natural God given state of joy and peace.    For many of us, our first response to such negative emotions is denial and/or guilt.  Usually carried by the thought, I am spiritual; I can't be, or I shouldn't be feeling sad or depressed!  That's simply not true.  We all have egos; we are in this world to work out our feelings of separation from God.  Whatever feelings arise, they are feedback to what we believe is true in any given moment.  For that reason, we must acknowledge them. To deny or repress those feelings would ensure that we remain in darkness, painfully ignorant of what is going on in us. Until we can recognize that these feelings exist in us, we can't begin the spiritual correction process.  Of course, our egos would rather deny these feelings or blame them on circumstances or other people. However, when we deny or project, we ensure that the problem remains beyond our reach, and therefore unsolvable.   It is the good news-bad news of authentic spiritual understanding.  On the surface, we confront what appears as the bad news; that the problem lies within us.  The good news of course is that we have control over our inner experience, which means there is a way out of our suffering.  By admitting, I am feeling sad, I firmly establish this situation as my personal experience, with nobody or nothing to blame. When I take responsibility for my experience, I have correctly located the problem, where I can deal with it and find my way out.    So how do we get free when we're mired in negative emotions? The answer is a reversal of the problem. A Course In Miracles says, "A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need to correct."  My ego does not want to hear this but it just happens to be the truth:  My sadness (fear, anger, etc.) is a result of a decision that I made.  That decision was to see another person or myself or a situation without love.  Some form of judgment on my part is blocking my heart and preventing God's love from flowing through me.  This is spiritual angina, and it hurts like hell. My only way out is to see through eyes of Truth, which corrects my misperception, and cast healing light on everything I see.  If I listen to Spirit's voice, I am shown the truth in any situation, and am blessed by the reversal that turns my darkness into light.   Here is the systematic process offered by ACIM:   I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise. I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace. I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him. I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me.

Give Me The Growth... Keep the Change!

The well worn phrase," the only thing constant in life is change" needs an update in my opinion. The way I see it, and I'm finding agreement among many observers of life,  the rate of change has increased.  From the speed of technological advancement, to the immediacy of our communication capabilities we live in a maelstrom of change.  It is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. Collectively we have created this pace and set in motion the mechanics and means for its continuance.  We may not like it but here we are in its current. 

So what can we do to navigate through the rushing waters of change so that we are not engulfed by it, but rather carried to a desirable downstream destination? The answer is of course the reverse of the problem. We need to change. Sorry to be the bearer of the obvious but it's the only wise response. Resistance doesn't work. Trying to slow down the river is dam hard, and ultimately futile.  Arguing against change provides only egoic satisfaction (this shouldn't be happening) and equally pointless. 

In this quickening age it has become increasingly necessary to recalibrate our responses and adaptations more frequently.  Many of us feel that an evolutionary impulse is behind the wholesale disruptions of long standing beliefs, structures and institutions that now are under assault by the forces of change.  In other words, we are being forced to confront the disruption and disappearance of norms in our life, out of a universal intention to break us free from our identification with forms. In spiritual terms this would be the Divine impulse having its way with us, morphing our awareness into a truer version of ourselves.  Jesus called this building your faith upon a rock, where the winds of change and shifting sands of impermanence could not disturb your essential self.

Each day we hear about weather disasters where powerful forces are tearing at the surface of the earth and everything upon it.  Upsetting change has always been with us.  Fortunately, our deepest nature remains undisturbed and undiminished through it all. It is always with us as well. This is the pearl that remains hidden within us while the weather is fair and pleasant.  However, when the storms strike in our lives, and the structures that have defined us, such as jobs, finances, and health, are forcefully upended by winds of change, our essential, pure selves often get laid bare. On those days, we can see with the eyes of spiritual masters, seeing what passes away and what remains. Stripped of externals, we stand on the bedrock of our true nature, and behold the grace of change for having revealed who we really are.  Seen in this way, change becomes transformation, an ally with our deepest impulse to know ourselves as God knows us.