A Sensational Soul Journey

How can there be a God when war, famine, disaster, child-abuse, starvation and all of the other "atrocities" of life are allowed? What kind of God would allow them? Where is God in all of this? GOD IS ALL OF THIS.

There is Divine Order in every circumstance. Bottom line, the reason and purpose of all things is our Waking Up. Being Conscious in every moment.

A bumper sticker reads:

I screamed at God for all the starving children, and then I realized that all of the starving children were God screaming at me.

What were they screaming? "Wake up!" "Get this!" We're showing up in this experience called Life to demonstrate to all of humanity what Life looks like when there is competition, not compassion; hoarding, not sharing; taking, not giving; ignoring, not attending; denial, not realization; separation, not oneness.

The Soul Agreement made by each one of us is to come into embodiment and outpicture struggle, strife, starvation, and lack, so we can have the opportunity to realize there are other choices for each of us to make if we don't like what is going on. We can be guided by our Soul  not our ego in making these choices.

The ego can learn Truth, but by it's very nature of separation and fear, it is heavily based in the "Big Lie" of not enough. Why do our hearts ache when we hear about "disasters" and "atrocities" that occur? Because in Truth, it is all of us, united as One, that suffer.

Soul, our God connection, knows no suffering. It sees everything as Is-ness. All Life experiences are for the purpose of raising Consciousness at the ego level. The ego learns from each experience which creates change, moving from the present vibration to a higher vibration in an upward spiraling pattern. Change is an aspect of Love. 

All "things" are God made manifest in the physical. God creates unlimited possibilities which are being played out for us to "get it/wake up". How easily we recognize the Divine behind a gorgeous sunset; a stunning rainbow; a majestic eagle gliding across the sky. But God wears infinite disguises.

God is also peering out from behind the eyes of the leper; behind the young girl who pierces her arm with a drug-filled needle; the pile of rotting refuse which becomes home to rats and street people.

Mother Theresa said, "Each ravished body I hold unto me is Christ. That's all I see, the Beloved in them." She would then embrace those with open, oozing sores, the stench of decay permeating them. Their bloody and festering wounds were invisible to her. She saw only the radiance of Christ, the Truth of their Being, behind the disguise of disease and death.

God Is Everything. Everything Is God. Everything is here solely for our Awakening and remembering this Truth. When we see through our own God eyes, we know this. We remember this. We ARE this.

The present-day world wants individuality. It demands freedom. But true individuality and freedom can breathe only in the Divine. Surrender is the untiring breath of the soul in the Heart of God.

Human individuality shouts in the dark. Earthly freedom cries out in the deserts of life. But absolute surrender universally sings of divine individuality and freedom in the lap of the Supreme.

In surrender we discover the spiritual power through which we can become not only the seers but also the possessors of Truth. This Truth is the omnipotent power. If we can surrender in absolute silence, we shall ourselves become the reality of the real, the life of the living, the center of true love, peace and bliss.

A lovely child attracts our attention. We love him because he conquers our heart. But do we ask anything from him in return? No! We love him because he is the object of love; he is lovable. In the same way we can and should love God, for He is the most lovable Being. Spontaneous love for the Divine is surrender, and this surrender is the greatest gift in life. For when we surrender, the Divine in no time gives us infinitely more than we would have asked for.

Surrender is a spiritual miracle. It teaches us how to see God with our eyes closed, how to talk to Him with our mouth shut. Fear enters into our being only when we withdraw our surrender from the Absolute.

Every action of ours should be to please God and not to gain applause. Our actions are too secret and sacred to display before others. They are meant for our own progress, achievement and realization.

Surrender to God's Will entirely depends on our necessity. If we feel that our life is meaningless, that we will not be satisfied or fulfilled without surrendering our earthly existence to God's Will, then surrender will be possible for us.

God can never compel us to surrender; it is we who have to feel the necessity of loving God and devoting ourselves to God at every second. We start with love. Even in the ordinary life, when we love someone, we gladly devote our life and our entire being to that person. In the spiritual life also, if we really love God, who is all Light and infinite wisdom, then we have to devote ourselves to Him. So love, devotion and surrender must always go together.

Did you know that the eagle knows when a storm is approaching, long before it breaks?

The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it.

The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm.

When the storms of life come upon us - and all of us will experience them - we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God. The storms do not have to overcome us. We can allow God's power to lift us above them.

God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure and disappointment in our lives. We can soar above the storm.

Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them.

Bondage and liberation are within you. You bind yourself and you have to liberate yourself. If you don't want to part with something and depend on that for your happiness, then you are not independent. What is independence? Not to depend on anything, at any time.

A few centuries ago a chief minister of a country suddenly got into a spirit of renunciation and said, "I don't want to possess anything anymore. I just want to be free." So he renounced his job and his house and said, "The sky is my roof, the whole world is my house and God is my Father." Then he went and sat in front of a temple. He had been a very nice, capable chief minister. When he suddenly left everything the king became upset and sent a messenger asking the minister to come back. But the minister said, "No, I am no longer interested in that job." Then the king decided to go see the minister himself. He found where the minister was sitting and stood in front of him, "Swami?" "Yes?" "Do you recognize me?" "Yes, I recognize you." "Please tell me what it is that you have gained by leaving everything to sit here like this." The minister looked at the king and said, "Until yesterday I was standing and you were sitting. Today I am sitting and you are standing. That is the first gain."

That is the greatness of renouncing your selfish life. You will not be afraid of anyone. If you're honest, you will be fearless. And when you're fearless, you're powerful. Ego will never make you powerful. "You appear to be powerful, but you are not truly powerful. The most egoist:; people are the most fearful people, because they are constantly afraid of getting their ego hurt. They want to get everything they want, and a something is denied, immediately they get hurt. But a selfless person who is honest and has a clear mind, who is a righteous person, is always power¬ful. He doesn't need to worry about anybody.

I believe that individual freedom starts from within, and that we each would define it differently. What follows are some guideposts on the path to personal freedom.

• Let go of judgment. Most of us spend a high percentage of our time judging ourselves and other people. We beat ourselves up for the smallest transgressions and have difficulty forgiving ourselves for the large ones. Our inner critics make up stories about what we "should" and "shouldn't" be doing or being. They sabotage us through judgments like "who do you think you are?" or "you aren't good enough" or "what a stupid thing to say", and other equally destructive comments.

We project the same level of judgment on to other people. I know I've done it. Judged someone else, and felt just a little better. It's the old tear-someone-else-down-so-I-can- feel-better syndrome. It's the root of gossip and it feeds off of itself. We often judge others so we don't need to look at ourselves.

• Release the rules. We are all conditioned into maintaining a set of rules of behavior. This socialization begins in our families, continues in school, with our peers and filters in from society at large. We become adults with set of rules for behavior that sometimes hold us back - keep us chained into an existence that doesn't work for us. It can be challenging to break free of these "rules", albeit necessary to live a life of personal freedom.

Here are some examples: "Don't brag." Now I'm not a fan of bragging. The difficulty with "don't brag" is that it can get translated in our minds into "don't accept compliments", "it's wrong to say something positive about myself", and for some people it even gets twisted into "It's wrong to think highly of myself and my skills and abilities."

"Be nice." is another favorite conditioning rule. Again, there's nothing wrong with being nice when nice is the authentic way to be. "Be nice" can morph into "Always be polite" or "Never, under any circumstances, act anything other than nice" or "Don't ever express or address your true emotions."

Sometimes we need to state exactly how we think or feel. The truth is that we are free to express ourselves in a way that's authentic to us. At times, that expression may be assertive or angry or sad or exuberantly happy. Other situations call for us to ask for exactly what we need at the risk of someone else feeling uncomfortable. And sometimes, we just need to be truthful, and the truth isn't always nice.

Letting go of judgment and releasing your rules are two important elements of personal freedom. What will it take for you to set yourself free?

The capacities we have as human beings never cease to amaze me. Our body has the capacity to heal, our mind the capacity to create, and our heart and soul the capacity to love unconditionally. We also have a sixth sense, the part of us that just “knows” when something is right or wrong, good or bad. Some call that sixth sense “intuition”; others call it your “gut.”

We each have the capacity to tap into our intuition, that place of knowing, but not all of us have felt or seen that place before. Intuition can come to us in different ways. Some receive intuition viscerally through feelings in their guts or goose bumps or some other sensation that signals whether something is good or bad. Others gather intuition in an auditory way, through sound or thoughts that pop into their heads. It’s a different kind of voice that comes in: it’s more grounded and clear than the mind’s typical “chitter-chatter.” Others receive intuition visually. Dreams are a great example of visual imagery that can often guide us.

Intuition is like a compass in our life. It is a gift that comes with the package of being human. But, how many of us allow intuition to come through, listen to it, and most of all trust it? Can you recall in your life when you had a hunch that something was not right, then your head, fear, or ego took over and you moved forward anyway, only to find your original hunch was right on! That is your intuition speaking to you. It can help guide us through challenging times and lead us through fabulous times—when we finally stop and allow it to come through.

You may be wondering, what intuition? I’ve never seen, felt, or heard this thing! Often we have so much going on in our lives and are so on the go that it doesn’t have room to be expressed. We block it. We also block it when we are forcing, pushing, or controlling, not allowing the space required for it to show up.

If you’ve been running around this month or are holding onto something too tightly, I ask you to take the time to listen to your internal compass. Quiet your mind, take a few deep breaths, and tap into your intuition. Ask a question about an area you may be struggling with and allow the answer to come through. If you have a very strong intuition but have a hard time trusting it, next time it comes up, do not question it. Instead, honor it and let the results speak for themselves.

Whether you are new to this or not, we are all gifted with intuition, and gifts are meant to be cherished, acknowledged, and appreciated. It’s time to open up your gift and use it fully in your life!

When life is going well and events in our lives are progressing according to plan, spirituality is more often than not, put to the wayside. However, faced with challenging situations like illness, death, divorce, unfulfilling jobs, and financial issues we seek consolation, so that we can find peace amongst chaos. But seeing life in this way can only bring us unhappiness as we are always moving in-between polarities. In truth, our spiritual path is our life and the way we chose to perceive it is what makes the difference between our happiness and pain.

When life is going well, we judge it to be good and when life is not we judge it to be bad. But this is not the “what is.” What is – are the events that are taking place on a daily basis free of the judgments we place upon them. Granted some experiences in life feel great and others don’t, but our idea that what is unpleasant is bad – is what creates the pain and emotional reaction within us.

In the Bhagavad Gita it says: The self-controlled soul, who moves amongst sense objects, free from either attachment or repulsion, he wins eternal peace. This is a powerful quote illustrating the key to inner peace. Anyone who follows this simple advice will be content their entire life no matter what circumstances they are in. To understand this wisdom more deeply, we first need to be clear about the meaning of sense objects.

A sense object is what we perceive using our senses. We as spiritual beings we use the human body as our means of interaction within this reality. We may know from an intellectual point of view that everything is energy, but our eyes tell us otherwise. They inform us that we are looking at people and things since the body is a mechanism of interpretation and objectifies everything it perceives.

Once the body interprets energy as “something” the mind then further determines whether it is good or bad, pretty or ugly or right or wrong. Once we make this determination and believe our assessment to be true, we have an emotional reaction appropriate to our judgment. So if we perceive something and determine it is ugly, our emotional reaction will be repulsion, disgust, or gross! If we perceive something and determine it to be pretty or wonderful, our emotional reaction will be attraction, happiness and joy.

If we could recognize on a deep level that what we perceive is our choice, we could take control of what our mind is telling us and free ourselves from the constant fluctuation between attraction and repulsion and the emotional reactions that come from those perceptions. The result of the cessation of this constant fluctuation is peace. In the most basic language I can use, to be happy in life we must let go of our chronic habit of judging everything we perceive in life. Once that habit ends, we can be in the world but not of it and find our inner peace.

I encourage you to explore this possibility and develop self-control over your desire to attach or be repulsed from sense objects. As the Bhagavad Gita suggests, your freedom is at stake.

An absence of faith is like a bird without wings

"It can't be done. It's physically impossible. One would fall unconscious before it could be done." These were some of the comments of renowned athletes, coaches, psychologists, and physicians, who were discussing the possibility of running a mile under four minutes. They believed it was impossible. And as long as they held that belief, it was. Then along came Roger Bannister, a British medical student who lived by faith instead of belief. What's the difference? Belief is what others tell you; faith is what your inner voice tells you.

Unencumbered by negative beliefs and brimming with faith in himself, Roger Bannister shocked the sports world on May 6, 1954 by running the mile in 3:59.4. Suddenly, "the impossible" proved possible, and the shattering of the old belief was heard around the world. Bannister's feat was all the more amazing when you consider the following facts. 1) As a busy medical student, the only time he had to practice was during his lunch hour. He practiced every day for 45 minutes and spent 15 minutes for lunch. 2) Although the track where he broke the record was supposed to be level, it had a slight upward slope, making the race even more grueling. 3) The race took place on a windy day.

Bannister's victory destroyed the artificial barrier that prevented others from running the mile under four minutes. After everyone realized it was now possible, it only took 46 days before the record was broken again by Australian athlete John Landy. Today, of course, "the impossible" has become a common occurrence. In fact, New Zealander, John Walker, has already smashed the four minute barrier 100 times! And Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj has shaved the time to 3:43:13!

"He must be mad! Imagine! Mr. Edison is trying to create light in his laboratory despite two fundamental laws of physics which make it impossible. First, there can be no light without combustion. Second, there can be no combustion in a vacuum." The experts at the time may have known about physics, but they didn't understand the human spirit. The incandescent lamp was already burning brightly in the mind and heart of Edison. Because of his faith, he persisted. Until, one day, his faith unlocked the secret and achieved "the impossible."

The message is clear. Faith is like a key that unlocks our potential. It knows no doubt; hears no discouragement, and sees no insurmountable barriers. It is resolute. With faith everything is possible. That's why Christ said, "According to your faith; be it done unto you." (Matthew 9:29) Why aren't there more Roger Bannisters in the world? Is it due to a lack of faith? No, says Eric Butterworth, "There is no such thing as a lack of faith. We all have plenty of faith, it's just that we have faith in the wrong things. We have faith in what can't be done rather than what can be done. We have faith in lack rather than abundance but there is no lack of faith. Faith is a law."

Faith is the realization that we can accomplish whatever we set out to do, as long as we work at it. For as Joe Namath said, "First, I prepare. Then I have faith." People of faith realize the universe is here to support us, so they surrender to their dreams and leap into the unfamiliar without fear. American Physicist, Edward Teller explains, "When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."

When Henry Ford was asked if he ever worried, he answered, "No, I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about?" Faith in life, such as Mr. Ford's, helps us to eliminate anxiety and reach our potential. No wonder someone wrote, "He who loses money, loses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But he who loses faith loses all."

Every great endeavor flows from faith. It is only after we place our trust in our dream that we can begin to materialize it. Faith is not fanciful; it is logical, for it is based on understanding the laws of life. Ralph Waldo Emerson clarifies, "All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen." Elton Trueblood also makes a good point, "Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation." Perhaps our faith cannot move mountains. But what's to stop us from climbing them? Let's cling to our faith, for it is the dawn of a new tomorrow.