Our experience in this world is the result of what we believe to be true and real because this determines where we look for solutions to our problems and the source of our peace and happiness.
Dr Wayne Dyer famously said we are not physical beings trying to have a spiritual experience, rather we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. This shift in emphasis is crucial. The source and origin of our very being is spiritual and thus it is where we need to look for reality and truth. The physical world is merely the realm of effect.
It is easy to forget this. The distractions and pressures of our life on earth are great. We become so absorbed in problems, so preoccupied with making our physical lives conform to all our dreams and desires, we lose sight of our true nature. We become so immersed in our physical lives that we confuse cause with effect and this confusion lies at the root of all our pain and suffering.
Michael A. Singer, author of “The Untethered Soul: the Journey Beyond Yourself,” artfully describes this process of distraction and forgetting:
“You have an underlying pattern of thoughts that goes on around you all the time. This pattern of thoughts stays pretty much the same. You are as familiar and comfortable with your normal thought patterns as you are with the living space of your home. You also have emotions that are your norm: a certain amount of fear, a certain amount of love, and a certain amount of insecurity. You know that if certain things happen, one or more of these emotions will flare up and dominate your awareness. Then, eventually, they will settle back down to the norm. You know this so well that you are very busy inside making sure nothing happens to create these disturbances. In fact, you are so preoccupied with controlling your world of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations that you don’t even know you’re in there…When you are in this lost state, you get so totally absorbed in the objects of thoughts, feelings and senses, that you forget the subject.”
And the subject is our true self; our original non-physical self that chose to incarnate into physical form for the experience it provides. In the process we forget who and what we really are, and from where we came.
In our forgetting we become so attached to the physical conditions of our lives, and the fears that constantly plague us, it usually takes a catastrophe of some sort to get us to see things differently. In his book, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, Gregg Braden says that changing our beliefs can be the most difficult thing to do and we usually need a trigger at least as strong as the force of our belief to jolt us out of our fear-based mindset.
However, once we accept our spiritual nature and origin, we adjust our focus and begin to look beneath the surface of things, we can begin to appreciate a different reality. Michael A Singer says it starts with the serious questions: “Who am I? Who is having all these physical, emotional, and mental experiences?” It is in the asking of these questions that we start the excavation process of self-discovery:
“So you contemplate this question a little deeper. This is done by letting go of the experiences and noticing who is left. You will begin to notice who is experiencing the experience. Eventually, you will get to the point within yourself where you realize that you, the experiencer, have a certain quality. And that quality is awareness, consciousness, an intuitive sense of existence. You know that you’re in there. You don’t have to think about it; you just know.”
Once we are looking in the right direction, giving our attention to the true reality beneath all things, we come to see and understand that everything is energy, and that the essence of that energy is Divine Love.
Gradually we learn that to harness this energy for the healing and growth we all desire, we must put our attention, and intention, to love. Love is all there truly is. It is the essence of all things real and is the source of the power we need to manifest the harmony and balance needed for a deep and abiding peace, regardless of what is going on around us.
Love is the true answer to every question, the solution to every problem and the meaning of all life. What it means to be truly loving is the subject for another time. For now it is sufficient to say that someone who is truly loving is neither weak nor wishy- washy. Someone who truly loves themselves and others has strong boundaries, good instincts and intuition, and even better spiritual protection.
The real meaning of love is strength, power and dominion and the true source of that power lies in the fact that the more we love, the less fear we feel. Without fear, we are capable of anything we desire. This is our spiritual heritage and legacy. This is true spiritual wealth.
