YOU ARE HERE FOR A REASON
There was an instant in time when you were no-where. The moment before your conception you were no-where. Then in one holy instant, you went from no-where to now-here.
There will be another holy instant when you will go from now-here to no-where. We call that moment death. Yet you—the divine, changeless, eternal, invisible you—will live on.
If it is true that we are a part of an intelligent system, we can assume that we go from no-where to now-here for some purpose. With this realization you can stop doubting that you are a divine creation with purpose and just accept that you are. You are a part of this intelligent system and you are here for some divine reason.
That reason, you can surely guess, is concerned with the spiritual inner energy I am writing about. Knowing your spiritual self is your sacred quest, and your life challenge.
So many of us have grown up believing that who we are is the body we carry around, the job we perform and the religion we practice. Our lives are involved with externals at the same time that we see they are always changing and shifting. Yet somewhere inside ourselves we feel the same.
You may not have given that self-aspect much of your awareness. But if you do, you will discover an inner self that never changes but is trapped in a changing world.
Someday your physical self will probably rest beneath a tombstone that records the date of your birth and the date of your death. But your inner soul knows you are eternal. You are formless in that part of yourself and have no boundaries. Without boundaries there is no birth, no death. What was born will die, what was never born, can never die. Your sacred self was never born! Your sacred self will never die!
Knowing this in a way that leaves no room for doubt will greatly enable your sacred quest. When you reach that state, knowing that who you are is the unchanging self, you will be “on purpose” in your life.
Sogyal Rinpoche, in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, puts this into words that are worth framing:
In the modern world, there are few examples of human beings who embody the qualities that come from realizing the nature of mind. So it is hard for us even to imagine enlightenment or the perception of an enlightened being, and even harder to begin to think that we ourselves could become enlightened.
…Even if we were to think of the possibility of enlightenment, one look at what composes our ordinary mind—anger, greed, jealousy, spite, cruelty, lust, fear, anxiety, and turmoil—would undermine forever any hope of achieving it.
…Enlightenment…is real; and each of us, whoever we are, can in the right circumstances and with the right training realize the nature of mind and so know in us what is deathless and eternally pure. This is the promise of all the mystical traditions of the world, and it has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled in countless thousands of human lives.
You can be one of those thousands of enlightened humans. This will happen as you discover the nature of your true self, and relegate the part of yourself that is centered on the physical to the background, where it belongs. From there it can cheer you on and support your higher self rather than act in ways that sabotage your true spiritual essence.
This whole business of a sacred quest is real, and you can know it, love it and cherish it. Once you do, you will never want to go back to any way of living that is inconsistent with your divine, though invisible, self.
You are not that name, that occupation, that social security number, that body. You are eternally light and divine regardless of what you have done or failed to do. Regardless of what family you lived in, or what you may have been labeled. In the God intelligence you are holy, and you have a purpose for being here.
That purpose will not be found in the physical world. When you discontinue searching for your bliss outside of yourself, your entirety, including your material world, will reflect your divinity.
The true definition of self-awareness is discovering your higher self and living joyously with that higher self in command. It is the awareness of your inner energy and the higher part of yourself. It is a connection to the divine and all that is changeless. Self-awareness is located in the ground of your self.
THE EXPERIENCE OF SELF-AWARENESS
How will you experience your physical life when you have met this challenge of facing inward and living by the directives of your spiritual self? You will still chop wood and carry water, as the ancient Zen proverb tells us. You will not suddenly develop totally new talents or interests.
However, you will have a level of awareness that lets you see things that have been hidden. These insights will give you a sense of peace and inner fulfillment.
The experience of self-awareness is not something that you can get from the physical world. But your interactions with the material world will be altered dramatically when you become self-aware. As a result of heightened awareness you will ultimately be able to manifest precisely what it is that you need in the physical world. You will participate in creating what your inner self knows is necessary for your sacred quest.
This participation with your inner self will lead to new experiences of heightened awareness. You can expect the following qualities of heightened awareness to become part of your daily life as you walk the inner path.
1. You will experience and enhance the meaningfulness of coincidences. You become aware that there are no accidents in this intelligent system. You realize that everything that shows up in your life has something to teach you. You appreciate everyone and everything in your life.
With increased awareness that there are no coincidences, you begin to rely on your sense that seemingly unconnected events have meaning. You even begin to create these situations as you need them. You start to know that you are a partner with fate rather than its victim. Ultimately you come to manage your coincidences and become fate’s collaborator.
2. You will become aware of a universal source of energy. You have faith in the universal source of energy. You begin to exercise your ability to make contact with this source and make it part of your daily life. You develop a strong knowing about the God force and your ability to access this energy.
You are unable to entertain any doubts about the universal source of energy. You know that all beings are a part of it and receive sustenance from it. You are convinced that all weakness and falsehood come from a refusal to know this.
3. You will feel loved. You will call for and accept divine guidance. This vital spiritual nourishment is felt in both your inner and outer experiences. Immobilizing fear diminishes as you feel the presence of the divine energy with you. All seems as it should be, even though you may not understand it. You will feel peaceful about what you see and feel.
Your desires to right wrongs and fix the broken parts of your life are also part of this divine plan. You pursue your desires to serve God and humanity with clarity and peace.
4. You will develop a sense of appreciation and awe. You begin seeing beauty, and feeling awestruck at the magnificence of the universe. The feeling of appreciating beauty is actually the feeling of love when you are divinely connected. That love will fill you with a new sense of power.
By focusing your inner energy on the beauty that surrounds you, you will receive that energy from your surroundings. With practice, this kind of receptiveness will become a source of strength and sustenance in your daily life.
5. You will feel connected to everyone. As your higher self becomes the dominant force in your life you will become more and more conscious of your connectedness to others.
Just as you might observe thousands of flowers with different shades of color, originating from one source of light, so too you will observe many differing shades and shapes of people, with unique languages, customs and political persuasions, yet all originating from one essence. One light—many colors. One essence—many physical manifestations of humanity. This will not be a purely philosophical insight. It will be a way of life for you.
You will sense that anything that is destruct
ive to one human is destructive to all. You will know that the essence or life force that flows through you flows through all. This higher awareness will lead you to the conclusion that Mahatma Gandhi came to: “God has no religion.” That awareness will give you a loving energy that will help to bring all of us together.
6. You will make a new agreement with reality. When your soul becomes the guiding force in your life, you will break the ordinary agreement with reality, intellectually and physically. The limits of your perception will expand to include another world that coexists with ours. You will know that limits result when the social order defines our lives. You will transcend the social order and break the agreement that once defined your personal reality.
When you discover that you are limitless, your choices will begin to come from the limitless knowing within yourself. You will no longer believe in even the most solid-seeming assumption about yourself and your surroundings. You will know that all of the “powers” that have been ascribed to spiritual masters are within your capacity to manifest.
Your level of awareness will shift so dramatically that you will no longer feel bound by the agreement that defines reality for most others.
7. You will experience surrender and acceptance. You will finally stop fighting and simply let go, even when you fail to understand why so many things transpire that are inconsistent with how you would orchestrate the universe. You will accept that God knows what she is doing. This surrendering process will make you more effective in your sacred quest.
You will no longer judge God. Instead, you will know that this is an intelligent system. Hurricanes, tornadoes, “accidental” deaths, crime and poverty will be seen as parts of this divine plan in the same way as cloudless days, calm seas, compassion, prosperity and dying in one’s sleep at the age of 105 are. Your desire to improve conditions is also a part of that plan. You will work on that, rather than being centered on why those conditions are “wrong.”
8. You will become a waking dreamer. Your heightened awareness will permit you to be a waking dreamer. Everything that you are capable of achieving while dreaming will be possible while awake. The power of your mind to manifest what previously could only occur in sleeping dreams will begin to be your awakened reality.
In your dreams, when you want to closely examine an object, you don’t have to get closer to the object—you bring the object to you with the power of your inner energy. You will begin to manifest objects in your awakened state of consciousness with the same energy.
As a waking dreamer, you will be able to move back and forth in time, to create the characters you need for your life drama, to communicate with the deceased, to be in more than one place at the same time, to make yourself invisible, to make yourself appear older or younger, and all of the other “tricks” that you enjoy in your dream state.
Some people take a lifetime to learn how to become a waking dreamer, to literally be in a dream state while awake. With your heightened awareness and the guidance of your higher self, you will become one of those waking dreamers.
9. You will know the power and ecstasy of silence. You will discover that when you “fall silent,” you fall into the most sacred place of all. A moment of silence is the highest honor we can extend. You will find that it is the highest honor you can give yourself too. As Herman Melville wrote: “Silence is the only Voice of our God…. All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.”
You will shift away from the noisy life and seek silence. Prayer and meditation will be integral to your life. The answers that you seek, the guidance that you need, the assistance that you require, will appear as you practice honoring your true self with moments of silence. You will be able to have these precious moments at will.
Noise and tumult will be unable to penetrate your silence. In traffic, in the midst of a rancorous meeting, during competitive exercise, at home with the children playing loudly—you will be able to access your own silence and know what Melville meant when he wrote: “Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world.” This will be your experience as you move into heightened awareness in your life.
10. You will know that there is a spiritual solution to every problem. In the realm of spirit you will find the answers to difficulties. Your higher self has the solution regardless of how grounded the problem may seem in the material world.
Problems such as addictions to drugs, food and alcohol have solutions in your higher self. By going within, you will see your excessive desires for something outside of yourself as an inadequate refuge from worldly pain. When you begin to achieve the highest levels of pleasure and euphoria by facing inward, the desire and the need for externals will disappear.
When you begin achieving perfect balance and centeredness by being peaceful and listening to your body, your choice to overeat and be indolent or lethargic will no longer rule your life.
Every problem—be it with relationships, finances, health or self-image—has a solution in the sacred self. When you are peaceful, experience silence, meditate and listen, really listen to God, you will be directed away from the worldly and toward the divinity that is within you. You will know what you need to do.
11. You will shift from acquiring to sharing. In this heightened state of awareness you will shift from personal desires to the question “How may I serve?” Rather than being focused on what is in it for you, you will be guided by the inner desire to help meet the needs of others. The irony of this is that you will begin to see abundance flowing into your life.
You will desire less and yet feel more fulfilled. You will shift your attention away from yourself and take pleasure in serving others. You will need less, want less and find yourself less attracted to acquiring and possessing. You will know what Albert Schweitzer meant when he wrote these words:
Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to realize his own true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for those who have need of help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.
12. You will live authentically. You will no longer have any difficulty just being yourself. You will know that a life lived authentically leads to universal truth and heightened awareness.
You will accept yourself knowing that whatever behaviors you exhibited in the past, even the ones that may have been destructive and immoral, were a part of who you were at the time and they had great lessons built into them for you to transcend. You will be able to say with conviction, “I am what I am.” While some of the people who are close to you may find this difficult to accept, you will no longer be able to compromise yourself.
You will find it easier and easier to listen without being defensive because your inner knowing is strong and satisfying. You will live your life authentically—fulfilling your reason for being here, knowing that “life gives exams” and learning from those that you fail to pass. Your authenticity will be based on knowing that you cannot imitate others and still be true to yourself and to God.
13. You will experience bliss as a natural state. You will access an inner peaceful knowing that is like a warm shower running inside of you. You will discover that bliss is a natural state and can be accessed without the assistance of external substances.
Bliss is a state of grace, and a state of self-sufficiency. It is a connectedness to God, a connectedness to the universal truth. Your bliss provides you with the sense that you are “on purpose.”
14. You will be less judgmental and more forgiving. Heightened awareness will erase your judgmental tendencies. You will begin seeing that judging others does not define them—it defines you. Consequently, you will be less inclined to judge anyone or anything.
You will accept that others are on their own paths. The things you previously found irritating
about them will become a reflection of a part of yourself. As Carl Jung put it, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
You will be able to view everything in this new nonjudgmental fashion. You will learn lessons for which you will be thankful. Thus, forgiveness will be quite easy for you to accommodate.
You will know that those misperceived “wrongs” that you experienced were somehow in divine order. The absence of judgment and the ability to forgive will bring a new serenity to your life.
You will also begin to forgive yourself. You will see mistakes as lessons for you to transcend. This will free you from the tyranny of self-recrimination. You have made the decision to be free.
MAKING THE DECISION TO BE FREE
The elements of heightened awareness described in the fourteen examples you’ve just read are all aspects of personal freedom. And they are yours to choose.
The difficulty is that human awareness is somewhat like a large house with many rooms. When we are born, it is as if we arrive in one of the rooms of awareness and live there until we die. At times we try to access the rest of the house by pushing against the door unsuccessfully.
To successfully open the door to heightened awareness, we must open it inward. When you realize that you do not have to be locked in one room of awareness, you have turned around to face in a new direction. And it is at this time that you make the decision to be free.
Freedom is the ability to leave the single room of awareness you were born in. In that room you learned the limits of your life. Outside of that room you learn that your life has unlimited possibilities. You needn’t be one of the people Arthur Schopenhauer described when he wrote: “Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.”
Your Sacred Self Page 2
