Written by Rev. Juli Somers.
What if we choose what we are going to experience in life? Imagine being pure spirit between lifetimes deciding what you want to create in your next. Assessing the ways that you need to develop, what you want to learn – and then deciding the exact circumstances and challenges to give you the optimum growth. You choose the perfect family to be born into, the perfect body with all its issues, the perfect relationships, etc. Now your only task is to be born and then live your life in awareness. Easy, right? The problem is we take these bodies and with them comes a spiritual amnesia. We forget that we once chose all that we are experiencing to grow our souls. Until one day you commit to a spiritual path to help you wake up or something happens in your life to wake you up. We are always pushed to realize who we are is actually the “I AM”, the healing power of the universe or the basic substance of which we are made.
There is a story of a couple bringing their newborn home from the hospital. Whenever their two-year-old son would hold the smaller child he would ask to be left alone with the baby. A few months go by and still the two-year-old insists that he wanted to be alone with the baby. Finally, the parents agree to leave the room for a few minutes. Standing just outside the door, they hear the two-year-old say to the newborn: “Tell me what God is like, cause I’m starting to forget.”
We not only forget what God is like, we forget what we are like – who we really are. We forget why we are here and see ourselves as these one dimensional beings. We get lost in believing we are these bodies – I am this pain, I am these emotions and all the roles we play. As Carlos Castenada so brilliantly put it, we need to remove our awareness from the “numbing effects brought about by living at ordinary states of consciousness”. It isn’t easy being in these bodies at times. Daily life gives us our spiritual practice. If we are awake, we are always being encouraged to stretch into more of an authentic beingness. The secret of life has been hidden inside each of us and we only have to look within discover why we are here.
To get in touch with ourselves as a spiritual being within a physical form doesn’t mean denying the body, but seeing the body as a precious vehicle that houses our awareness. When looking with the eyes of the soul, there is no ‘bad’, only opportunities to grow and expand in consciousness. Greeting all that happens in life with neutrality – or openness – provides the means to surrender to the flow of life. When we resist what is happening, we attach a meaning to the event based on fear. Everything is energy. It is neither good nor bad. It is only our limited perceptions that put a judgment on what is happening. Research by Danish mathematician Tor Norretranders found we have millions of bits of information floating around our unconscious mind and about 15 bits available in the conscious mind every second. Yet aren’t we convinced that it is our intellect (conscious mind) that controls what we experience in life? We don’t have a clue what is going on. Our ego only wants to be comfortable; to sit on the surfboard and paddle without standing up. Our spirit is saying, ‘Come on, stand up! Let’s ride this wave and see where it will take us”. Going beyond the conscious mind is to live in a state of inner awareness appreciating the rich adventure each of our experiences provides.
Every person I meet provides a mirror to see myself more clearly. Each situation offers me the chance to heal myself if I am just paying attention. If someone makes me angry, I can choose to release blame and be present instead with the love in my heart. Loss has been a wonderful practice for me to trust that everything happens for my highest good. Absolutely everything becomes an opportunity to learn, awaken, and love. Life brings us all we need to grow and evolve spiritually if we only have ‘eyes to see’. What a blessing! Time to stand up on that surfboard and enjoy the ride.