Being the Master of Your Life — Continued
By Stephen Thomson
"According to the Sufi, man's purpose on earth is to make God a reality, to give expression on the physical plane to what is potential but as yet unmanifest."
— Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
In last month's column I talked about our core desire of becoming the Master of our own lives. Due to a significant email response to that article, I felt there was more to say on the subject. This month, we pick up where we left off in the February edition and talk about some of the other steps we can take on the path to becoming the Masters of our lives.
In order to have a first-hand experience of God, unique to us and our path requires a continuing process of creating our own personal creed. A way of doing this is to think of the spiritual path as having two prongs. One prong asks of us to spend time and thought energy unlearning all that we have learned. The beliefs we were taught as children, the reading we have done along the way. The laws we have created within us through our own personal investigations into life and who we are becoming. With the second prong comes rebuilding anew the metaphorical spiritual house we will inhabit for the rest of this incarnation. Here we create a new and updated version of our creed, based upon our growth and how our consciousness has expanded. The constant dance between who we were and who we are becoming is a hallmark of the journey. As with all facets of life, we are constantly in building, breaking down and rebuilding energy. It is the creative ebb and flow of the Universe. This becomes the basis for our creed.
It is through the medium we call "self" that we grow to know, understand and ultimately experience Divine love. Logically, the best place to begin and continue our search is within us. To be willing to go within is the Mystic's way, a path to knowing "thyself" as the preeminent step to knowing God. And along the way, the steps to self-realization will be put in front of us. There isn't really anything new in the Universe, so we will know the roadmap for our success, if we are willing to search. The path is within us and we need to begin and continue our search there. Along the way, the markers will appear and the direction made clear for us.
Here are some additional points for you to consider.
This is the real starting point of our journey. It's about unlearning all we have been taught and then to begin defining a God of our own hearts. By taking this step we begin to live a spiritual life that is rich and first hand, no longer laboring in the realms of the abstract and intellectual. Sri Ramakrishna once asked a Devotee if God exists in form or is formless. The Devotee answered by saying both, to which Ramakrishna responded he was correct. This simple phrase is a clear statement of the freedom we inherit as we step onto the spiritual path. Each of us is free to declare in our hearts and mind who or what God is in any way that makes sense to us. It's that personal. Our relationship and how we conceive of God is beyond the suggestions, limitations or expectations of anyone else. We could even say defining God is the path. Free from dogma, alone with our practices, we enter into this relationship in any way that supports our journey and our needs. There are no right or wrong paths. Each is designed exclusively for our soul journey and us. Doesn't it make sense then that we would put our own consciousness to work and unlearn anything we have been taught or someone has said to us in order to create our own living creed for life and God? But, we don't often take this step in a conscious way. It takes time to unlearn all we have been taught. In the meantime, we can find ourselves in an emotional boil, as we try to figure out who God is to us. Taking this step and declaring who the God of our heart is becomes the most liberating and activating element of the spiritual journey. And once we have formulated our belief, it will immediately begin to grow and expand. First hand knowing of God can only become a fully blown experience within each of us. It is not outside of us.
One of the biggest obstacles along the way comes from the idea that we are finally going to "get it." There is some corner of our mind and heart that holds the hope and belief that some magical combination is going to occur within us and we are going to be finished with our spiritual growth and progress. This is a very important issue to examine in our consciousness. One source for this pattern of expectation comes from the way we are educated. A body of knowledge is studied, a test is passed and we have completed the course. And in some ways this is also true about our spiritual journey. Where the two paths differ rests with the idea of completion and the tests. With high school algebra, we may take the exam and never again think in terms of the mathematical equations we learned. But, on the spiritual path, passing a test means the unfolding of another part of our road, with more information to be assimilated and another examination looming sometime in the future. A far less stressful way to enter into our spiritual journey can be experienced by giving up this idea of being finished with our growth in this or maybe many more lifetimes to come. In place, if we can hold the idea of our spiritual path being an ever-unfolding process of life, we will grow and become the person we aspire to be with far greater ease and stress. Adopting a mental attitude that includes a sense of our path beginning with our first breath and being completed with our last breath is packed with freedom. It forgoes the roller coaster ride of expectation based emotional highs and lows that come with the need to feel something is complete. Our truth is in knowing life is not a series of unrelated events. There is only one path. Everything in our lives is a continuum on our path of spiritual unfolding.
Have you ever wondered why there is so much written about meditation? It's because meditation is the single most important practice we can undertake in our quest for higher-knowledge. One the most difficult and demanding activities we can participate in as spiritual people, asks of us to be alone within ourselves in our thoughts. We have to be very brave to continue to look deeply within ourselves and ask who we are and ultimately to welcome God to us. Meditation leads to a place of self-understanding that cannot be attained in any other way. The basis for our unfolding spiritual path is contained in the nature of who we are and dependent on discovering our gifts. With self-knowledge, we can continue to move forward with certainty on our path. Yet, what a contradiction there is to be living in an age when there is more distraction than any other time in recorded history. With the continuing effort to be present in our lives and open the space for God to enter is challenging at best. More often, we can find ourselves with all kinds of reasons for doing anything and everything in place of participating in the single activity, which can bring our knowing of God into a first-hand knowing. (I also cannot resist making a plug for my book, The Secret Key, where I discuss meditation in depth. You can get a copy of the book through the Ma'at Store.) Disciplining us to take time each day to meditate is an ongoing effort that should not be avoided or minimized in relation to our unfolding nature. The gifts that come with meditation are almost too many to mention. What we can be sure of is that what will come is clarity in our body and mind. Life purpose and direction will come into sharper focus. And there is nothing in the physical world that can bring the experience of deep peace and understanding that comes through meditation.
One of the biggest gifts, as well as an obstacle of our path is judgment. For the most part, we are all judgmental. It's how we process our actions on the path. We are the judge and jury of our life. When we find ourselves complaining in our minds about someone else, what we are really talking about is us. The thoughts and actions of others we find so unsavory, are really a clear reflection of our behavior and ourselves. When we are judging another, is actually a moment of personal awareness. The actions of another person are mirroring our own stuff. We react by being sarcastic, angry and fearful, or a whole range of other behavior. The question we all have to answer along the way is about what we want to feel and the degree to which we are willing to fight for our personal peace. Or in other words, relinquish our peace to someone or something we have no personal power over because of their behavior. If we are focused on self-improvement as a way to experiencing a Peace Profound, then challenging ourselves in the very moment we are in judgment can bring us the gift of personal understanding through the actions and behavior we find unpleasant in others. For example, one step is to begin an active dialog within us by asking what it is about another person that is creating such a strong emotional response within us. And when doubt creeps in, we need to be steadfast in our understanding that it is in us. By starting to embrace this step, which will be very painful and filled with denial, we advance one step closer to knowing our truth. In time we will all move to a place where our relationship with God will no longer be clouded by our need to judge anyone else or ourselves. This is the gift of judgment.
This is by far the most fear inducing energy we encounter during our journey. Inherent in the fear of change is that we don't know who we will be if we do. Perhaps we would loose material status, a loving relationship or any number of ego based concerns. The degree to which we are held captive by the issue of change is an active choice. It is a quite simply a conscious decision. There are so many ways we can deal with change, most of which have been written about extensively over the last twenty years. But for our purposes, there are a few points worth considering. The following thoughts are series of ongoing questions we can ask ourselves. These are the ones we turn to when we feel that uncontrollable sense of fear that can comes with realization. The contradiction is inherent. On one hand we work for the very core of our lives to change. Yet, in the same breath, talking out of the other side of our mouth, we silently send out a prayer that goes something like this. "Dear God, please don't change a thing!" First of all, there is power in that thought. Along the way, some of the realization that comes as an outgrowth of our beliefs is really something we can feel confident in asking not to be changed. Next is the active thought of whether or not something needs to be changed? After all, we can suffer in the illusion that a part our relationship with God and ourselves needs changing. This is not always the case. And then there is incredible power in the split second realization of change needing to be undertaken, to decide not to do anything, or even wait for a while. That's free will, right? This is basis of freedom that separates humankind from all the other parts of the animal kingdom. In the end, we all need to engage in an active process that creates change in our lives and continues the unfolding of our soul.
As always, I welcome your comments.
About Stephen Thomson
Steve Thomson is a writer, teacher, and psychic, well-known throughout the United States. He leads workshops about metaphysical practices, including meditation, expansion of the psychic senses, spiritual magic, the Tarot, and the Kabbala. He also guides journeys to sacred sites around the world. For over 20 years, Steve has been a member of the Rosicrucian Order AMORC and he has been a student of Paramahansa Yogananda's, Self-Realization Fellowship for over 10 years. His book entitled The Secret Key is available through our website. He is currently working on a new book entitled Discovering Your Spiritual Truth — A Primer for the Path — Things to Think About, Meditate On and Journal, which will be available by the end of 2007.
You may write Steven personally at Steve@stephenthomson.net
or visit his website: www.stephenthomson.net
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