Paying Attention
Attention! Attention! Attention! This is what is wrong with this place. We don’t pay enough attention to our external circumstances. Yes, the inner life is vastly more real. But the outer life informs that reality. We look in mirrors when we look out there. There is no compromise on this point. One informs the other.
When you get up in the morning do you dress yourself with eyes closed? Of course not. You look at what you’re doing. You choose colors according to your mood and your personal sense of style. You look forward to the day and prepare to present yourself in the best possible light. Plaids do not go with polka dots.
So how is it that we continue to forget and choose to block out certain experiences? Are we not blinding ourselves to some essential reality? Of course we are. This is a survival mechanism. We’ve been doing it since the dawn of time. Children do it all the time. Blocking out unpleasantness is a common strategy until we realize we are re-creating and meeting the same issue and situation over and over again.
These unmet challenges recycle. As an adult, you are responsible for your life and for handling these issues as they are presented. In adulthood you come to believe that you can take care of yourself. But what do you do if you feel you can’t? Do you rely on others? They have their lessons too. What we learn to do is work at this together.
We share with each other what we can. The rest we set aside for another day when we are better able to handle the bigger challenges. For now, we concentrate on what’s in front of us. And the key to getting there is: Sharing!
Chapter 10: The Road to Discovery
In every epoch in history there are seekers and discoverers. Those who have been forging their way up to the present are on the brink of new discoveries. They have overcome great obstacles to get where they are, and the treasure awaiting them is what all explorers seek, the truth of their soul waiting to be released.
In days of old, these truths were passed on in secret ceremonies. A hero or heroine was sent on a journey to discover their true self by confronting a series of challenges that were put before them. Today’s heroes and heroines are no different. Their new found self is the result of circumstances they have faced and overcome. Now they are ready to move ahead into the next cycle, that of teaching what they have gained experientially. It is here that their radical shift takes place. They must become teachers to pass on the newly gained knowledge.
A healer is no longer a healer when their last wounds have been cleansed and healed. Now, the healer becomes a teacher, a teacher of the truth of lessons learned. Seekers coming forth and approaching that particular threshold will find comfort in the knowledge that they, too, can win this battle. Healing journeys do have an end, and one’s sights can be set beyond. It is here where transitions take place, on the cusp of ending one episode while the next adventure rises over the horizon.
This helps the explorer move from random searching to the realm of conscious evolution. Choosing discovery means we have arrived. We are at the Promised Land and the Golden Fleece is at hand, as are all the great prizes cited in so many historical accounts, especially the soul. But the soul has many such journeys to take, and this is but one of them.
This particular achievement sets the tone for a pattern that repeats itself with regularity. This pattern cannot be discerned until the seeker arrives at the doorstep of discovery. Only from this vantage point can the whole panorama of what has transpired be viewed. All the subtle nuances that served as gentle reminders earlier are now present in bold relief, clearly delineated from their fuzzy origins. The seeker can literally see what they’ve been through and why It had to proceed in a particular fashion.
It is here that the hero or heroine recognizes the order and value in all that has transpired in their lives. They can now see that every detail of their life has meaning. Nothing has been wasted. Everything has a purpose in helping them reach the next threshold. Their whole existence, this time around, was predicated on the insistence that at the soul level, this is the way it had to be. To move from where they were to where they are now, they had to travel a particular road of trials. By doing so, they realize the road’s function in their lives.
This is quite an arresting experience. Suddenly, everything makes sense. The Divine entering our lives, the mysteries that drove us to seek help, the pain we endured along the way and the players we came across were all part of the journey. This is when God speaks directly to us in our hearts and assures us with words which instill confidence within; “I knew you could do it. And you thought it wasn’t possible”.
Oh yes, God is speaking to us now, loudly and clearly. Amid the cacophony of our previous lives we couldn’t hear “The Voice”. But at this juncture, it is unmistakable. The Divine is at the helm and we know it in our hearts. Only our egos have a bad time accepting this realization. The ego wants desperately to be in charge. And history has presented us with many examples of where ego can take a nation to war, to conquest or to mass suicide. Egos do not have the capacity to lead, only to conquer and accumulate. For the ego is always in competition with other egos and sees the world as “us versus them”. The Self knows we are all joined and leads from the heart. Cooperation, compassion and empathy are the order of the day.
What the ego tries to achieve is a travesty and a trick of mirrors, so to speak. Our egos thought they were in charge only to discover the pedals they were pushing were actually disconnected from any real mechanism. Someone or something else, in a clearly different part of the vehicle (our body/mind/spirit), was at the helm. This proves to be a bad day for the ego. That is clearly part of the journey, to dethrone that petty despot who desperately wants to be in control. The ego further discovers, I might add, that its need for control actually ran the vehicle into the ditch, repeatedly.
Time and time again, seekers of every stripe have made that sorry discovery, and to their dismay. “What was I thinking?”, they might ask as they wake up to this fact. We will all ask that at least once in our lives, but more than likely many times over. Nevertheless, we made it to this next threshold, didn’t we? Here we are, poised on that new brink, ready to carry our new discoveries and achievements forward.
This takes us back to where we started, we realize, now, we are armed with the truth. We have arrived in the land of right-mindedness. We no longer celebrate the stupidity that the ego clung to. We are on this threshold of an emerging vitality, rising to meet the Divine through our own inner awareness, to glorify the truth and sing praises to our Divinity in the process. At some level, we knew we could, once we committed to that wondrous vision before us. The Divine stands waiting, arms open wide, ready to receive all prodigals, as each of us returns from the frontiers of an ego-centered position to the discovery of our heart and soul. Tired and beleaguered as many of us are, we remain eager. We are ready to claim the Divine as our true heritage and release the folly that took us far and wide on that journey through time.
So many wonderful memories each aligned in such a fashion as to provide a linear view of what has just happened. The seeker’s life stretched out as it is, with each point on the line representing some crucial turning point on their quest. No wonder they feel tired at this juncture. They’ve traveled such a wide and varied road. How could they maintain that energy and pace? That’s what we all wonder when we undertake our own review, looking over our shoulder at what just transpired, standing at this new juncture with discovery in our hands.
This is an amazing place to be. Many great artists have passed here before us and illustrated this point in their work. Thomas Merton, Michael Angelo, William Shakespeare and Albert Einstein are good examples. “The Lord is thy Shepherd, thou shall not want”, is the truth that all the greats have claimed before us. And even moderns like John Lennon illustrated this kind of knowing in his great song “Imagine”. So many great movers and shakers, past and present have charted the path we’ve just come through. Yes indeed, they were there first. So are we now. And we are the new generation of Lamp Lighters ready to take the world forward into its next stage of evolution.
Are you ready? A few of us may not yet be. Many more will deliver a resounding “YES” rising from their throats and leaping from soul to soul, reverberating and resonating around the world, inspiring all that are ready to take that next step forward. This is part of the journey, the activation of the Lights of those ready to move forward, but waiting and wanting someone to show them the way.
This is the task of the new discoverers, those of you who have journeyed down that path of healing and are now ready to teach. That’s the purpose you’ve been waiting to identify, actualize and begin to deliver. It’s time to teach what you know. What better way can there be to move you forward once again? A teacher gets to integrate all that has been learned, to be comfortable with it and at home with it, before the next challenge is presented. Teaching is simply the best way to move forward on one’s journey past healing. We do for others what has been done for us, what we have accomplished for ourselves, what we are ready to practice without embarrassment or shame. Yes, we are ready!
This is where God needs us now, and we are conscious of that need. The Voice of God speaks to us directly from our hearts. We are encouraged and directed to listen and to learn to listen intently. The Voice will become clearer with time and practice. We know this to be true because we feel this Spirit permeate every fiber of our being once we are fully attuned to it.
This is the truth that we’ve been seeking, the truth that’s been lurking in the shadows. All those subtle hints that we took note of before are clearly perceptible now. That was God’s Voice all along. We couldn’t quite make it out. Now there is no mistaking it. The great artists told us about that “still small voice”. The great psychologists and social scientists of our time have been repeating the very same message.
This information is historical and factual, as well as currently valid. The “still small voice” exists, and it lives within every one of us, but not so quiet anymore. Our discovery has been made. We have arrived. Every myth in history speaks of this moment. It is cataclysmic. It has never happened before in our lifetime, but it is here now.
“Oh ecstasy”, we often say in the midst of great moments. We are simply awestruck. We are at an epiphany of existence, One with God, One with ourselves, wholly integrated, alive and free. No more dogmas! No more lies! No more fears! No more doubts! God leads, and we know it in our hearts. We are finally out of the desert. How wonderful this feels.
As we move on from here, we do so with grace and finesse, with a confidence unparalleled to this point in our lives. We are senior students in a world filled with juniors, scrambling to find their way. If only they could see what I see, we wonder impatiently. But they will, we realize, as soon as someone steps in to help them along. That is our job now, to bring the message to all who are still seeking and working their way through self-discovery. This will be the very world we have just uncovered and claimed, and are now ready to set about mapping.
This is the other purpose behind the process of discovery. It must be followed by teaching. The new world needs to be uncovered, mapped and described. There are other worlds still waiting beyond, but this one has to be understood first. Systems of uncovering and proper elucidation can be applied to each new territory as these methods have been applied in previous endeavors. What needs to be learned has begun. The New World is born. Let us bring it to life!
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