It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks; been offline for a bit due to my computer crashing and I ran into some minor health issues, but everything is fine now (at least the health part; computer needs a new motherboard, yikes!). Anyway, it got me to thinking about situations and challenges we all confront at various periods of our lives and how we deal with them respectively. I was reminded of that old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
I remember early on in my personal spiritual development working through and accepting a very important principle that I've come to live by, and the challenges we all face when we begin to understand these principles intellectually, but not necessarily in practice. One of these principles states, "It's not the situation that is important, but your reaction to it." Within this nuanced perspective lies the seeds of great wisdom and enlightenment, for in truth we have all been placed here to become masters in our own right; masters of our environment and our personal universe. Consistent with this mastery is a moment-to-moment recognition that we all live in a world of physical illusion and that the circumstances we confront daily are designed to teach us. I have referenced this many times in my early entries such as Everything is Spiritual and the Daily Contemplation to name a few.
This moment-to-moment recognition of the illusion we live in is one of the essential elements of Awakening to the Oneness of God that is you. All too often we forget that this world in many respects is merely a stage play that we are all performing in, and we get so caught up in the minutia of the day that we fail to re-center ourselves into the recognition that we are all Spiritual beings. Those that get it understand the importance of getting back to spiritual center in every situation they are confronted with, and they handle the challenges confronting them with a cool head and steady presence of mind. This is not to say that you won't have an initial knee-jerk reaction from time to time when something happens that is not to your liking, but it does imply that you do not linger in this emotional funk for too long; that you get back to your awakened state.
We need to understand that everything in life (at least in these lower worlds) has a dualistic nature; a yin and yang or negative and positive energy potential. In the journey to understand the spiritual significance of situations and episodes that confront us daily, it is important to consistently ask ourselves two basic questions:
- What is the lesson that I'm supposed to learn here?
- How can I find a way to make this situation work for me?
To question 1, every situation that we are confronted with is in a real respect designed to teach us something. Often we are confronted with these lessons several times until we figure them out and get them right. Ignorance is no excuse. When you learn the lesson (gain the wisdom), you usually no longer have to go through the experience. But let's make sure we understand what learning the lesson means. It doesn't mean to understand it in your intellectual mind, but to practice it until it becomes a part of you; almost like muscle memory. Every experience brings with it the potential for growth. You just need to have the eyes to see, the courage to ask what the lesson is, and the heart and humility to understand and accept.
To question 2, what is important to again understand here is the dualistic nature of lower world existence and that every situation contains a polar opposite potential. To put it another way, for every positive thing that occurs, there is a potential negative thing that could occur; for every negative thing that occurs, there is a potential positive thing that could occur. The test becomes where do you choose to place your attention. Whatever you choose to place your attention on is where your energy and likelyhood for that thing to manifest will occur.
For those that don't understant their role in the creation of their lives, this can sometimes create a vicious cycle of unfortunate events, because they are on a self-perpetuating negativity loop. But unlike the grooves of an old record, we can change this pattern into something more beneficial and to our liking. We all have this power, many of us have just forgotten. The mentality of victimization is one of the worst illusions you could ever find yourself in; please don't allow this to enter into your psychic space from this moment further; don't accept this ever again. You control your destiny; no one else.
Back to my initial situation, when faced with a crashing computer and minor physical anomally, I had to ask myself those two important questions; what is the lesson and how can I use the situation to benefit me? Well, with the computer down, it provided me with the inspiration to write what you are now reading. I was also able to get started on cleaning up my office; something that I have been putting off for some time. I fortunately had backed up my work a day or two before and had all my data (thank you), and knew that my computer had been acting a bit glitchy for a while now but kept ignoring it. I have now made a personal commitment to address these warning signs much earlier before they get to be big problems; I prefer mole hills, not mountains. As for my health, there were a few things that I had been neglecting that I have now put back into my daily repetoire and am again living a more balanced life. I humbly concede that this was Spirit's way of getting my attention and forcing me to address things that I kind of neglected, even though I knew better. As the old saying goes, "You can pay me now or pay me later." When you get a bunch of lemons, you make lemonade, right? I get that, and have turned these potentially stressful situations into opportunities for living healthier, more vigilant, and becoming ever more spiritually focused in my daily awareness and outlook. The one thing that I do know with absolute certainty is that I exist because God loves me and that It wants me to succeed in everything I do.
Just so we're clear here, God loves you in the same way and with the same great expectations. The question becomes, are you bitching about your lemons or are you making a cool, tangy, refreshing drink?
No comments:
Post a Comment