When misfortune strikes, the tendency is to start playing the “blame” game. Fingers start pointing at what the person did to have these “curses” heaped upon his or her head. Many believe it is God’s retribution and justice finally being served. Many may also feel vindicated for any wrongs that the person may have done to them.
But does God punish us for our “sins"? Does God really care about our “sins"? Do we have to be a really, really “good” person to get close to God? Let’s look at the “sins” we may commit in our lives.
Most of our “sins” come from our thoughts, deeds, words and such against other people, even against ourselves. But the only ones who really care about our actions are the people against whom we’re doing “evil” and bad deeds...and yes, our very soul!
The more seemingly "bad" and "evil" things we do to ourselves and to others, the more separated we become from ourselves, especially if we have a conscience. Those who truly don’t care, those who truly don’t have a conscience about how they treat other people, rarely receive any “punishments” for their misdeeds. Think about some of the really horrible people in history: Hitler in Germany, Papa Doc in Haiti, Idi Amin in Uganda , and others. Have you ever heard any punishment being exacted to fit their crimes?
The only person who seemingly was made to suffer for his crimes in recent times is Saddam Hussein. And the justice that was exacted upon him came at the hands of other men, not God. I would wager that doing God’s will was not the intention of those men who exacted the “punishment” on Saddam.
I know this: every time I’ve gone through periods of “suffering,” it always has been Spirit’s way of nudging me to look deeper, move higher and move further along the Spiritual path to more clarity and truth about myself and the truth of who I am. It always has been Spirit’s way of getting me closer to the within! It always has been Spirit’s guidance to find “yet a more excellent way” of seeing, being and doing in the world!
Spirit always is inviting us to move closer, through events in our own lives, or through larger world events that affect us, like 911, Hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami and the recent earthquake in China. At times of catastrophe, we intuitively seek comfort from each other, by moving closer to one another and, sometimes, to the Spirit within. By and large, though, not many people listen to Spirit’s call from within them, and some who do only do so when a crisis or situation becomes so unbearable that they truly feel impotent.
From time to time, I hear people talk about how “blessed” they feel because they have never gone through any crisis or any major life trials. They also feel “blessed,” because life is moving along a beautiful, uninterrupted path for them and their loved ones. Blessed, they may be, but I wonder: how truly connected are they to the Spirit within?
Despite some people truly having calm and peaceful dispositions and personalities, none of us is born into this world knowing our innate connection with Spirit! This is the journey we uncover and undertake with our lives and in our lives.
So, if your life is smooth and “unblemished,” and you are feeling so satisfied with yourself, I’d ask you next about your connection to Spirit.
Many people can seemingly “perfect” the game of life, i.e. doing all that is right in life to get along with others, to play the corporate or organizational game, succeeding in every area and avenue in life. They move through life with ease and seeming “grace.” Yes, it is the good life, and it’s what we all aspire to have in this world? Or is it not?
These graceful people sometimes exit the world without a “blimp” on their smooth surface, leaving us all to wonder the purpose they served, not having graced us with any lessons in life, other than their “graciousness.” Sometimes, though, we may be privileged to glimpse the cracking of the smooth surfaces and the facades...when something hits...really BIG with them. It is then, we may hear their story, and we become witnesses to the true connection to Spirit within: there is none!
Then we begin to wonder about our seduction. We talk about how much we were deceived by appearances.
I want to caution you to not become seduced by the seemingly beautiful surfaces you encounter in life...not even your own smooth surface. Because of our resistance to true change and because of our ego, the walk we must undertake with the Spirit within us often is not a smooth ride, neither does it have beautiful scenery all the time. What it DOES have...and what makes us know this is the ONLY ride we want to undertake...is the unparalleled peace, joy, happiness, comfort and true grace...we feel along the way.
Then, just when we think we’ve arrived safely home, we may find ourselves seemingly starting over again. But then we realize this: we’re more experienced because of the road we’ve traveled before. We are able to have greater understanding and wisdom to discern what’s unfolding before, and within, us! We’re indeed further along the road to the “Spirit within.”
When it gets really going, the Spirit within us will cause the “tables” and all the “rules of goodness” we know about our own soul to be completely over turned. The Spirit journey truly is not a ride we can undertake, without eventually feeling the bruises of piercing questioning within our own soul.
Many of us want to believe that we are exempt from this close walk with God, because we’re going to church on a Sunday, tithing faithfully, being a good person to our neighbors and friends, a good mother, father or good wife, husband, to our family, and a good employee to our company. We may even believe that the close walk with Spirit and for discovering this “spiritual stuff” is the walk for our ministers, preachers and other spiritual teachers to undertake, not us.
Really? What does your minister, or your preacher, or your teacher, have to do with YOUR Spirit?
Yes, we can let them take the walk of Spirit for us. But then, can we inherit the “kingdom of connection” by proxy, too?
No one can undertake your spiritual walk for you, and that includes your husband or wife or best friend. You can’t get close to God by proxy, or by association, either. You also cannot trade in the chips of “goodness” from your lives in exchange for “miles” along the spiritual road.
We do not even begin to connect closely to God, until our very lives as we know it are disrupted and interrupted. We do not even begin to get close to God, until we truly become “uncomfortable” with ourselves and realize our own impotence, becoming like the little “children” that Jesus spoke about. It is ONLY then...when we feel the break from the old...that we begin to truly know and experience God i.e. the God force within us.
God indeed is a jealous God! Once he (Spirit within) gets started with you, and on you, he intends to complete the job! But he also can only do this, with your full cooperation, i.e. if you’re sincerely searching with your whole heart and mind and soul and every part of your being! Giving lip service to goodness and to Godliness is not akin to finding the Spirit within you! You can’t “con” your Spirit! It is within YOU! Trying to con your Spirit is what delays your connection and also gets you into deeper "trials" with the Spirit Within.
Until you have been “possessed” by desire to truly know the very Spirit of God within you, then you DO walk alone...and ONLY with your EGO!
When you truly begin to walk with God, you do so with humility! You do so like Saint Francis, who had begun as a warrior to impress women, only to lay his weapons down at an altar in a small church on his way back to Assisi; or as Siddhartha, who became the Buddha, The One Who Is Awake, when he was willing to fight Death to find God; or by walking the Way of Mother Teresa; or the Pope; or some of the great saints, or other prominent spiritual leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, among others.
In this lifetime, none of us will probably ever get as close to Spirit as did some of these individuals, but at least we can begin to understand their ways, and we also would have started to walk in the right direction.
“All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits.”Proverb 16:2.
Without corrective action, like “bad things happening to good people,” many people become seduced into believing in their innate PERFECTION! Through prayer, we do connect to the Spirit within, and without, that helps us through our daily trials, when they arise. But do not let these miscellaneous and sporadic connections to Spirit seduce you into believe that you are fully connected and that your work is done!
Good deeds make you a good person in your circle of friends, in your neighborhood, in your community, amongst your co-workers, in your family. But good deeds and feeling “blessed,” unless truly inspired by the Spirit, do not earn you a place in “heaven.”
For that?
Look within you! Then look to your mind and its clarity, or lack thereof, to know the truth.
How do you truly feel about your connection to Spirit? And are you willing...really willing...to give up your “ways of the world”, i.e. your EGO self, to find it? Are you willing to trade any of the joys of the world for the joys of Spirit?
That is the question.
So, are you reaping what you’re sowing?
You betcha!
Namaste’,
Che’
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