This is such
a foundational belief and fundamental point of focus in nearly, if not all organized
methodologies to growing your Spiritual development. Isn’t it believed that as
your Faith grows, so does your relationship to the Divine? In many ways, this
makes perfect sense to me because, personally speaking, this connection
has only deepened my alignment with the Sacred within myself. And this is
a very good thing.
In fact, it’s
the only thing that matters. Of all the myriad reasons so many of us left the congregations
of the religious upbringing of our youth, perhaps it's because the rituals of these
dogmatic approaches to worship have become so rote and dry, void of any snap
crackle pop, Heartspace-wise. After all, where is the Love!? It’s always great to have a really good choir singin’ out the hymns,
lifting up the room with shared voices all joined together fervently praising your
version of God … but what happens when you’re all alone, left to your own
devises – what then?
As in AA when
a new recruit comes forth to own their shit and sincerely express from their
pain, all from a deep Heartfelt desire to recover from alcohol addiction, it can be
an essential and indispensable step to getting healthy again. Good thing too and
totally necessary if this is what supports and allows you to finally get the drunk
monkey off your back. We all need succor in times of crisis and a supportive community
to back us up and hold our best interests when we fail.
This encouragement
and assistance is required to keep us strong when we come to doubt our own
inner strength. We really do need each other to make it through the storms in our
lives. I knew someone who is fond of saying – we’re all just walking each other
Home. In this, in part I too believe, we really do get to Heaven through each
others open Hearts.
Just as training
wheels on your first bike are really helpful in getting the feel of riding unassisted,
eventually as you progress, you learn to ride on your own, free and clear of
these rolling supports. You learn to ride on your own and off you go, flying away on
two wheels. However and no fault to them,, some people
never really get the hang of doing the balance thing, feet always moving with
the hand eye coordination happening all at once. It can just be too much to get
it going, all at the same time.
Then perhaps it’s
best not to ride at all. Like taking that first drink – one is too many and about
6 or 7 too few, it’s wise not to tempt the dragon by getting on in the first place. Hey, in 80's parlance - just say no. And yet, when it comes to Faith, it’s less concrete or visceral
than this. Faith is totally ephemeral in nature, more transient an impression
than the blinding morning after hangover, both physically and emotionally as
well. One you have go deep inside to get to, the other has sat all funky on your head, laughing at your misery.
The whole significance
and belief of ‘taking a leap of Faith’ is only valuable when you can’t see
where you’re going, what you’re hoping to land upon and how you’ll even fare
when you do arrive, hopefully on terra firma in one piece. If you do land upright at all, that is. But
that’s the point in all this, isn’t it?
You gotta
believe there will be a firm surface to land on or a welcoming hand to embrace
you after you’ve committed to your jump. In this regard, surrender is a primary
element in going with the flow or surfing the waves that can come crashing in on
us in our lives. This too is always spoken of in all Spiritual traditions, the necessity
and willingness to let go/letGod take command of your life.
Isn’t a definition
of Faith believing in something that doesn’t have any obvious evidence to do
so? It’s like the saying - God can only catch you when you jump – great! Now I
have to blindly jump into the Void and believe in a God that’s gonna actually catch
me when I do!? As we all know, this is a lot easier said than done. And yet, to
really progress on our path of Awakening, we will have to relinquish our sense of
control and domination in our lives. We do have to turn over and relinquish our ego's belief that it alone can make us happy and fulfill our Heart's content.
One who's
had my Faith tested of late, believing in what my last Lover told me, only to
have it proven false, at least by her actions, has forced me to go back to the
drawing board. Getting knocked on my ass, emotionally speaking, has many intrinsic
benefits, don’t you know … if nothing else, it’s giving me another opportunity
to stand back up on my own two feet, all to get my center and balance, once
again. Yea for this!
What this
post is getting to is it’s wonderful to have Faith in something or someone ‘out
there’ ie. a greater, higher power but for my bet, it’s mandatory above all
else, to have Faith in myself. How can we possibly believe in something else
if we don’t have an inkling of this precious commodity within ourselves to draw
on as we go – and is it even possible to have trust in
anything other if not alive in and for ourselves, first? I don’t think so.
Maybe it’s
splitting metaphoric hairs or a matter of Spiritual semantics but it has always
seemed to me, God wants us to believe in the Divinity within ourselves more than look for It outside. Not for nothing
– but it came to me years ago that that ‘God’ doesn’t want to be the object of
our primary worship as much as each of Itself - as us – worshipping It in ourselves
first and in each other more.
It takes the
middle man out of the equation, whether the priest of guru or higher Spiritual
ideal all a’glowing in the mist. Within us all, is the ever present doorway to
the Sacred alive in our own Hearts. In fact, that’s the entrance way itself –
your own Heart. What could be more simple or perfectly created than to have
designed into our consciousness matrix the very escape route potentially
leading us out of this world's illusion, all hiding within our own bodies? What a smart Being that did
such a miraculous thing.
Like many if
not most, my Heart has been barricaded for lifetimes behind the woundings of my
painful past. The armor plated defense systems always turned away the perceived
attacking threats, all to keep me safe ... except, I found myself all alone in
the guard tower and in time, this became insufferable. The tension it took to
remain guarded become too difficult to maintain in this life and thankfully, I asked
and have done the required work to renegotiate the contract, helping dissolve the
barriers.
As in present
circumstance when I misread the playing field by a good margin, I’m having to do
the self-responsible thing by getting right back on the horse that threw me, if
only to enliven the Sacred in my life once again. I’m having to do this for, with
and in my Self, here in my body, now in the present moment. No higher power can
do this for me. What a great gift the Universe is offering me in this.
Obviously, I
put too much emphasis on another to provide me the connection to the Sacred
Union I long for, having come to believe it is my destiny to co-create this
with a female partner. This mind you, doesn’t negate my personal responsibility
to endeavor to persevere within myself to make my Soul’s dream come true by
first creating this Sacred connection inside of my self first… it does, however,
include a willing Beloved to share this Earth walk together.
As recently displayed,
some are more in line with this than others and some don’t have the capacity to
engage in this way at all. Maybe it’s just not their dharma, who knows? Or at
least not yet or at least not with me and I am at peace with this now. In the crunch of all this, I totally recognize the her 'out there' is merely a refection of this part in my self. I'd have to be an even bigger asshole to keep blaming anyone for my own feelings.
In this respect, all is
well and fine with no judgments passed in anger either way. Just like we all
have to hold our own pain, first and foremost, I believe in intimate reflection
of what I’ve just experienced, we all have to develop our personal Faith first in
ourselves, above all else.
I think it’s
an ever blending of the material necessities with Divine providence, with the Divine
always holding the final trump cards. Like the saying – it’s wise to believe in
Allah but it’s smart to tie up you camel – we have to cover both bases on this
Earth plane to make it all the way, safely Home.
As my pain
body has been drained of its trigger charge and the emotional reactivity has stopped,
I get to see how it was my choice to get back to my Spiritual basics that freed
me up to feel Light once again. This alone has opened my Heart now. It was my commitment to get back in touch with
my Soul Stream, alive in my Vertical Power Current, that turned the recent tide.
Eventually,
we all have to leave the safe enclave of our support meetings to venture out
alone into the world. Great we always have an over lightening power watching over
us but better yet to have ourselves doing the empowering in our own lives as
well. It’s not for effect the saying God helps those who help themselves first
has such a potent ring to it.
… to be
continued …
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