Tuesday 11 | 15| 2016

Recognition and Responsibility

Heading down the other fork and getting lost is easy. Billboards everywhere offering us these forks in the road: “Turn here to find happiness”, “Feel better by doing what we do”, and let us not leave out “Buy this and you will feel better”. No one tell us that chasing the feel good is not the same as building quality of life and walking the path of well-being. If feeling good is not the measure then how are we to know that we are lost? Seems obvious that to find your way out of the wilderness we need to know our current location – to recognize that we are lost. This is so very hard to do if this sense of being on the lost fork is something you haven’t seen before. How are you to know this is not the right path for you and that you need to change? The answer is simple: “You cannot know!” But do not despair. There is a way. You just cannot see yourself clearly when you are lost. And recognizing this cannot be done alone. We need a relationship mirror so we can gaze upon the reflection of ourselves. It can’t be done alone because we do not have a way of knowing that which is not known without such a relationship mirror. When on the road of confusion, we look out through that fog, not even realizing there is fog, and qwe perceive nothing is wrong. “I’m doing what I have always done. It worked before.” Recognition is not as easy as the old saying of “Just say no”. It’s because we are not sure of what to say no to. How do I find guidance to help me off that other path? I need a mirror, a way to see myself clear enough to understand when to say no to to some choice, and what choices I should say yes to. Actually I will need three relationship mirrors: True Self, Community and God. Since I’m lost I am not in connection with my True Self, so there is no mirror of insight there. Then there is community. I have been in this battle with Parkinsons for more than a decade. It has put a strain on all the family mirrors. I am a difficult patient, difficult to read and I have difficulty in asking for help. This makes help from the family mirror strained at best, mostly because my perceptions are clouded (see below after healing occurred). I have had great difficulty “fitting in” to a community and no mirrors have been found there. Then there is the Divine. So I prayed! I have a certain way that I place myself in prayer. First there is the prayer of gratitude, a starting point for proper intent. Second, there is humbleness and awe with respect to my understanding of Divine from previous connections, again moving toward proper intent. Then I clear my mind and enter a “safe room” (internal conception), with the proper intent, and I ask, “Show me. I’m willing to accept whatever it is I am supposed to do. Show me and I promise I will get it done”. This prayer is one reserved for deep spiritual waters. This journey of getting lost seemed to me to have a spiritual quality and fit my definition of a deep spiritual matter. So I meditated, calming down as much as possible. Then asked to speak to the Divine. I asked, “Show me. I will go where you guide me, without falter.” And then I sit with an empty self (see the Mystic Relationship for mor info on this) and wait with patience. Then it happened (and this has happened only five other times in my life of more than 6 decades) I felt the Divine presence. I received a Divine message that was incredibly clear. The message said to stay on the path and do every that is in front of me do, and to get ready for Dr.C. as God wishes to use him. Then a gift was given to me – I was cradled, like an infant in loving arms. I also “saw” the steps needed to make my suffering less – a rehabilitation plan. I cried from the intense bliss of the moment. This was on October 28. Life is quite different now. This bliss moment was followed by insights, a decrease in suffering, a deeper inner quiet, and a shift in the quality of life. This is a pattern that has repeated itself in my life, showing up in connection to all previous 5 divine encounters. Now six encounters and the seeds planted from each bore fruit. It is hard to stand up boldly and say that I have had communication with the Divine. I can hear myself saying this to a therapist and having him respond, “And at what age did you start hearing voices”. I am not here to offer proof of God. And as a trained scientist, I am very skeptical of anyone who makes such claims. I hold such claims to the same level of scrutiny to which I hold myself. I would not offer this story if it did not carry with it some weight of physical evidence outside my own sphere of perception. But this is a story about how to recognize you are lost. The other mirror which is available is the one of community – which in this context means a community of souls to which you have a connection. While I was lost that community seemed distant, disconnected, and not able to help. This inaccurate perception was connected to that other fork in the road I was on, but I did not know it at that time. It was my inner struggle that kept people distant. I also did not see the importance of community through the glare of the transformative sacred healing event. I was consumed by the brilliance, the awe, and the bliss. But as that became quieter, softer, I saw all the “soul love links” friends and family had tossed to me. Think of someone who loves you as having a soul connection to you. When you travel down a path which is not healthy for your soul then these loved ones will know it, even if not sharing the same home. When you are lost their these soul love links to you can help, even if you are unaware. Soul love life links kept me safe as I travelled down that other fork. I am so grateful to all those who held a place for me in their hearts. Know that I heard, felt, and survived in part because of those love life links. My relationship with God is intertwined with these love life links. This Divine way out from being lost is begun by gazing, without issue, upon your relationship mirror and to see yourself with a minimum of distortion – ask God to hold that mirror for you, use your love life links. Once you find your way back, once you have discovered a new sense of well-being, you are now held responsible. .