A Walk in the Physical

For much of my life, I justified my worth to myself partially by establishing intellectual capability. I learned facts and skills. I grew my knowledge of various subjects, and learned a foreign language. I earned a high GPA in college, worked hard to excel in my career, and became “the best” I could be at various activities. Eventually I had a long list of intellectual accomplishments to present to myself to prove my worth to myself. It worked for a while.

A few years ago in my spiritual walk, I made a profound personal discovery: in the Big Picture, my intellectual accomplishments are largely unimportant! Sure they have some effect in the physical- and of course there is in fact certain spiritual value to my having achieved them. But in the Big Picture, from the view of larger Reality which supersedes this entire physical reality, my knowledge, skills, and abilities actually mean very little. They are not the reason why I am here.

Metaphorically, I realized that my skills are like a video game character’s skills: they have value where assigned, and perform functions within the video game, but are in fact almost meaningless in the larger reality, where I already transcend that paltry knowledge and crude physical functionality.

I found that what is important, in fact, is intent: striving to have the truest quality of intent- that means genuinely loving intent- in all the choices that I make. Put crudely but succinctly: love is more important than knowledge.

Metaphorically speaking, you and I are living in a video game. (See Tom Campbell’s work.) This is a “virtual” reality: an experience constructed within consciousness. When we die, we don’t take our character’s video game skills with us. The character’s body dies. That’s OK because fundamentally we don’t need the skills, or the body.

What we do take with us, rather than the character’s skills, is our own ability to actually play the game with higher quality intent (intent that is more loving and less fearful). We learn how to actually be more loving and less fearful. Every time we play, we get a little better at seeing past the illusions and making loving choices. Every time we play, we conquer some fear.

Our knowledge does not survive in its current limited form, nor does it need to. However our wisdom, our genuine love- that survives forever!

Creation is a phenomenon rooted in joy!

However, sometimes we do not experience physical life that way.

When we adopt the “veil” and become physical, we become bound to this reality’s rule-set. That rule-set includes having a body. The body needs to physically survive. The body can be harmed. The body deteriorates. We need things to protect us, shelter us, feed us. Since the location of objects remain consistent, “possession becomes nine-tenths of the law” and control of resources by force is encouraged. The jungle evolves then to be a “kill or be killed” environment. And there isn’t a day that we don’t forget it, for we are constantly involved in a struggle for control of resources (often in the form of money), and sometimes even survival itself.

That entire experience can lead us to take things very seriously. Indeed, just the concept of one’s own body dying alone can seem like a very somber problem indeed!

From the perspective of immortal invincible spirit, the opportunity to experience such a messy, tough environment is a treasure. The decision to engage in such an experience is not done out of any seriousness, but rather out of incredible excitement and joy! Every one of us knew the challenge we signed up for before we came. We knew that we were coming to a place where we would one day die. What joy we felt at the opportunity!

That may sound confusing, or perhaps even masochistic- but in fact as creators it is we that have interpreted our experience here in that way. We have created this world and its perceptions. It can be very liberating to be reminded- if we dare- that none of it needs to be feared or taken too seriously.

In fact, there is nothing you are “supposed” to be doing. There is nothing you absolutely “have” to do! If you feel there is, it is because you have chosen to buy into that belief for one reason or another. You may have bought into various beliefs and interpretations that lead you to feel that you “must” do this or that- and that is a great experience to have- but none of it is fundamental. Fundamentally you are free, joyful awareness. Fundamentally you, and the person next to you, cannot be harmed. Fundamentally you are more than all of the things in your mind, your life, and even your imagination.

So kick back, relax, and enjoy the ride! Play the game of life with the carefree joy that is still you down in there. What’s the worst that could happen?

All the experiences of individual perspective, and in fact all experiences of duality (duality meaning experiences of contrast like “up versus down,” “hot versus cold,” etc.), exist “within” the larger reality of consciousness that “contains” everything. We call that larger reality of consciousness “God.” All individual perspectives and all cause-and-effect events and choices that led to them are all “accounted for” within that great awareness. Absolutely everything is known and accounted for. And yet that great awareness is not simply a sum-total of individual perspectives, but is a potent living consciousness that far exceeds the sum of its parts.

From an individualized perspective within a dualistic universe such as ours, we simply cannot grasp what that means. God as the Author of duality is beyond it- so we cannot define all of Him from within it.

Stated differently, it is impossible to describe God with the Earthly dualistic intellect, such as the one you are using right now. Since form cannot describe the formless, God- the author of form- is beyond description.

Fortunately, however, the spirit of which we are primarily comprised does exist beyond duality. It is a part of God. Your earthly personality, steeped high in the experience of duality, may not remember it- but because your spirit is irrevocably a part of God, you do fundamentally transcend the dualism, just like God does.

It is OK then, when you wish, to let every single thing in your life go: to relinquish your death-grip on forms, responsibilities, and ideas, and simply allow yourself to be fully present, exposed, and surrendered to the current moment. God, the great Author, is always there.

Love is what you seek. You may not even consciously remember the love that you seek, but as it is native to your being, you seek it every day. God’s love- however you may or may not identify it- is your substance, your life blood, your desire and drive. It is the place from which you’ve come and to which you will return. It is what you yearn for. It is your ultimate strength and your motivation. It is the purity of being that rests beneath all your interpretations. Love is the fountain of life from which you spring.

It is OK to acknowledge your deep, deep longing to truly be loved and accepted. Yet doing so may mean acknowledging to yourself how very much you have NOT received the love that you have yearned for: in other words, facing your deepest wounds and mistreatments. But that is OK! You do need love, and it is OK to turn into a sobbing wreck and surrender to “daddy God” (or however else you may conceptualize our Source)! It is even OK to be angry about it. If you are truly open, you will find that the spirit is always there for you, and can take any “vent” that you might dish out. The love that exists specifically for YOU is very real, and it transcends all the pain you have suffered.

You may feel abandoned and unloved at times, but in truth, you never are.

Just as you need love, recognize that it is also the thing that everyone around you needs. We all need love! Yet we are so tangled by a lifetime of thoughts that we have become lost in the deep illusion of separation that is physical life. We turn to forms around us to fill the void- to substances, to entertainment, to possessions, to ideas. We have forgotten that we are searching for love. Those who are around you have forgotten.

You are here for a purpose. That purpose is to love! Be the reminder. The being who is next to you right now needs what you have to give. Shine God’s love back into the world! For as you need it, give it!

You do not need to be hard on yourself for being where you are. Wherever you are, whatever you have become- you are at an OK place now, and the universe understands fully why you got to where you are. You made a lot of choices to get here- both those you remember and many you do not- and it is OK that you made those choices.

Simultaneously, oftentimes spiritual growth is only possible when we recognize where we have failed. In response to our fear and the negative self-perceptions that we have bought into over the course of our lifetimes, we commonly tell ourselves stories about why we are worthy or justified. In fact, we are already worthy and justified; none of the stories are required. However, those stories do often prevent us from seeing where, in fact, we could be more loving. We can become blind to where we need to grow when we think we are already grown up.

Being both totally OK with where you are and also simultaneously being aware of your shortcomings requires a profound amount of both full self-love and humility. Self-love and humility are not opposites; we can and should develop both qualities simultaneously. The path for doing so is a complex and personal journey that is not easily articulated. Yet wherever you are, allow yourself today to recognize it is OK that you are where you are, no matter the circumstances you may find yourself in. Accepting ourselves by accepting our circumstances and our part in those circumstances is a powerful step toward lasting peace.

We are fundamentally beings of freedom and love. We are not born into the world “sinful”- meaning in any way opposed to or separated from God. In fact we can never escape God, for that which we call God is our very root and nature, and nothing in all Creation exists apart from it/ Him. In fact, we have come into the world for the very purpose of making hard, messy choices within a set of constraints that permit us to learn to operate lovingly within a hard, messy environment. We are encouraged to use free will, in order to grow and participate in Creation. God knows we are making choices. We are not punished for making choices, even if they harm others. Punishment is not needed: as countless thousands of Near Death Experiences tell us, after our life we will inevitably experience a “life review” process in which we will come to understand and actually feel the full effect that all of our choices had on others, and we will be fully able to judge ourselves. Also, importantly, God in His loving wisdom has set out certain “universal laws” of operation that naturally and inevitably guide each individual in growing toward love. The ability to make mistakes is a necessary part of that process.

Some may say that the sinful and narcissistic nature of man is evident. Yet narcissism is no more than a natural consequence of a yet undeveloped spirit seeking to make choices within challenging constraints. Ego- the erection of self-protective justifications, beliefs, and identity- is no more than a great castle of illusion built by the individual to protect himself from facing his own fear. Man who acts narcissistically is acting from ego and from fear. He does so because his spirit has not “grown up” enough yet to make the more loving or fearless choice within his current history and constraint set, not because he is inherently bad or separated from God in any way.

When my children are whining or fighting, I do not think, “what sinful or selfish people!” Rather, I see joyous and loving beings who are befuddled by a situation. We as adults are not much different. Our ego structures and beliefs may be complex, well justified, and built high over a lifetime- but beneath it all, we, too, are beings of love and light!

Original sin, then, is a myth. The truth is original sinlessness- followed by very real conscious beings making very tough choices in a very real simulation called physical incarnation.

We are taught to constantly focus outside of ourselves. We have things to do, places to go, bills to pay, appointments to keep, and people to interact with. We need to eat, sleep, walk, talk, and move. We think we are our physical bodies, and we perceive others as theirs. We even believe quite firmly that what is “real” is that which is outside of us that can be verified by others.

Yet through meditation, one begins to get profound glimpses of a much larger truth: all of that which is taking place “outside” of us is in fact taking place “inside” of us!

You are not the objects of your experience that have beheld your attention for so long (the objects of your experience include both the perception of physical objects and also your thoughts and emotions). Rather, the objects of your experience are taking place within your awareness. The sense data that you experience even when others verify what is “outside” of you is also taking place within your awareness of it.

When you gently and gradually quiet your physically-focused mind-self, and you permit yourself to sink deeply into simply “What Is” in the present moment, you will eventually find without any effort that there are treasures within you that go beyond all the treasures of the physical world of form. How remarkable it is that such fantastic treasures go unnoticed by us while we are on Earth! Indeed, they often do. Yet, they do not have to. Take a few moments today to allow yourself to take even one gentle step towards actually dwelling quietly with your own awareness. If you can quiet your thought-momentum sufficiently, when you least expect it you may just get a sense of the incalculable and unspeakably precious treasures that are, in fact, within YOU!

Fundamentally what we are is conscious awareness. Fundamentally what we do is exercise intent by making choices. Put another way: the fundamental substance is consciousness; the fundamental force is intent. These statements are true no matter what reality system we are in and no matter how things may currently appear “outside” of us.

Consciousness may elect to participate in experiences that provide rich constraints in which difficult choices may be made. Physical reality is one of those meaningful constraint-sets.

Yet even here, because focus is a part of intent, focus itself is a creator of momentum. When we focus on a certain perception, that perception grows. Physical reality is meant to give us the opportunity to have the experience that our nurtured perceptions yield to us.

It is valuable to recognize this phenomenon because it allows us to take back our power. How? We can move away from perceiving the world as a place that happens “to” us, and gradually shift our perspective towards recognizing that in fact the power lies within us. This may seem like a big leap in such an immersive and challenging environment; indeed in this reality it can take time to institute substantive internal or external change. But we do have the power to change our momentum in every single “now” moment. “Now” is always the moment! We can choose now to focus on the good instead of the “bad.” We can choose now to dwell on the love in the world, and not the fear.

We are not powerless to our circumstances, but are in fact powerful creators who are able even to commit ourselves to the temporary illusion of powerlessness.

If you have relinquished your power in your own mind, it is OK to take it back! Become familiar with how you are perceiving your experience. Choose to focus on the positive, even as you fully confront and embrace the negative. Your awareness is at the root of all of it. Change the momentum of your experience by intentionally choosing what you focus on and how you decide to interpret what happens in your life. You as consciousness have that very real power- it’s time to remember that you do!

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”  -C.G. Jung

It is holy when you finally actually, actually choose to face your deepest pain with full commitment.

Pain cannot kill you. Pain may be profoundly challenging to experience at times, but your awareness cannot be harmed by it. Your body can and will die, but suffering will not obliterate your spirit. In fact, there is tremendous power to be gained by facing all of what you feel. Choose to accept all of your experience, including pain when it comes! Do not justify it away or tell yourself a story to temporarily ease its presence. Even when pain feels insurmountable and completely overwhelming, go in to the storm. Even if you fear deeply that it will destroy you, plunge into the tsunami. Rather than being destroyed, you will come out far stronger on the other side.

When you make the journey into pain, do not judge the pain or its perceived causes. Rather, simply experience it and be present with the feeling itself. It is important that we feel our pain without any judgment at all. Often the stories we are telling ourselves about the pain only contribute to it as they simply layer new negative self-perceptions on top of an original fear. The original fear root is available to be processed and truly healed, if we are willing to actually feel our way through the branches (individual surface pains) one-at-a-time as they surface. The divine will always be there to guide and help us when we are truly willing to face our own darkness. To feel it is to heal it.

If all is not well, it is because you have interpreted that all is not well. Your evidence for all not being well may seem obvious to you. After all, it appears clear that suffering abounds and the world is in rough shape. You may even feel disdain for those who don’t see that things are “obviously” not well. How can anyone say “All is Well”?

In fact, consciousness has the power to place interpretation and meaning on anything. We come into the physical to experience the constraints of physical life, including the constraint of ignorance which causes us to have to interpret our experience. In response to our sense data we “buy in” to interpretations, perceptions, and beliefs, and then have the resultant experience that our interpretations, perceptions, and beliefs yield to us. That process of actually living through our interpretations, perceptions, and beliefs is what adds to Creation and is so meaningful to our soul.

At the fundamental level beyond all the interpretations, perceptions, and beliefs, the consciousness that exists is unharmable and capable of nearly infinite creation. Its ability to have the experience of limitation is simply a part of its creative power. The brave soul that jumps in to experience the darkness helps “All That Is” grow in its experience by providing profoundly valuable contrast and perspective. You are participating in that incredibly meaningful activity right now!

Beneath all the wants and “not wants,” sickness and health, sight and sound, birth and death: ineffable Beingness exists deeply. From that state, it is totally and wholly apparent that All is Well, and always will be.

If you cannot sense that right now from your current state of awareness, don’t worry- that’s a part of the game! Allow yourself at least intellectually to consider that the pains and fears and destruction of your life and the lives of others exist within something greater. If you fearlessly listen quietly within, beneath all your own interpretations, perceptions, and beliefs, you may just hear a voice gently reminding you that indeed, beneath (and through!) all the drama, all is indeed very, very well!