an exploration
Let’s call it an exploration of consciousness.
There are three types of people. Well, actually there are more than three, but only three types of people are drawn to spirituality.
The first kind are those who look for tradition, law, ritual, strict routines, legalistic principles and dead hierarchies to chain their truth seeking spirit to. Too afraid to unleash the tethers holding them to this earthbound vehicle called the beast mind, survival of the fittest lies at the root of this type of thinking.
The second kind are those who have gleaned on the fact that we are all made in the image of our creator, and thus have certain creative powers. They are those who have witnessed with their own eyes the power of their thoughts, aligned actions, words and convictions bring to life the things they desired. And the desires never run out. Desires are a bottomless well that never runs dry. Satisfaction will never be achieved, peace a distant solar system on the voyage to total control of their world. Materialism is a powerful thing. We can get lost in this world of things, this world of shiny positions, titles, achievements all of which ultimately mean nothing at all to the soul. The soul only longs for peace, meaning, transcendence, love, joy, freedom, but none of the materialistic things we could possibly manifest can ever give us the fruits of the spirit.
And this brings us to the third kind of people. The spiritual seekers, the ones who have, one way or another, found God. But actually, God found them. We could go multiple lifetimes looking for God and never find him, because God is discreet and likes to hide himself behind coincidences, luck, and happenstance. God is not a show-off. He leaves that to his adversary. No, God likes to be discovered in the secret place, in the place where only faith can lead us, where we have to walk by faith and not by sight. In the places where darkness surrounds us like a cloth suffocating our spirit. God likes to be found where evidence could never lead us. God likes to develop faith first, then the evidence will show. God likes to develop character first, then he gives rewards. God is a father first and foremost. A good father doesn’t give his children speedy cars before they learned how to drive.
God’s way is a higher path, a true path of the spirit. God’s will is to develop in us the fruits of the spirit which are eternal and will never pass away. They are love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), temperance (self-control), faith, goodness, kindness, and meekness. Those fruits take a long time to develop and require much pain, they don’t develop just by happenstance. But they are more valuable than rubies, more worthy than gold, more precious than accolades and titles which will pass away. You could have all the wealth in the world, all the control over your world and still fall into despair, but the fruits of the spirit will never desert you. Joy is the real price, peace is the real reward and they are not found easily, nor by chasing after material things. But the beast mind wants, yearns for material things, wants to assert itself before it is ready to receive those rewards. God calls this rebellion. A child which goes its own way to get the things it wants before the parent has decided it is ready.
How many times did we have to learn the hard way that forcing something into being that we think we wanted, needed turned out to be our downfall? Just like any other living thing, human beings are constantly changing. We are not who we used to be at ten, twenty, thirty years old. We may have thought we would be a certain way, like certain things, but life turned out differently and today we are someone we could have never imagined being. Only God knows the future version we will evolve into one day. He knows what we will need before we need it. Our small ant’s mind cannot conceive the plans he has for us, because he operates outside of time and space. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, his ways are higher than our ways.
We are and will always be limited because you have to be something, but you can’t be everything, only God can. And to force something into being that our future self might not be able to receive, or need, or might even become tethered down by is just shortsightedness.
Ultimately with God life becomes an adventure through unchartered territory. Every obstacle, every mountain, treacherous cliff, valley or raging river becomes an adventure for which we are not equipped or prepared, but God, our faithful guide, can bring us through it. He likes to test us before he teaches us the lesson. With God life isn’t a competition of how much stuff we can acquire and how high we can rise in society. With God life is a grand adventure, one we leave barely standing, chuffed up, breathing hard, scarred, tattered, but never broken. With God life is full of surprises, unexpected twists and turns, and even the valleys become ground for growth. Character isn’t formed in the comfort of luxury and ease. No, character that can sustain a life “in the wild” outside of society’s norm can only be formed through adversity. Pain is a great teacher. Life is a grand adventure and freedom is only found once we let go of our control, let go of trying to attach ourselves to things, and just enjoy the journey wherever it may lead, because we all will die one day and we can’t take anything with us except our soul.
