Sometimes as a spiritual traveler you have to step out of
the ethereal world and deal with the concrete, the things that are real-seeming
in this reality we co-create and exist within.
I won’t debate whether that reality is truly real or not as that just isn’t
the purpose of this piece. The purpose
and point of this piece is a string of thoughts or musings, if you will on the
topic of duality and the spiritual path in general. First and foremost, we are conscious beings,
even when we are asleep our consciousness is quite busy – just at a different
level of awareness. We are even when
awake, existing at various levels of consciousness and I’ve written about those
from the technical perspective and there is a non-technical less tangible side
to awareness as well. What does this
have to do with duality you might ask?
Well, everything.
In many circles, we have this strong dogmatic urging to
detach from the world, embrace the oneness, go into the void and experience the
nothingness. This is how you become enlightened,
this is how you ascend and this is how you grow. This sounds really cool
doesn’t it? I mean, who wouldn’t want to
elevate themselves above the rest of the populace through spiritual practice
and evolving to higher levels than your neighbors, right? Not so fast.
I want to give you some very practical food for thought in sharing with
you a blasphemous thought in the context of New Age thoughts (at least from
some perspectives). There are those who
can tell you none of this – Earthly experience – is real. Nothing you can perceive exists outside of
the very way in which you can perceive it – go within and understand the
truth. Would they be wrong? Not really.
Should it be your life purpose to spend all of this physically limited
conscious existence pursuing our return to that space from which we came? Why?
Why would we do that and why would we hold that as a goal from deep
within us as our core mission? What
opportunities in our lives might we miss if that were our only goal? I think
sometimes it sounds like a cool alternative compared to the every-day commonly
experienced mundane existence. But there
is another piece that is very important here:
Why we came.
If our soul or sole intent and purpose here was to go back
to where we came from, why on Earth would we be here at all? We did not come here to spend all of our time
in meditation (although meditation has some very beneficial effects I wholly
support), most of us actually came here to experience life in 3-D. We can also experience some of the aspects of
other dimensions but you are here in a physical body for a reason. You naturally transcend it when your physical
time clock gives away its last tick and you move on from this realm. So, what is it with the rush and the hurry to
do it all right now? What if I told you
that you were already enlightened? What
if I told you that a part of your consciousness is already ascended and so,
there is no place for you here now to ascend to? I know, blasphemous thoughts right? Well, think about it and think about it
carefully.
I’ll say this again and a little differently. You are Spirit, spirit is consciousness and
your physical existence here is your consciousness specifically projected in
this dimension to experience life here in this very physical dimension of vast
dichotomy. So, why rush to get out? You will miss that very thing you came here
to do. What I suggest is that you live
your life here through thoroughly embracing your life just as it is—crazy,
maddening, wonderful and exciting.
Embrace you – crazy, creative, wonderful and so very precious. Your mind thinks thoughts, you send your body
then into action creating this scene or that scene with other wonderful souls
from which you learn about love, about life in 3-D and just how terrible and
beautiful our home in the Milky way Galaxy can be. So, consider carefully my above questions
again. Is there duality? From our perspectives, Yes. Is there a Oneness in Consciousness of which
we are all part? Yes. Is there a Cosmic Consciousness from which we
gain much of our love, courage and drive to do the things we do in this
life? Yes again. When you begin to understand the machinations
of your own Earthly life, you begin to see there are all of these little things
you were meant to learn and transcend.
These little things may be learning how to get along with other human
beings, how to forgive so you don’t stay in a space of illness producing toxic
anger or how to give of yourself in pure kindness just for the absolute joy of
the experience.
Humanity is amazing if a little unaware of just how amazing
and wonderful they truly are. We need
not fight for a piece of any illusive pie and we need not chase any imaginary
dragons of enlightenment that we already have deeply ingrained in the core of
our consciousness. Learn to understand
your environment, yourself and then others a bit more and you know what you
might find? Compassion. This is one of life’s most beautiful
treasures and only through our connected consciousness can we fully comprehend
the wonder and beauty, power and strength this one thing holds for us.
So, my thoughts for this day along the lines of
consciousness – you intentionally projected your consciousness in a physical
body with an ego alive to protect it and keep you on this side of the
veil. Through meditation and prayer even,
you can pierce the veil to assist with your understanding and better support
your growth in life if you want to. Just
remember the term moderation. Avoid
extremes and the fanatical embracing of any new concept, idea or goal unless,
of course, it involves love of the completely unconditional kind. I’ve been to the other side consciously and I
have to say that as amazing and wonderful as it was and is, my job and my focus
is to live my life. A great conversation
with another wonderful human being I met randomly yesterday reminded me. This message has come to me 3 times in just
the last couple of weeks and while I may be a little slow at getting some
messages, it all begins to make much more sense.
Find what inspires you in life, embrace your amazing and
indescribable consciousness and enjoy your creations here on this Earth for
they are many and wonderful and support not only your learning but the learning
and experiences of every soul whose path you cross. Consider that science, spirituality and New
Age thought based on ancient philosophies have given us so very much to
consider. So many often wade into the
shallow end of the pool and proclaim they’ve completed a swim of the entirety of
the ocean. It’s okay. They learn from their proclamations and
wading and learn that what they thought was swimming the ocean hasn’t even
scratched the surface of possibilities.
Consider even further your existence here. Would you be here if there were no one here
to perceive you? How do you know? Maybe it is not everyone and everything else
that is the illusion but you are the illusion?
It’s easy to take certain concepts and throw them about carelessly as
truths but you have to dive into the deep end of the pool and learn the
difference between knowledge, belief, perception and assumption. These things
are the biggest challenges we grapple with whether we realize it or not. Our consciousness has vast potential as long
as we refuse to close our minds around belief alone. Let others be as they are and explore as they
will through any path they deem most worthy.
You have that same right of exploration or not as you deem right to
choose. Just choose and explore and
while you are in the process, appreciate your ability to be here right now and
experience all the wildly imaginative, creative, seemingly concrete aspects of
reality that is life on Earth. Let your
mind and heart expand not with belief but knowledge. Nothing limits a mind more than belief. Your consciousness is not limited by belief
unless you believe it to be.
The illusions that we consider truth run like a common
thread through all of our lives and the really amazing and wonderful thing
about us is we get to live and through our experiences learn to discern truth
from fiction, fact from fantasy and knowledge from mere belief. Expand your consciousness and embrace the
fact that you are here for a reason. There is no place to run to and no place to
hide. Your perception is focused on this
movie in this theater and it’s an amazing one.
I leave you with these musings now as I need to go experience my own
life a little bit. Until our paths cross
again, I challenge you to look for the beauty in the ugliness, search for
meaning in the seemingly insane and seek understanding at the deeper levels of
your consciousness and you’ll find some surprising things about the true
meaning of life. Bless.
© 2015 J.L. Harter (photo/words)
Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD,
M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, Teacher, Spiritual Counselor and Founder/Editor of the
JMCC. See Bio section for more information.
