Healing and counseling sessions
Enchanted forest
April 2008
Picture: www.philipstraub.com
"If one goes to the very depth of things, if, stripped of the ego, one gives oneself totally, without reserve, so completely that one becomes capable of understanding the plan of the Lord, then one knows it is not a bad joke, not a tortuous path by which you return, a little battered, to the starting point. One the contrary, it is to teach the entire creation the delight of being, the beauty of being, the majesty of a sublime life, and the perpetual growth of that delight, beauty, greatness."
~ Mirra Alfassa, spiritual teacher and collaborator of Sri Aurobindo
Contents:
- God is an architect, we are interior designers
- God gave us a part of his being
- God's laws safeguard our development
- School of hard knocks
- I want More!
- A new day
1. God is an architect, we are interior designers
Imagine God the Creator as a highly developed spiritual being, who was about to create the universe. What was in his mind at that point? He wanted to express himself, that's for sure. He wanted to express love, fullness, harmony, freedom, perfection… that he is. But he didn't want to create a static universe, a monument to his omnipotence. He didn't want to single-handedly create everything in the universe, down to the tiniest detail, and then sit back and watch his creation unfold in a fully predicted, mechanical way. Because that would be a world of robots. And it would be very very boring.
God does not need mindless creatures to blindly execute his plan, while he enjoys the scene, basking in his grandeur. God doesn't have a narcissistic personality disorder. He doesn't need people to worship him so that he could feel good about himself. God does not need anything from anybody, because he is already full and complete in himself.
What he wants is a living, thinking, growing universe, with every part conscious of itself and its divine nature. So that every part can reach the fullness of God. And that it happens voluntarily – by our own free will. God’s desire is that every part of life, every conscious being, exclaims “I love who I am - a divine being, co-creator with God - and I want to achieve my highest potential”.
God wants us to be co-creators with him and to participate in building the magnificent web of life. He wants us to be conscious co-creators of the universe. He only set a rough outline - the main laws, which we call the laws of nature, but left the details to us to complete. If God is an architect, we are interior designers - we decide how the interior of our home, called planet Earth, will look like. We decide, with our free will, and based on our understanding of life, whether it will be a sacred space or a dump yard. Whether it will be Heaven or hell.
God would want it to be Heaven. And he left his signature everywhere, from the tiniest blade of grass to the vastest of galaxies. Perfect patterns in nature reveal a supreme architect. Our bodies are the pinnacle of his excellence. He created us and Mother Earth with the highest vision in mind, with the highest love. He prepared everything so that we can continue in his footsteps. To create worlds upon worlds of beauty and perfection. So that Light can expand. So that Love can expand. Through us, his children.
2. God gave us a part of his being
Ultimately, God is the only source of light and life in the universe. There is nothing outside of God's being. He is all that is. He was all that was. And because of that, he created the universe and other conscious beings out of his own body, out of his own light and consciousness. If we imagine God as a sea of consciousness, every one of us is a drop in that sea, a divine spark that has the blueprint of God embedded in it. This blueprint is the Christ within – the awareness that "I and my Father are one", and "I am one with all life."
Christ consciousness connects us with our true identity, it defines us as Gods in the making. Before knowing our inner Christ, we don’t know who we really are and what we are here for. We even resist that who we are. It is like a prince who doesn't want to be a prince, but wants to be a frog. And then he starts behaving like a frog, and he can even be very good at it, and live a pleasant frog life. But that’s not who he truly is. He could be so much more if he would accept that he is a prince. He could enter the kingdom of God if he would accept his true identity.
So every one of us has a part of God’s being embedded in us. It is a seed of life, a portion of consciousness and light that we can multiply – by using our creativity and talents for a good purpose. And that good purpose is raising all life. Whenever we multiply our talents, we will receive a new portion of creativity and light from Above. It is a relationship where the more we give, the more we receive. Because we use our talents for the benefit of all, and so we can be entrusted with more. It is a flow between us and Heaven, where with every talent we put to good purpose we bring a parcel of Heaven to Earth.
3. God's laws safeguard our development
Can you grasp the greatness of God, the selflessness of God, when he gave us a part of his own being to do what we want with it? Even if we do things which are in opposition with God’s will and his vision for the universe – things which harm either ourselves or other parts of life – he lets us do them for a while, because he holds a higher vision for us. He holds a vision that we would one day wake up and realize the truth of who we are. He is like a perfect parent who gives his children an almost infinite time to experiment, to learn from trial and error, to make their own choices, and finally to see what has always been in front of their eyes - that they are Gods, if they choose to be.
We know that when children experiment with their free will, they can endanger both themselves and the others. Therefore parents need to restrict them from doing certain things. God doesn't restrict us, but he did set up certain rules, certain laws of the universe, which ensure maximum opportunity for growth and maximum safety for an evolving soul.
Souls who recognize the deeper meaning of life and strive to live according to the best of their abilities, not harming either themselves or any other part of life, will be supported and protected by the heavens, and all doors will be opened for them.
Souls who fail to see a deeper purpose in life and who go against the laws of love and oneness, which the universe is based on, will have to experience the consequences of their actions, so that they could learn. That is because sometimes the only possible way for a stubborn child to learn a lesson is to suffer the consequences of its own actions, and when they feel on their own skin how much it hurts, hopefully they will give up.
So the laws of the universe, i.e. the laws of God, serve to accommodate both for good pupils and bad pupils, so to speak. To the former life is a dance with the heavens, to the latter life is a school of hard knocks. And for those who won’t get it, the knocks get harder and harder. It is not a merciless God punishing them, but their own refusal to accept the truth - that they are divine and that life is love.
If you believe that life is a struggle, you will cause a reaction from other souls who believe the same thing, and you will support each other's beliefs, and probably hurt each other in the process. God will also send you people who will love you unconditionally, but you often won't recognize them but reject them too. You will be caught in the struggle consciousness and life will be a very frustrating experience for you. Until some day you will be totally exhausted by the fight and - give up.
Unfortunately those surrenderings often happen only when we are faced with a personal tragedy - when the very core of our existence is shattered, when life as we know it doesn’t make sense any more. And then, when we are crushed and broken to pieces, then maybe there is a chance that we will stop and listen… to the voice within, to the voice of God who has been there all along but we refused to pay attention.
The universe is a mirror - and until we decide to smile at it first, it cannot smile back. Sometimes we think there is no reason to smile. Everything around us seems against us. And we cannot do anything but suffer. But that's not true. We can always do something - call God to come into our lives, but do it under his conditions, not ours. Don't limit God in you, don’t tell him what to do. If you really surrender, knowing that God's will is your highest will, because you at your core are God, then miracles are possible. If you let God enter, the troubles will leave you. Because where God dwells, there can be only joy.
Sometimes we resisted for too long, and brought upon ourselves physical conditions, even physical illnesses as a result of our distorted sense of self and our rejection of life. Our suffering is a consequence of disconnecting ourselves from the flow of life, from the symphony of the universe. We get out of sync, we start lagging behind, and what is worst, we refuse to be helped. And then we enter a school of hard knocks. And it lasts and lasts. And now we are here, tired and worn out, full of cuts and bruises on our soul and in our body. What to do?
The first thing to do is to decide to Be who we really are. To turn a new page in our lives. Where we accept our true identity, and leave behind the old mental set, the old way of thinking and doing things. As Jesus said, "With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible." We need to start loving our divine self more than our limited ego self. We need to give space to God within, we need to let God guide our lives.
Why are we so afraid to let go? Because the ego feels more comfortable, more pleasurable, more familiar. But we know that the pleasures of the ego come with a price - they are always followed by a feeling of emptiness and a sense of failure. The ego limits us, the True Self liberates us. The pleasure of the True Self is infinitely larger than that of the ego1. And it never comes with a price. There are no negative side effects of "being high" on God. When we are being our True Self, then the whole universe is with us. And there is nothing but victory.
Giving space to God is indeed a sacrifice - we consciously and willingly need to sacrifice our ego on the altar of our True Self. No other sacrifices in life are necessary. In order to come into oneness with God, there is never a need to sacrifice our Real Self - only the false identity that we got to worship.
True Self is so much more, it is infinite, it is immortal. It shines like a star on our horizon - when we decide to look up. For some people it takes shorter, for some it will take longer. But there will come a point when we cannot survive in our limited sense of self because we will contract to the point of collapsing unto ourselves. The walls of our self-inflicted prison will start collapsing unto us, until we finally exclaim: "I cannot live like this any more! I need to change!"
And then, with that decision, we turn a new page in our lives. We choose to BE. To live, to grow, to shine. And then, even our health will improve. When we really decide to move higher and leave behind the shackles of our former identity, the whole Heaven and Earth will rejoice. And even our body, which suffered in chains for years, will feel free to breathe again.
Picture: www.philipstraub.comIt is as if a fairy brought good news to the inhabitants of the enchanted forest - that the evil king is dead, and the new young prince is coming, and everything will be better from now on. And the Sun starts shining and the thick grey clouds are gone in no time. The good news is spreading fast, from one animal to the other, from one cell in our body to the other. They are exclaiming: have you heard it, have you heard it? The new prince is coming!
Soon the whole kingdom is humming with excitement, and chatter, and life! Oh yes, finally life! There is a NEW PLAN, they whisper, a good plan, and we will participate! Everybody, everybody! Even those who were sleeping until now - they are awakening too. And the whole kingdom is basking in delight. And it becomes full of light, full of joy and full of gratitude to the new prince. The imprisonment is over, the days of freedom have come!
This is what it means to free ourselves from bondages of our false identity, from the evil king who terrorized the kingdom for a very long time. It is a victory of Light, a victory of Life. All that was distorted will be returned into purity and balance, all that resists God will be dissolved. New plan is the new blueprint - the blueprint of our True Self. And on the larger scale, it is the New Age, the Golden Age of Aquarius.
________________
1 About higher and lower pleasure, from The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran:
"And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?"
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees."
Note: although God does not have gender, personal pronoun "he" was used throughout the text, to simplify the expression.
