It can be quite challenging accepting responsibility for ourselves in this wonderful world, but the benefits are huge. To refuse to be victimized by others’ actions or be subject to the whims or capriciousness of form, whether physical, emotional or mental, is a pure spiritual act. To live in the faith that “all is God and all is good,” to be loyal to a concept that we create all of our experiences and to escape the inner drive to blame and shunt this responsibility to others, is a challenging exercise demanding patience, tenacity and faith. And to be able to do this constantly and consistently automatically elevates the individual to a level that may well appear out of reach for most. Nevertheless, to live from this consciousness is the desire of all enlightening souls and the only pathway to it demands patience practise and tenacity.
My personal journey to achieve this in my life has often been fraught with missteps, but I take great pride and solace in the fact that I have not given up. I often describe this journey in an analogy:
Years ago when we lived in Southern California, we used to go to a beach on the coast. In order to access this beach, we were required to walk down a path to an opening between to large rock cliffs. The path was quite steep and wound down, and to someone’s great blessing it was actually paved. It was sort of like walking into a funnel.
On either side of the paved path the entire landscape was covered with brambles, prickles and nettles; we did not want to get off the path, it hurt, a lot. My analogy is to imagine that I am blind and walking down the path. Before I learned to accept responsibility for my life, I would stumble off the path and when I hit the nettles I would panic and run blindly through the prickles until I found the path again, more times than not by fluke. Once I understood there was a different path, I found that when I stepped off of it, it still hurt, but I didn’t panic and I could simply stop and step backward back onto the pavement again.
For me this is the practise of my life. It is my spiritual practise. It grounds me in my faith. No matter how many times I forget, no matter how many times I misunderstand, no matter how many times I err, I can always stop, step back and start again. I would like you to think about this the next time you think someone has done something to you. This is spiritual practise.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In