John: I guess I’ve come to realize that many people think that they’re on a spiritual path, and that that path only requires them to become conscious in a particular way. This elevated consciousness can enable a person to progress, or evolve, in terms of how they can be used by, or how they are plugged into, creation. And that sense of being used, or being plugged in, is actually an act of service the human can provide to the universe.
There is truth in this viewpoint, but it’s a very passive approach. It can take a long time to realize that spiritual development is a path that also requires a lot of personal responsibility; there’s a lot that has to be taken on by an individual
To begin with, we don’t know how to take anything on because we all come with our different mannerisms, and our limited attention, and ours ways of going about things. We’re all beset by these distractions to the point where it gets so loud in us that we essentially no longer hear much of the “other” – the inner, or higher, aspects of our lives.
We tend to “hear” only what we are focused on – work, family, worry, money, health – and typically, when push comes to shove, we defer to whatever is the loudest in us at any given moment. Yet deep down, we are meant to catch a linkage to something so much more.
But we can’t really catch that linkage until we can properly hear it, or become tuned to it. And that requires quieting the noise in us. We can begin to quiet the noise by acknowledging that we are part of something greater, which turns our perspective from the personal to the universal.
When we do that, the unimportant things that we tend to busy ourselves with begin to fall away, and our senses and higher faculties can do what they are designed to do, which is to hear and connect with the universal flow.
In doing what we, as humans, were designed to do, we begin to fulfill our responsibility, our destiny, and our service to the whole. We connect into the guidance of how to be. Until we get to this point, our life will always seem filled with busy work that will ultimately get us nowhere.
As time progresses, we come to realize that the things we busy ourselves with are really a prison of our own making. They keep us limited when we have a virtually unlimited capacity if we can only let go and allow it to be recognized.
In my first dream, I start off being required to look at the world in a new way. I’m standing on a spot on the globe and I have a golf club; I have the freedom to hit the golf ball to any area I want to see it go.
As most of the world is water, I just need to gauge the distance so that the ball goes across those expanses and lands on an island, or a continent, or at least on land somewhere. It’s like everything is a great big moat with the exception of certain areas.
Upon accepting these global conditions as they are, I don’t seem to mind that I’m dripping with sweat. In other words, my perspective has shifted, putting everything into a different context. In fact, even my sweaty condition makes sense for a change.
It’s as if I have to be this way to accept the game of life as it is played. There can’t be any definitions put on how to play at the playing field. Everyone is required to accept responsibility for how they choose to hit the ball. It’s none of my business how someone might choose to hit the ball, or what someone might choose to do. I realize that there are no limitations; any limitations are self- imposed.
If someone thought that they could carry a distance of 600 yards over water to reach a patch of land, then they have the freedom to do that. Who am I to question? If someone felt they could only hit the ball 100 yards, that’s how far they would hit it – the limitation is self-imposed.
The feeling here is very matter of fact. What is possible is only dependent on a person’s conviction or belief. As a result, there is no room for indulgence of the emotions, or for self-doubt. Everyone is simply left to decide for themselves a fate and karma of their own making.
As a consequence, this approach has an exhilarating sense of freedom. Life that feels like a burden – heavy and with limitations – no longer makes sense as a belief system or attitude. And when one considers the things that once bothered them, they’ve all fallen away.
When we don’t create limitations, what’s possible takes on a much greater scope.
