An Endless Quest for Spiritual Truth: A Practical Guide to Everyday Spirituality. Eric Chifunda
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I also want to express my eternal gratitude to Sri Harold Klemp, my teacher, my friend, my mentor, whose teaching has inspired me beyond words.
I owe Michele Bluestone a debt of gratitude for her helpful suggestion about the book format in the early stage of the manuscript.
I would be remiss not to express my grateful thanks to my good friend, Isabel Chuang, for her unflagging support and encouragement.
A special word of thanks also belongs to Bobbi Hicks for her helpful, expert guidance and suggestions that were given so generously while I was revising this book. Additionally, my heartfelt thanks again to Bobbi for inviting me to one of her great seminars which underscored the importance of setting goals with timelines which helped me in my timely completion of the manuscript.
My heartfelt thanks also goes to Linda Anderson, whom through a chance encounter at a seminar answered some questions I had about book publishing which helped set me on the right course.
Life
What Is Life?
Life is what you make it, is a common refrain. True but not so simplistic. The truth of the matter is that there are two aspects to life: the visible outer day to day life and secondly the nonphysical, hidden, limitless, spiritual side, where night dreams appear and beyond, the one we know less about to which we pay barest attention. To understand the depth and truth about life, we need to plumb its depth.
Life is sacred as it is sustained by the life force, Divine Spirit, the essence of God. Life is designed to lead Soul back to God whence it came from. Life should progressively lead one to greater awareness and greater love for God. In the beginning, Soul, was undeveloped, untested, therefore immature. The process of growth through a variety of life experiences gradually raises Soul to a level of maturity in its conscious knowingness of its mission and relationship with God.
In the initial stage, life may seem unconnected to learning about love for God, but that of living it at a basic human level centered on one’s basic physical level. The awakening of consciousness leads one to gradually, through life experiences, expand one’s awareness to the point of living a life of serving others instead of self only.
Despite all the pains and joys in our life journey, as one expands in consciousness and understanding, one begins to realize that life is intended to lead one to God via love. And the difficulties we face along the way are designed to temper Soul, awaken us to our true spiritual nature—a side of us that is indestructible. This realization of our eternal nature changes the way we view life; therefore, how we live our lives.
With awakened consciousness, we are able to see that life, and our physical surroundings are not static. Though they may appear fixed, they are fluid and can be molded to our choosing to make our lives better. Despite all the pains in life, we begin to view life as not something to run away from, but to be fully lived and embraced. Such is life, such is its simplicity yet complex, and to understand it and enjoy it greatly, one must learn to recognize its profound hidden meaning which can be facilitated by awakening one’s consciousness.
Answers to Life
There is a spiritual answer to every question. However, life does not come with a manual to guide us toward all the answers we need. During periods of turmoil, doubt, anxiety, adversity, trials, or when at crossroads, we wish God could give us easy clear answers about what to do or the right direction to go. Why doesn’t God give us easy clear messages? Could it be that the messages are clear except our hearing and sight are faulty? Could it be that divine spirit is always trying to guide us in the right direction but we are either not aware, or we refuse to follow? Could it be that we hold on to old ways tenaciously that we resist new and right ways that may come about? Could it be that we have not purified our hearts enough to hear the guiding voice of God? Could it be that God is always present with us, but we are not always available to God through our own ignorance, pride, or stubbornness? As the Christian bible aptly states something to the effect that we have eyes, but we don’t see, and we have ears, but we don’t hear. This implies that our dependency on our limited physical eyes and ears do not allow us to see spiritual realities because they are outside the range of our physical senses. Hence, to view spiritual truth we have to forego the use of our limited physical senses and use our spiritual faculties that are designed to gain knowledge of spiritual truth.
It seems that our need for God grows greater when we are having a difficult time. Our need for help seems to make us want God more. Therefore we tend to be closer to God during these difficult times. And when our needs are fulfilled by the grace of God, we are the last to remember to thank God. At that time, our attention is no longer on God because the need for God is no longer there. Without consistent interaction with God, our understanding of God’s ways will be wanting. Therefore when God speaks, we won’t hear because we are not familiar with Its ways, Its language, Its voice. It seems life’s answers are for those who have learned to hear and see through their spiritual eyes and ears.
To get answers, one ought to be ready to see and hear when they come. The difficulty is that life’s answers may come in ways that are unexpected. Thus they may come in a way we might not recognize if our hearts are not ready and open to God’s ways. Thus it takes an awakened heart to recognize, receive, and accept answers from God. If we expect to get anything of worth from life, we must do our part—that’s putting in work truthfully. The more we expect from life, the harder we have to work in whatever we choose. That’s the way life works. As we get a good return from life, we must be grateful. Being grateful prepares our hearts to receiving more of life’s gifts. Answers come more easily to one with a grateful heart. Because a grateful heart is an open heart. And an open heart is a receptive heart. A receptive heart is a golden heart. A heart of gold is a loving heart; a loving heart has a direct link to God.
And therein lies the key to getting answers from God.
Life Goes On
Life is a mystery, yet not so to those whose spiritual eyes and ears are trained and open. Life never stops here when one dies. Life stops here only as an illusion. Death never takes away life in the real spiritual sense. Life goes on, on and on beyond the reaches of human consciousness, to the very heart of God. Beyond death, beyond dreams, beyond the world of appearances as we know it here in the physical world, there’s continuity of life.
There’s eternal life. Life beyond our reach yet within our reach—higher life than our minds can fathom. In higher life, we find higher truth. Most people don’t want truth. Yet it is in the truth that we discover a new life concept. But we need a paradigm shift to open us to a new world. A world filled with light, love, beauty unmatched here on earth. A higher world imbued with the pure light of God in which we can find wisdom, truth, and freedom. Therefore it is to our spiritual advantage to access this inner world beyond the portals of death that can be traversed in the now. For in the now lies the secret of the eternity of life here and beyond. We don’t have to wait for death to supervene to gain a glimpse of the wondrous hidden heaven worlds. They are here and now.
Are We Doing Enough?
God is always good for us. Good in the sense that It provides us all that is needed in the moment if only we can wake up to what’s going on around us and through us.
But, we have to help ourselves first before It can help us. We can’t sit around whole day, whole life, waiting for Divine Spirit