An Endless Quest for Spiritual Truth: A Practical Guide to Everyday Spirituality. Eric Chifunda
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The expression, “God helps those who help themselves” is apt here. Our role in initiating action is vital, for it determines how we receive from God. We need to do enough to open ourselves in order to receive God’s gifts. In other words we have to earn the gifts. And we don’t earn them by not putting effort and time in. We don’t earn them by not working for them. The bigger the gift we expect, the harder we have to work.
With this attitude, life will reward us a hundredfold. Our relationship with life will continually be harmonious and enriching. Our journey home to God will get easier as we sharpen our survival skills.
Through an improved relationship with God, our level of consciousness expands. With this expansion comes greater understanding and enjoyment of life like never imagined before. Giving us deeper meaning and purpose for our life as we become aware of our true mission. Divine spirit has the ability to open us to new ways of how God operates. It has the power to heal us emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually if we merit it.
It has the power to protect us in times of danger. But, are we doing enough to allow Divine Spirit in our lives to operate more freely, more willingly, at a more conscious level?
Soul Has Answers
When you have a question about a situation you want to find out about, check with the inner, the innermost part of ourselves called Soul. Soul, an instrument of God, is equipped with foresight and insight. It has spiritual eyes that have unique ability to see through life’s intricacies. Eyes that can view a situation in its totality, seeing in full view the underlying cause and effect. Effects that manifest as our daily problems we are unable to see and grasp with our limited mind and sight.
The outer that we so much depend on for answers provides little or none in the true spiritual sense. Real answers come from the inner, where possibilities are illimitable. To access answers from the inner, one needs to place attention on the inner, Divine Spirit. With this, we can get an awareness of what needs to be done. On the inner, we open up to the inner sight and voice. With our spiritual ears now open, we can hear the voice of God. We are now better positioned to tune into God’s impeccable guidance. Its guidance is infallible. Equipped with the knowledge of what to do, we can now move forward, aligning our actions appropriately to meet today’s life challenges. This way we can effectively fulfill our needs and be of help to other people as life unfolds. Sometimes this may require sacrifice on our part in order to render help to another. Love so rendered can have an uplifting effect on the recipient and the benefactor.
Bear in mind that any act done with sacrifice to help another in need is never in vain. It takes more for one to rise above one’s comfort level in order to meet a greater need where warranted, and to that end, one shall be lifted, leaving one a changed person. Because that is the nature of love from God via Soul as its willing distributor to respond to the needs of the moment, and acting upon them no matter how difficult they might be.
If you want answers to life, simply look to Soul, the highest and innermost part of each one of us. Because in Soul, we can connect with God, and in that state of connectivity, we can receive answers more clearly. The challenge is how to raise one’s consciousness so as to grow in awareness of oneself as Soul.
There are a few paths that purport to get one to the state of realizing oneself as Soul. Each person will determine for themselves what fits their spiritual quest till they ultimately find that which can lead them to the realization of oneself as Soul, not just by belief or speculation but in an experiential way.
Thank You, Stranger
People come into our lives for a reason. Often, we don’t realize why someone gets a job at our workplace. Like a gentleman who started working at my workplace. He seemed humble and unassuming in his disposition. His humble and cool demeanor belied his depth. His grace and respect for others made him appear gentle, almost soft. Yet in his own humility and self-effacing mannerisms, he commanded such immense respect. Yet, on the other hand, he was as stern as anyone could be. He was very knowledgeable in his profession. He was highly skilled yet he did not brag about it. He was humble, loving, and compassionate. He treated all with respect.
I respected him for who and what he was. He was a model therapist who epitomized professionalism of high standards. He genuinely cared about my welfare and extended the same to those around him. What a Godsend! It seems he came there as an unknowing channel for Divine Spirit to teach me something I needed to learn about professionalism in the early years of my career.
Sometimes Divine Spirit may use someone such as a coworker, a friend, a family member, a stranger, your boss at work, to teach us something we need in our life, often in an area of our weakness on which we need working. So look around you, maybe your co-workers, what are people around you teaching you about yourself?
For that, I eternally thank you, Stranger, wherever you are, whatever noble work you are doing, for, from you, I learned valuable life lessons about professionalism.
On the Journey
Many times on my journey to learn how to follow GOD’S guidance, I have stopped and wondered about whether I was doing the right thing or making wrong choices that would take me in the opposite, negative direction. Was I reading the signposts correctly? Was I applying the spiritual principles correctly? Was I effectively maintaining my spiritual awareness through spiritual exercises? Was I being adequately detached from situations I had become attached to? Was I maintaining proper and enough objectivity? Was I doing this and that…Questions upon questions, going on forever.
At times I made choices based on inner guidance, which sometimes came through dreams. How good my understanding of the guidance was dependent on how well I interpreted the dream. Often I was wrong because I tended to apply the principles from a logical standpoint. The dream world is a different world, whose images and experiences are open to a variety of interpretations and don’t easily conform to logic. In the physical, fire is fire; in the dream world, it could mean different things to different people. The journey into the mystery of life is endless and can be complex, therefore takes great care to correctly fathom it at different levels, both deep and superficial.
GIVING UP LIFE OF ATTACHMENT
When we give up something from within and it does not come back to us, chances are that we didn’t need it. So, no regrets, no loss; if anything we have gained for that may have been an obstacle to our spiritual progress.
Learning detachment makes it easier to learn how to live with God, in God, for God, and by God’s laws. On face value, it seems contradictory; but when we plumb the depths of it, we realize what it truly is in spiritual sense. Spirituality forms an integral part of our lives irrespective of one’s religion to the extent that we all have a spiritual side. To understand it, to know it, and to live it is to live in a state of mental poverty of material desires and mental possessions. These mental possessions exist and persist because we have allowed them through our own notion of security, false sense of need for them for our survival. Yet true spiritual survival does not depend on anything in the outer world. Things of the outer world hold us in bondange through undue attachment. Unfortunately, we tend to define ourselves by identification with our material possessions. This creates fear because our dependency is on things of impermanent value. This fear influences