up with a solution, and this is the very reason why I have felt so compelled to write this book. There is a solution. It sits there right in front of you.
The last seven chapters of this book provide you with a series of easy-to-apply solutions to this puzzle. For now, however, let’s take a brief look at the word solution as it applies in the title of this book.
What I Mean by Solution
I once sat in on a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in which ten people who had been drinking most of their lives were gathered in a rehabilitation center where they had to live away from their families and loved ones. The words of a sign on the wall kept gnawing at me throughout that meeting. It read, “Your best thinking got you here.” I thought how true that is and how it applies to all the circumstances of our lives. Our best thinking got us here.
Our best thinking is exactly where all our so-called problems exist. If we couldn’t think about them, they would not exist. We can change our very best thinking and begin to see the error of that thinking. What we need is a change in thinking to realize that a connection to the divine good, or spirit, or God, is what heals or eradicates our problems.
The power that we call God, which grows the flowers and moves the planets in perfect orbits, counts us as one of its creations. I encourage you to learn to rely on that power in times of crisis.
Correcting Errors
In mathematics when you add two plus two you will always come up with four. This little addition example of two plus two equals four is said to have substance because it is true. Now if you state that two plus two equals seven, you have an error, and two plus two equals seven no longer is said to have substance or reliability. Try balancing your checkbook using two plus two equals seven. So how do we end that error? Very simple, we correct it, and it goes away. That is, we bring truth to the presence of the error, and the error disappears.
You cannot send problems out of your life by attacking them or understanding them in more depth. Instead, you correct the error in your thinking that produces the problem in the first place. Once you bring a correction to the problem it no longer has any substance or validity, and it disappears completely from your life.
The solution, stated generally here and more specifically later in this book, is to bring a spiritual essence to the “problem” of disease, disharmony, or discord. Then the error or the illusion will vanish. Problems represent a deficit of spirit in some sense. The error is corrected permanently when you apply the seven components of spirituality. The error is that these problems, which we are experiencing in our minds, in reality do not exist.
Correcting these errors is tantamount to dissolving our fears. And when you turn and look directly at your fears, what you face dissolves in the light of consciousness. It is in this context that we have within us the ability to eliminate those illusions that we call problems. We correct these errors with the creation of a new spiritual delivery system. This is the key to understanding the healing of the body as well as our relationships.
This is the basic introduction to this somewhat radical idea of having a spiritual solution available for every single problem. I’ve always loved Shakespeare’s line, “Go to your bosom; knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.” The heart symbolizes the part of us that does not rely exclusively on thoughts. Thinking is the source of problems. When I ask an audience to point to themselves, ninety-nine percent will point directly to their hearts, not their heads. Your heart holds the answer to resolving any and all problems in your life.
I close this chapter with an invitation written in the thirteenth century by the Sufi poet Rumi:
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, Lover of leaving—it doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows A hundred times, a thousand times. Come, come again, come.
You are welcome on this caravan leading you out of the world of illusion which you will love leaving, and into a place where spiritual solutions await you in every encounter, in every moment of your life.
The average man who does not know what to do with this life, wants another one which shall last forever.
—ANATOLE FRANCE
WE ARE CAPABLE OF REACHING A STATE
OF AWARENESS IN WHICH WE CAN PERFORM MIRACLES
As I mentioned in chapter one, in preparation for writing this book I became blissfully involved in the teachings of a saint called Patanjali, who reportedly lived here on earth several thousand years ago. No source that I have reviewed has been able to precisely identify who Patanjali was, if he was indeed more than one person, and even when he lived. Like Shakespeare, or Jesus, and many other major figures, Patanjali’s ideas and teachings have retained their influence, in spite of the lack of details we have about his existence.
In the previous chapter I refer to his translated works How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. There are very few books which have caused me to feel the sense of excited anticipation I felt while reading The Yoga Aphorisms. Patanjali teaches that we are capable of reaching a state of awareness in which we can perform miracles. He explains that we are transcendent beings to begin with and counsels us to be unafraid of transcending the limitations imposed upon us by the material world.
Patanjali’s words caused me to truly think of myself as capable of living at a much higher level than I had ever considered before. He presents ideas that are life changing. I felt urged to go beyond traditional ideas that acted as obstacles to my union with God. I urge you to suspend disbelief as you read this chapter. I am fully aware that some of this material may clash dramatically with your inherited religious teachings.
The title of this book makes a powerful claim: that there is a spiritual solution to every problem you will ever face. In order to apply this idea you need to be aware of these so-called “radical” ideas, because they can open you to your ability to implement spiritual solutions to your problems. It may help if you keep in mind that there is a distinction between spiritual development and formal religious teachings.
Patanjali offered hundreds of specific suggestions and practices to reach the oneness or union with God, which he called yoga. Some of Patanjali’s aphorisms will undoubtedly sound far too removed from our twenty-first-century life to apply to the problems we have in today’s world. I have selected five of the aphorisms that helped me recognize that spiritual solutions are only a thought or two away. I introduce each of them along with my commentary on their value to spiritual problem solving in the world we presently live in.
In our materially oriented world we are often confronted with problems that seem insoluble. A shift in thinking is required in order to discover that we have something at our disposal that we can put into practice. We need to see ourselves as containing a force that can be called upon for spiritual solutions. We don’t have to consult an expert in theology, or thumb through ancient manuscripts to find our answers. We need to realize that spiritual solutions are readily accessible.
A while back during an intermission of a half-day seminar that I was conducting, someone left this note
