You are not born knowing how great an artist or how powerful a healer or how stalwart friend you could be in this lifetime. You are not born knowing how deeply you can love and care for another. You have to learn to act with courage, self confidence and faith. These are potentials you need to discover within yourself. These are spiritual qualities that must be earned.
Like heroes in a mythic journey, we are meant to struggle to make the right choices. Our divine potential calls us to rise above the Self's basic needs for survival in the physical world. We're called to grow beyond our Self, but we can't grow spiritually only by using our intellect. Divine order and logic are different from earthly logic and reason, and cannot always be perceived by our minds.
Questions such as "Why have I been born?" and "How do I know what I'm meant to do?" are in fact spiritual invocations, answered not in words through prayer but through experience. These questions activate your divine potential, energize your archetypes (if you identify with any) and compel you to complete your agreements or Sacred Contracts with other people.
Symbolic vision gives you choice – the choice to see events as arbitrary, antagonistic or as blessings that are part of a plan in which you have some say. Symbolic vision helps you understand the daily questions that arise for you, as well as the spiritual unfolding of your life. To be able to see symbolically, to act appropriately on your intuitions, takes a lot of practice and reflection. When you can symbolically read the content of your life, you can make dramatically better choices.
We all embody the laws of the universe whenever we exercise our power of choice: I make a choice and it has a consequence, regardless of who I am. Yet I can influence the quality of that consequence if I am mindful in my intention. My intentions do not change the universal laws, because all my choices will still have consequences. But if my motivations are compassionate and sincere, the consequences are more likely to be positive. A single action can result in a cascade of physical, emotional and spiritual effects.
Charism or Grace, by some is believed to be a spiritual supplement that is given to us through prayer or rituals, depending on one's beliefs or religion. Others believe that Grace flows from God to us without being requested, flowing to the hearts of children or working as a kind of secret force in the heart of a sinner leading him to repent. I believe that there is a divine form of Grace that provides us with spiritual stamina and direction and flows into us in times of need whether we ask for it or not. How else could we endure all the pain and suffering we as human beings are often exposed to? Especially during childhood if you had no love and support from your parents, or from society because of your sexuality. This divine energy is your Charism, a unique expression of Grace that empowers you. The word Charism comes from a Greek word meaning 'gift'.
At certain times we may experience an Epiphany, also Greek in origin meaning 'to manifest', like a sudden illumination. During an Epiphany one's doubts or fears are transformed into deep trust. You suddenly understand everything in a moment of utter truth. Some people describe their Epiphany experiences as the sudden ending of the inner chaos and lack of direction they felt.
Through a sudden infusion of Charism, your inability to make sense of life's challenges, coupled with the emotional weight of feeling as if you are living without a purpose or direction, is transformed into the knowledge that each moment in your life is divinely ordered. There just seem to be far too many coincidences and sequences of events for it to have all just haphazardly happened.
The passion to want to know the individual nature of your spirit, for instance, is nurtured by your Charism. Your Charism is also the energy through which the uniqueness of your spiritual identity is revealed to others, the equivalent of your own spiritual trademark. As it helps you to know yourself, you then channel it to others, as they can also channel theirs to you. The energy that you intuitively sense in other people around you is the essence of their Charism. Usually strongly felt with a lover. This is how we distinguish whether someone has good or bad intentions towards you or the world at large.
Groups as well as individuals have their own collective Grace by which they identify their unique spiritual purpose. Rituals and ceremonies that are derived from a group's particular focus draw on their Charism for guidance; this can be a simple ritual like getting together with a group of close friends once a week for dinner. These rituals are also a means through which the group can discern whether someone desiring to become a part of that group is appropriate. If a person desires to join this community, his individual Charism needs to be aligned to that of the group. Without that unity the person would not be able to survive the rigors and dynamics of that group. He would not be fed by the special Grace that comes to the group – not because it is denied him but because his spirit requires a form of sustenance that is simply not present in that community Grace.
Some people try to ignore this divine Grace and others are completely unaware of it, in themselves and in others. Failing to acknowledge or recognize your Charism, Vocation or Sacred Contract makes life more difficult and less fulfilling.
Vocations can be many things: They may be calls to do something (become self employed, leave or start a relationship, change careers, have a child) or calls to be something (more creative, less judgmental, more loving) Calls toward whatever we've dared ourselves to do for as long as we can remember…
Unfortunately, we often simply tune out the longings we feel, rather than confront and act on them. Perhaps we do not really forget our calls but we fear what they may demand of us in pursuing them. Anticipating the conniptions of change blocks us from acknowledging that we do know, and have always known what our calls are.
During my life and its many challenges I have learned one of the most spiritually productive truths that I now rely on every day. When you do not seek or need external approval, you are at your most powerful. Nobody can disempower you emotionally or psychologically. This spiritual security gave me a liberated feeling that has practically been a life saver at times. It made me appreciate why the famous words "To thine own self be true" in Shakespeare's Hamlet is considered a spiritual commandment.
Being born gay also teaches you this. You cannot live prolonged periods of time within the polarity of being true to yourself and needing the approval of others. At some point you will realize that you are doing harm to yourself by being what you think you should be so that someone approves of you. Compromising who you are to gain approval of another is a very precise example of giving away a piece of your spirit. Eventually you give away more and more of yourself until you have no strength or sense of Self left.
WooF...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment