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Dear Rain,
My questions recently are spiritual questions....after
giving up organized religion for a broader approach, I sometimes find myself
searching for some guidelines. The
churchworld made it so easy...a tidy list of what to do and not to do. I want to be authentic in my search for God.
I see evidence of God when I am doing visualizing or meditating, but sometimes
I don't feel the need and I don't want those things to become stale rituals. When
that isn't happening, I fall into a confused searching for...what? And I don't want to fall in to old
religious patterns or be complacent either. I know spirituality is not about my works it's
just about "being," so why can't I feel at peace just
"being"? Can you help?
Dear Reader,
I love your honest question!
Why can’t I feel at peace just “being?” Since "being" is short for being aware. And when I am in awareness, I am always at peace. I thought I might show you one way to the here and now.
Since I am an inspirational life coach, and not a guru who lives at the top
of a big mountain, I will do my best to share my wisdom and experience. As spiritual practices and beliefs are as
personal as one person to the next, it is important to be clear. This is what I have found in my own
experiences the way to find my own spiritual world and connect to my beingness.
I don’t know anyone who began their spiritual journey and
immediately found the here and now
and subsequently, permanent inner peace. I like to call it a journey for a reason; it helps to remind me this is not about a finish line, it's what I do along the way. My journey has consisted of
many practices of meditation, reading to learn about the many different tools
created from other people’s journeys and trusting and believing in my own
experiences.
It seems as if I have been searching for evidence of God,
since my parents first told me about him.
In the same way a child wants to discover if Santa really exists. I spent years questioning, experimenting,
meditating, praying, and listening. What
I discovered during my journey is similar to what I learned about Santa.
It’s as
real as you believe it is.
This is why no one has exactly the same spiritual experience
and some have none at all. This is why one
person might say they have “spoken with God,” while another share they have “spoken
with an angel,” while still another says they have “spoken with a ghost,” and
yet still another will say, “I heard from source,” or “I heard the voice from
within.” These experiences all seem to
happen while most non-believers never hear anything. If you ask someone who believes in these
messages “How often do they come?” they will assure you the messages are
everywhere, and come every moment, daily, weekly, and monthly. If you ask someone
who does not believe in messages, they will tell you they see a lot of coincidences,
explainable circumstances or sometimes they don’t even notice them and say hogwash or humbug.
The point I am trying to make is that if you believe in
miracles, you see them everywhere. And if
you believe in God, you will witness Him everywhere. If you believe in the Magical Universe, you will feel
it everywhere. If you believe your
spiritual practices will work, they will.
Do you see why this is paramount?
It means what you do to practice your spiritual work is completely up to you! This means, you don’t have to meditate, you
don’t have to fast, you don’t have to pray.
You actually get to create a spiritual life that makes sense to your
individual spirit. You make the guidelines.
What creates your spiritual experiences when you feel peaceful? When you have a spiritual experience, do you
believe it is real? Do you try to quantify
it or reason it away or do you allow yourself to have what you believe is a spiritual
experience? It is so important to
believe in yourself and your own unexplained experiences. They will be different from anyone else and comparing is only helpful in business,
not for your spirit.
It makes sense that you feel God’s presence when you are actively seeking Him. I know when I decide to meditate I feel directly connected to the energy of the universe. Enjoy this part of your practice, it really is the closest thing to magic I know.
What do you do the rest of the time? What about when you are at the office,
driving in traffic, talking with your friends, and buying your groceries? How do you allow yourself to just be and witness the magic? It becomes easy if you practice coming into
your awareness.
My favorite way to find the here and now is to notice my
awareness of each of my senses. For example: I hear
the sound of the heater humming, I feel the cold on my arms, though my feet are
snuggly warm, I see the lights on our holiday tree, I taste the morning in my
mouth and smell the evergreen scent from the tree. Now, allow yourself to notice as many of your
senses at once as you can. The more you
practice, the faster this becomes.
Welcome
to the here and now.
Were you able to think?
Probably not, there is so much going on in each and every moment there is no time to think! This is why our left brain compartmentalizes these senses away. It is a lot for a baby to take. The left brain turns all the here and now movement into pieces and parts so that there is time to make decisions and think. This is very important, however it is not all important. It really does take practice for most of us
to be in our senses and so you may want to remind yourself to
practice!
Make it easy on yourself by putting up notices where you
will see them often and schedule in meditation or silent prayer daily. Do it only when it feels effortless and make it as short as you need it to be. The more you do this, the better you will get
at it and the more it will become part of your life. They will only become stale rituals, if you
practice because of have-tos and shoulds and do it longer than you want to.
Allow yourself to believe in your own connectedness and continue to
practice when you remember to and when you are inspired.
Searching for God is also asking for God to show you a
miracle when you want it. The only
reason you can’t feel him is because you are looking for him, not the
miracle. I believe it is the energy movement creating miracles, not specifically God, Source or the Universe. Because
you are not in the here and now, you struggle to witness the movement of miracles
that are happening in every single moment.
Take some time today and create your guidelines. What do you LOVE to do to feel connected? What could you learn from others? What resonates with you?
Those times when you don’t feel God’s presence, and you feel you are falling or don't have peace, just stop, take a deep breath and practice one minute of awareness. It is always waiting effortlessly for you.
By the way, I discovered Santa is real, as well. I know this not because I have seen him, or where he lives, or any flying reindeer. I know this because I see the giving miracles happen all around this time of year. Every moment I am in awareness in December, I can witness Santa’s miracles all around me.
And for that, I am so grateful!
Happy holidays and keep believing!
smiles and inspiration!
Rain
You can find out more about Rain and life coaching at her website:
Copyright 2008 by Rain Fordyce