Be wild and wondrous on your spiritual path…
Seven Questions for the New Year – Part 4
From Caroline’s 2012 Salon
Question Six: What changes are unfolding in your life that you need to cooperate with and what does that mean?
Again, this is a very personal question for you to reflect upon. If you say that nothing is changing in your life, then you are not evaluating your life clearly or deeply enough as change is always unfolding. We are always moving through cycles of death and rebirth, crucifixions and resurrections, endings and wondrous new beginnings. From the release of plans and paths you were meant to look down but never to walk, to arriving at the beginning of an enchanting idea that has your name written all over it, your life continues each day to present you with variations of all of these archetypal themes.
Each one in our group presented three examples of changes presently unfolding in his or her life. Then we did a type of micro-analysis of observing how we could tie every choice we made and every thought and feeling to these changes. That is, every inner psychic movement we made, whether intellectual or emotional or in the silence of prayer, was breathing itself into all the many changes happening in our lives. We can’t escape our “one-ness.” Therefore, what quality or attitude do you want to breathe into the changes unfolding in your life?
Realizations such as these, along with such thought-provoking questions, are the reasons why contemplation is seen as an essential practice within spiritual communities. The more aware you become of all your “inner activity,” the more attention you must pay to the quality of your inner activity – which leads us to our last question:
Question Seven: In what way or ways do you want to deepen your spiritual life?
Here, again, you are left to yourself to answer this question. But I will leave you with this insight: A spiritual life is not – repeat not – a mental, intellectual experience. It is a prayerful, contemplative, mystical, reflective journey that, in fact, draws you out of your mental world. Your mind is the last place you want to be as you contemplate the nature of what is real in your life and what is of value. What good is your mind when it comes to those questions? You’ve programmed your mind to tell you what you want it to tell you. Your mind is filled with the values you put inside of it. What can your mind possibility understand about the mystical realm? Nothing –
So be wild and wondrous on your spiritual path. Fall in love with silence and stop fearing it. Stop looking for the distractions of sound and business and phone calls and computers. Stop trying so desperately to stay “connected” – get “disconnected” and if you can endure the ego-shattering transition into being “de-Internetted,” return to silence and quiet.
Then ask yourself, “What is of value to me? Do I really pray? Am I comfortable in my spiritual skin? What do I know about God?”
That should work …
Have a blessed beginning to this new year.
Love,
Caroline
