SPIRITUAL LIGHT: ILLUMINATING OUR REALITY

These are some of my favorite passages in “Spiritual Reality: Transforming the Ordinary into the Extraordinary” by Lydia A. Mitchell, Ph.D.

 

Unconditional love is usually associated with spirit. We are generally considered too weak or are considered to be sinners, and so we are not capable of unconditional love. Maybe it is the definition, and not us?

We hear about unconditional love in many different forms.

— It is something that parents are expected to have for their children.

— Sometimes it can be used to inspire guilt by others or in ourselves.

— Sometimes it can be used to make us do something that we do not want to do, or we do not think it is appropriate for us.

— It can also be a goal that we wish to attain.

Few people will admit to having unconditional love. It does mean different things to different people. For me, unconditional love is being able to see others and accept who they are, without wanting to change them and without judgment. It is honoring the choices they have made in their lives and for their souls’ purpose. We cannot know why they are doing and choosing what they have. It involves letting them make the choices in their lives without judgment.

Helping those you love unconditionally without judgment or feeling sorry for them gives them the freedom to carry out their paths knowing they are loved. You are honoring and empowering them.

There is a saying that you become what you judge. A personal experience with regard to this brought the saying home to me in a loud and clear way. It happened when I was a postdoctoral student in Scripps Research Clinic in California. I had a running partner, and we would run in Torrey Pines along the cliffs paths at lunchtime. He had diabetes and had to inject himself every day. Occasionally we would have lunch after the run, and he would get a hot dog. At this point in my life, I was training for a triathlon and was food conscious. I was horrified that he would eat hot dogs with his medical condition. I was judging his food choices. However, I noticed that I started to crave hot dogs—and I started eating them. I could not understand why until I connected the judgment I had of him and his food choices. To this day, I still have a weakness for hot dogs. So be careful what you judge, because you may end up being just that!

When you help others while judging them, you are loving them conditionally. The condition is that they would be better with your view of how they should be. You are fulfilling your own beliefs and needs. You cannot know what another soul needs to learn and grow. You can simply love them as they are and help them when they indicate that they want the assistance.

Spirit has given us this unconditional love. The greatest gift we have is freedom. We are free to do as we choose. God has let us face the consequences of our choices. We in turn grow and experience life to its fullest. True, we are likely missing some of the information that connects us to spirit, however that will come with our growth and development.

— When we look at the significance of spirit in the physical world, it is a different story. We have enough to be happy and grow. Let me explain. When you see the physical world through a spiritual light, you illuminate many more possibilities of feeling complete without the need for more and more physical toys. You start to see that you have what you need to develop and grow. If you feel incomplete, you can ask for assistance. The assistance can come from a physical as well as spiritual connection of all the things around you. It expands your horizons to see a depth in the world. This depth is not evident in a purely physical interpretation of the world.

You become clearer in what it is you need. When you look around you from a spiritual aspect, it becomes obvious that you have exactly what you need. You can want something else. When you come from a spiritual reality perspective, it is a want that brings pleasure to a being that is coming from completion, rather than from lack. You can develop and grow with what you have in your life as is, or you can have more physical things. You can also expand in a spiritual and material way, coming from your connection with spirit and all that is.

From a spiritual perspective, you have faith that you will get what you need in the physical world when it is appropriate. This faith carries you through times that may appear to be problematic. Take the example of an event not happening. This is a thwarted expectation. Thwarted expectations are usually the biggest upset for people. My experience has consistently been that if I have a thwarted expectation of an event not taking place, it is for the best in the long run.

I had a holiday in Wales that I loved. Traveling by rented car was challenging due to dealing with the traffic, road signs, narrow roads, and roundabouts. I did not have a GPS at the time. My idea of being a tourist is to walk in a park or on the beach and see a few castles and sights.

I decided to branch out and go to Big Pit, an old coal mine. The trip was a disaster. There was hours of congested traffic. Bear in mind that I lived in the quiet Patagonia area of Chile, and I was not used to a lot of traffic. In the end, I was too late to see the Big Pit; I had to drive back with my goal unmet and much frustration.

Then on the way back, I simply let go. I stopped at a lovely, quiet lake with only a few people and pets enjoying the scenery. I realized that I would not make another trip like that on my holiday. I had learned where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with my time. The hours of frustration and traffic became a constructive learning experience for my holiday. No experience need ever be wasted.

There is always something you can learn about yourself and what you are choosing. Life is a blessing when looked at in this light. Everything and every experience is of value. If you do not like what is happening, transform it into something that you do like. Also, give time and space a chance to transform the situation.

Think about your own life. I am sure you will find many cases where missing out on something resulted in the final analysis to be for the best. This is something you need to remind yourself of when you are upset over thwarted expectations. You never know for sure the real outcome till time has passed. Keeping in mind that what happens to you is for the best and highest in spiritual terms helps bring perspective to missed opportunities.

— When you come from a viewpoint that all is as it should be, the scenery in your life looks different. It is clearer, relaxed, and more appreciative of what you have. You can see where you want to go. You can appreciate what you have and learn from others. This is a form of declaration. You declare that all is as it should be. As the creator of your life, you are the only one who can declare it so.

With this declaration, you can more forward to observe, enjoy, and learn from your life on a different level.

You can be grateful for coincidences that appear in life and take note of what they are showing you. The coincidences can be as simple as meeting a friend you were thinking about and had not seen for months. Then suddenly, the person is in front of you on a crowded street in the middle of town. It can also be more complex, involving different people and situations. I moved from Australia to San Diego, California. One night I went out with friends and met an old acquaintance from Australia who had recently moved to San Diego. San Diego is a big city a continent away from Australia, and yet we met again and continued our friendship, which had lapsed due to distance and time. The coincidences that can appear in your life are amazing when you start to look for them and appreciate them.

You begin to appreciate that what you need will flow to you, even when you do not directly ask for it. It may be a need that is there, but on a subconscious level. So too with physical objects: they will come to you with time, when you allow it. If a physical object does not manifest, ask yourself whether it is something you really needed. Let go of wanting it and see what happens. Will it come into your sphere, or will you decide that it is something you really did not need now? You still may want that new TV, but on the other hand you can live happily without it. Life is less focused on the physical needs and more on the internal and spiritual needs that bring joy to your life.

This gives you a greater sense of connection rather than isolation, which so much technology fosters. Yes, Facebook connects people, as does the Internet, and they can be wonderful. However, it is a connection devoid of direct human contact and expression. It is hard to look the person in the eyes and see their feelings. There is less likelihood of reading between the lines of a person’s response. When you are face-to-face, it is easier to read the energy emanating from a person.

On the other hand, one could argue that in the future, technology will force us to use our intuition and connection with spirit more, in order to go to the heart of the person on the other end of the computer. We will be forced to go to an even greater spiritual understanding in order to bridge the physical and technological distance.

On Amazon!