3. Infinite Carl Jung reminds us that “The telling question of a person’s life is their relationship to the infinite.” My concept of the infinite includes accepting, without doubt, that life is indestructible. Life can change form but it cannot be destroyed. I believe our spirit is inseparable from the infinite.
This awareness of our infinite nature is terrific for putting everything into perspective. Relying upon the part of ourselves that has always been and always will be alleviates stress in any given situation. “The spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing,” the scriptures advise us. All of these things that we perceive as ourselves are of the flesh. In terms of infinity, they “count for nothing.”
When I unplug myself from the material and replug myself into the spiritual I immediately let go of fear, judgment, and negativity. I know that I must bring the energy of the spiritual socket to my immediate life circumstance. Infinite love is what I receive from that new energy source. It has always been there, but now I recognize this infinite power and see myself as having all my circuits flowing with this one source.
4. Empty Mind My spiritual approach to problem solving involves being quiet and letting go of my ideas about exactly how something should be resolved. In this space I listen and allow myself to have complete faith that I will be guided in the direction of resolution. Call this meditation (or prayer if you like); I feel strongly about the need for meditation to nourish the soul and access divine assistance.
Beyond the actual act of meditation is a willingness to empty my mind of my agenda and be open to what will inevitably come to me. I send a message to my ego, which says, “I am going to trust in the same power that moves the galaxies and creates a baby rather than in my own self-indulgent assessments for how I would like things to be going right now.” I relinquish my thoughts to the power that spirit has to make things work and let go of any agenda that interferes with the perfect expression of God within me.
Completely emptying the mind of our agenda leads to forgiveness, which is a vital component of this practice. Getting to a state of emptiness means ridding ourselves of all blame and angry thoughts about what has transpired in the past. Empty means just that, empty. There is no room for hanging on to who did what and when, and how wrong they were. We let it go simply because it is a component of our agenda, and what we want is God’s plan which works, and to toss out our own, which obviously doesn’t. Thus when we empty our mind of our ego-driven thoughts we invite forgiveness into our hearts, and by letting go of the lower energies of hatred, shame, and revenge we create a mind-set of problem resolution.
5. Generosity and Gratefulness Sometimes I feel the necessity to remind myself that we come into this world with nothing and we will exit the same way. So, finding a spiritual solution to every problem involves doing the only thing I can do with my life. That is, giving it away and being simultaneously grateful for the opportunity to do so. Here is a formula that works for me:
• I get back from the world precisely what I put out to the world. Which is another way of stating the proverb “As you sow, so shall you reap.”
• If “Gimmee! Gimmee! Gimmee!” is my message to the universe then the universe will send the very same message back to me: “Gimmee! Gimmee! Gimmee!” The result is I will never feel peaceful and I will be condemned to a life of trying to fulfill all the demands being made on me.
• If my message to the universe is “What can I give?” or “How may I serve?,” the message I receive from the universe will be “How may I serve you?” or “What can I give you?” Then I experience the magic of sending generous thoughts and energy out wherever I go.
I recommend your spiritual practice involve being generous and grateful with your thoughts. The more you send out thoughts of “How may I serve,” rather than “What’s in it for me?,” the more you will heat back “How may I serve you?”
6. Connectedness The Sufi poet Rumi once explained that the terms I, you, me, he, she, and they are distinctions that cannot be made in the garden of the mystics. In spiritual consciousness you view yourself as a flower in this garden and everyone else in the garden connected to you in an invisible way. Then you will feel the assistance that is available to you.
At the level of spiritual consciousness we know we are connected to everyone. Our concerns and difficulties are something we realize that we share with everyone else. Problems do not affect our body/mind/personality, because we have suspended total identification with our body, our personality, and all of its achievements. Instead we begin to see ourselves as the beloved.
Nurture your sense of connection to everyone and God as well. This allows you to remove your ego from conflicts. Do not see anyone as an enemy, or view anyone as an obstacle to fulfillment. This awareness of being a part of everyone allows you to suspend anger and frustration toward others and see them as partners in the resolution of problems.
Know that there are people to whom you are connected who are available to help you find the right job, to solve a puzzling issue that seems irreconcilable, to help you back on your feet, and to resolve financial difficulties. Everyone becomes a compatriot rather than a competitor. This is spiritual awareness as I practice it.
We are not alone. We are not what we have, what we do, what others think of us. We are divinely connected to God and to all of God’s creations, and consequently each of us has an unlimited inventory of resources available for the purpose of helping us to a state of peace and problem resolution.
Being connected means literally that at any given moment of your life, you can ask that the love that surrounds you and connects you to everyone and everything else please guide you right now. Then you relinquish your negative self-talk images and observe everyone and everything that you see as your loving assistant. It is in these moments that the right person or event will materialize and assist you.
I try to remind myself in moments of despair of the beautiful affirmation from A Course in Miracles: “I can choose peace, rather than this.” It works. Or I use this affirmation often: “I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing that is separate from me.”
7. Cheerfulness In terms of outward appearances there is something noticeable about people who have reached a high level of spiritual awareness. They seem to be in a constant state of bliss. In my own life I know that my state of cheerfulness is a reliable gauge of my level of spiritual enlightenment at that moment. The more cheerful, happy, contented, and satisfied I am feeling, the more aware I am of my deep connection to spirit.
Ask yourself this key question, “How do I feel most of the time?” If your answer is that you feel anxious, anguished, hurt, depressed, frustrated, and so on, then you have a spiritual disconnect. This could mean you have allowed your personal energy field to become contaminated by the debilitating forces of those in your immediate life space. (You will read more about this, and how to keep your energy field uncontaminated, in chapter five.)
When you are spiritually connected you are not looking for occasions to be offended and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.
I often ask myself, “How am I truly feeling inside myself these days?” If my answer is “Not so hot” or “Upset,” I meditate and go to the quiet place where I can plug my cord into the spiritual outlet. The state of cheerfulness returns quickly. Every teacher who has been truly significant in my life has demonstrated this wondrous quality of being able to laugh, to take life lightly, to be silly and giddy.
Use this measure to test your own level of spiritual awareness, and if you are not of good cheer remind yourself that you will never be fully satisfied but in God. I love Erich Fromm’s insight, “Man is the only animal that can be bored, who can be discontented, that can feel evicted from Paradise.” Only you can evict yourself from the garden of paradise.
These then are the seven ways I define spiritual: Surrender, Love, Infinite, Empty, Generous, Connectedness,