At-one-ment with the Divine
From birth, we live in a world of perceptions, indoctrination, and belief systems. We conform to the environment and surroundings around us, particularly our families, our communities, our culture and our nation. We react to the circumstances in our lives based on these perceptions and indoctrination, but the time comes when we ask ourselves – Is this what I really believe in? Is this my truth or have I been living someone else’s truth?
So, what is my truth? How do we find ourselves? Books and teachers are helpful, but nobody can tell you what your own inner truth is. How do we go about searching for our truth? Truth can never be apprehended by or through the intellect. It cannot be gained simply by reading books or listening to umpteen lectures. Truth transcends the intellect. It can only be achieved by the recognition of the soul lessons attained on our journey of discovery.
Life is a tremendous journey, the most important journey that our Soul has ever undertaken. From our origins, from the breath of the Divine to the continuous experiences of each lifetime, we travel along at times full of energy and at other times we may be weary and downtrodden. Nevertheless, the experience of the journey is what ultimately teaches the soul the eventual truth about itself. Our experiences are all the time unfolding and developing the qualities of the soul. These qualities, like two sides of the coin, have the positive and also its shadow. Only by embracing both can we ultimately understand the Oneness of ourselves and our Oneness with all life.
Remembering our Origin
Searching for our own inner truth exacts all kinds of emotional and mental conflicts. These conflicts are the tools that our shadow uses to turn us away from the path, to give up on our journey. The shadow uses these conflicts to undermine our confidence; it thrives on our fears and insecurities and makes us forget what the journey is about. We have forgotten that the divine essence, the life, the Light from the Creator is within us. We have forgotten that we came from the Oneness of the spirit in order to experience that spirit through our soul consciousness. This is our only reality, all else is an illusion that the shadow has created for us. The shadow of course is not the enemy – it is the teacher, the coach, the instructor on life’s journey. And the wonder of it all is that we, and only we, can discover this truth for ourselves when we raise our own consciousness to the Light within.
The experiences encountered on this journey (the Path of Recognition) to discover who we really are enables us to reach a stage of understanding when we know that we are coming from our own inner truth – our truth – not somebody else’s truth, but our truth. In this journey we start off by understanding that we are a personality, a soul, (consciousness) and a spirit (the divine essence within each one of us). Our personality is made up of the mental, the emotional and the physical bodies. Throughout our journey, over many lifetimes, our experiences are registered in the memory of our consciousness. Each lifetime gives our consciousness an opportunity to learn and grow in understanding of ourselves. Although, at a consciousness level, we know who we are, it takes time for us to recognise this and eventually we realise that the Personality is there to serve us and allow us to grow.
Knowing our truth is knowing that we are spirit, soul, personality, or in other words, essence, consciousness, and matter.
We speak from our truth when we can identify the differences between belief systems that we have been influenced by since childhood and the authenticity of our own beliefs based on our own discovery. These served us for a while as it gave us a sense of identity. Our truth, our real identity has been kept veiled. Knowing who we are will free us to be more genuine and authentic in our lives.
It isn’t easy to understand and let go of so much that we have believed in for years and yet no longer serve us. The most important thing is that we know our own truth yet remain open to other views and belief systems.
Our Truth comes from an inner knowing, a recognition, of who we are and what we are. The Personality (matter) is there to serve us to unfold and develop our innate nature. There will come a time when we will be able to integrate our triple vehicle (physical, emotional and mental) so that we are of one mind, feeling and action. Our physical body manifests the desires and thoughts of our emotional and mental bodies.
The very essence of life, which is within us all, will eventually manifest in matter, spiritualising matter and when that happens, we will be able to walk the earth as spiritual human beings. Freedom of the spirit is about being who we really are – a true living seed of the Creator manifesting on earth to bring spirituality into and spiritualising matter.
We are all truly on a tremendous journey, it is both exciting and frightening, but we have within us the tools necessary to ensure that we will overcome and we will get there. We are all on this journey together, so let’s give each other a helping hand when the opportunity comes.
The fundamental purpose of our existence on Earth is to ‘find’ or ‘remember’ who we are. When this happens, the soul is ready to move onto a space of being which is unaffected by the earth/personality demands and changes. We can truly then move forward to receive the energies and vibration of a higher consciousness.
At this level, we are in a state of new creation as a spiritual and human being, a holistic recognition of our oneness. From this space, we can go forward to create and experience new consciousness and a new perspective on life that we have not known before. We cannot understand where we are going because this ‘new’ experience is exactly what it is ‘new’. We have not been there before, so the opportunity is with us to create our future and heal ourselves from past holds and indoctrination. We are one, whole and complete in Light.
Believe in the Light within, believe in yourself – that is our only TRUTH.
Article by Astra Ferro
Author and Spiritual teacher.
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