What Makes This Work So Hard?

 

 

So many people are on the spiritual path, with so many paths that people may choose from. In fact there is an old Buddhist saying “that there are as many paths to God as there are people on in this world we live in” and The Teachings tell us that each and every soul will make it back home eventually. So why isn’t everyone doing the Work? And, why is The Work so daunting?

The Work, or the Great Work, as it has traditionally been called, is the work we pursue at the School of Inner Wisdom. It is pursued by many thousands of people throughout the world and cloaked under many names and organizations that teach many variations of its teachings. Not everyone who is on the Spiritual Path is pursuing The Work and not everyone who is, understands what it is, nor what they are in for when they step into it. The result is that many fall away from The Work, some fully aware they are stepping away, others triggered by a revolt from the personality which succeeds in triggering the hidden fears stored within the subconscious that cause us to stay shackled to the personality.

 

The average spiritual aspirant is unaware that this resistance, this fear, is the soul putting pressure on the personality to reveal the next level of work to transmute. Instead of recognizing the pressure as a communication from God internally through our soul that we are out of balance, or that the fears (thoughts and feelings) being triggered are a direct result of a request we have made of the higher realms showing us what needs to be changed in order to receive that which we have requested, or as a necessary event in a string of events being orchestrated for our highest good, we instead interpret these events as “bad luck”, “I am not deserving” or some equally negative reaction.

 

We study, we read, we take classes, join spiritual organizations, but as soon as our stuff comes up, we interpret it as it doesn’t work. Or worse, we transfer our fears onto those who are in our sphere of influence and blame others. I have an expression that many of my students know, a tool, so to speak, that is a visual reminder to stop and examine why you are experiencing what you are experiencing. I tell them to take their hand and place it into the position of a stop sign out in front of them and then turn it to face them directly. I call this, the Hand of God. You see, it doesn’t matter what path you are on, the underpinning of all work is that life is happening to you because you are creating it, not directly, of course you do not choose to consciously make bad things happen in your life, but the psyche is filled with subconscious patterns created throughout your life, or lifetimes if you believe in past lives,and it stores many insidious patterns that trigger unconscious responses in us and attract events into our lives without our being aware. And, if we do not comprehend this, then we will continue to attract the same “bad luck” into our lives. We must comprehend that we and the world we live in are the product of the laws God has created, not God, and that until we start the process of self-examination and relentlessly pursue the elimination of faulty beliefs and patterns, these events will continue to occur in our lives.

So many of you who are doing your spiritual work feel abandoned when life delivers a blow your way, you say, “I don’t understand why these things are happening when I am doing so much work” and some of you fall away from these practices that you have taken up not understanding that the very events are a communications from above that something in your life needs adjusting. Daily practices, are designed to surface your patterns so that you may recognize them and transmute them into positive aspects of your personality. So you must embrace whatever surfaces and ask for guidance in determining what is at the root cause of the event, get underneath it and allow your True Self to reveal what needs to be adjusted in your life. Let "The Hand of God” be your constant friend. Next to love and prayer, it is one of the greatest tools you can possess. Your hands are an extension of your heart and your heart is the seat of your soul, so spend some time with the hand in your face, it will provide great self-revelations.

Have a beautiful day!