Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Death and the Nature of the Soul

Give me, Mother, what is befitting to me. And teach my soul to be content with Your gifts.  And let the desire of my Heart, which is my service to You, be manifested into this world by Your Will, without disruption or interruption. Provide for me that I may be healthy and not suffer any worldly affliction or obstacles as I complete this Work for You, to glorify You. Ease the burdens of my worldly life that I might focus my soul's energies on the pursuit of this spiritual work. In God's grace, allow me never to descend again into the troubles of the world. Lead me and show me in all ways how this Work may glorify You and heal Your children. Amen.

For currently I do not belong to the realm of worldly action, but to the realm of the contemplative, the historian, the researcher, the writer. I do not seek outside myself for your Work, but inside, internally, where I might grow into the task You have set before me. I dedicate my mind to You. I pray for all my worldly desires, obstacles and burdens to be set aside and provided for as long as it takes to complete this Task. I ask for the Word, and the words, to communicate Your message perfectly. I pray for Unity of Will, harmony, wisdom and grace in the creation of this Work to which I set about my soul. This is my soul's purpose and focus. I feel the rightness, the satisfaction in my bones, as every cell in my body consumes Your knowledge, devouring this banquet of Fruit You have laid before Me.

I ask only to be closer to you, to be One with Your light.

I ask only that I am given Time to complete this Work without interruption or distraction.

I ask only that Our timing be perfect; that we arrive neither too early nor too late; that all may lay their eyes upon the Work of the Lord and know the Truth of the message that You have given to the world.

God, please let this Work be enough for the world, and allow me to fulfill the desires of my Heart. Please allow me to give this gift to You in its entirety, for this Work is my sacrifice, created from sacrificial love, that You might be remembered and I, myself, forgotten. Amen.

* * *

I have been pondering today why I was Saved as a child while my brother was not. 

When I was 12 and my mother died, I turned to God and begged forgiveness. I felt so guilty. From that, I received the Holy Spirit and was reborn. I experienced Liberation.

My brother, on the other hand, prayed for God to save my mom's life from cancer. When she died, he denounced God and, I think, blamed Him for not saving her life. So my brother became strongly atheistic, with the thought that, if God did exist, then He was very far away and didn't concern Himself in our lives.

It is a strange dichotomy to ponder. But I think it is a way to illustrate the difference between our hearts, even as children.

It is said in the Bible that only the pure of heart shall see God. It is illustrated in the parable of Job that no matter what suffering life throws at you, not to turn away from the Lord.

Granted, I was atheist at the time, and at 12 years old, I didn't know anything about the Bible. But I knew this: that when my mom died, I did not blame God, but blamed myself for my failure to mend my relationship with my mother before her death. I felt at fault for not praying. What I mean by this is, that when I lost my mother, I realized I was so selfish, the very least of all I could have done was pray for her. Prayer costs us nothing, and I didn't even do that, because of my own pride. I blamed myself for letting my pride get between me and speaking to God.

When I cried out to God to forgive me and save me, it was from the depths of my heart, with the sincerity of a child, because I felt true remorse for what I had done. I didn't even know what I was asking, only that I needed God, because I couldn't burden the loss of my mother alone. And God came to me, preserving my Heart, and creating of it something so much more.

Juxtapose this with my brother, who is only a year older than me. While not believing in God, he asked God to save my mom's life while she was sick. The bargain became: "If You save my mom, then I'll believe in You." The logic was: "If you give me something, then I'll believe in You."

Unfortunately, this is not how spiritual law works. When my mom died, for my brother, it became God's fault. It drove him away from developing faith.

Our spiritual Mother knew this would happen. So why did She let my brother fall away?

First, She understands that Time is an illusion, and that we exist eternally, and so She is patient.

Secondly, Her realm is the Heart. Her realm is Perfect Love. What was the folly of the heart in my brother's reasoning? Why didn't he receive the Holy Spirit? First, that he felt entitled. He was trying to make God bend to his small human will. "God, if you want me to have faith in you, then you have to do this for me!"

Secondly, after creating this one-sided bargain, he blamed God for our mother dying, instead of humbly submitting to God's will. He never brought himself low enough to ask for forgiveness; to ask to be saved; to cry out for help. And so, he enhanced his own suffering by cutting himself off from the divine. This is why pride is a sin.

As I said before, this is very American. We think, "If God gives me what I want, then God exists." Or, "If God gives me presents, then I'll believe in him." Or, "If God makes me rich, then God is real." Or, "If God cures my cancer, then God loves me." And when these things don't happen, we think we are being punished, or that God doesn't exist.

No. 

God exists outside of Time and Her magnanimous presence lives inside of us. She wants us to see Her, but we can't when we are so busy with ourselves. So if, by suffering through cancer, you are faced with your own mortality and you become more selfless, more humble, more appreciative of Life, and you begin to talk to Her, then your heart has grown, and you have progressed in your soul's evolution. This is a good thing. 

She will not change herself or her nature to appease us. We must be the ones to approach Her. A petulant child who is misbehaving may want his Mother to come and scoop him up in Her arms, but then he will only learn to misbehave. So Mother waits until the tantrum has passed to embrace us.

An unripe soul will complain, "Why does God force us to suffer?" God doesn't force us to suffer. This is an imperfect, impermanent world. We choose to suffer because we do not choose to live a life of grace. We choose to suffer because we are so attached to ourselves, to our limited logic, to our stubborn belief that man is the master of the universe, to our crippled comprehension of life. We must let go of everything and submit to the life we've been given. We must become selfless to find freedom.

A lot of people talk about death, or people dying, like it's such a bad thing. But I think of my own death every day. It is the only certainty, the only thing promised to us, since the day we are born. So why are we so afraid of it? I am prepared for it, as much as I can be. This revelation of death is no revelation to me. So why are you afraid? You know this is your soul's inheritance, don't you? Or did you forget? We are meant to walk this path with the soul's fire in our hearts and our hands clasped in God's own. Or did you forget?

What happens to a child if you just give him presents and presents and presents? Gifts and gifts and gifts? The child becomes more and more selfish. And the more selfish we become, the less capable we are of understanding the nature of our Mother. So until the heart is fully ripened and purified, and the temple is ready to receive the spirit, God cannot shower us in gifts upon gifts, because it will corrupt our heart and push us farther away from Her.

Instead, God helps us to become selfless and purifies our soul through the path of humility. We suffer because we forgot that's why we are here. The more you want for yourself, the more God takes away. The less you want for yourself, the more God gives you. But our understanding of richness changes as well. We care less for the world, and more for the heart, and that is where our treasures dwell.

What God saw in my brother's heart was an unripe fruit. Although my brother was still a child, he lacked humility. To spare our mom's life for him only would have encouraged his ego. It would not have taught him to let go and overcome.

I know my brother will come to know God in his life. But I think it will be after my death. This is how our Mother turns all things to good.

To understand God's lessons, you must understand the nature of the heart. God does not work on human terms, nor care about our worldly desires. God is working to perfect your soul. We can work with our Mother, or we can ignore Her, or we can hate Her. But it does not change that God is still at work to perfect Your soul.