From Ego To Light (eBook)

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that our perspectives are very limited when it comes to judging life events and circumstances. We’re so quick to label some things ‘good’ and other things ‘bad,’ but the truth is that, with our limited awareness, we don’t have nearly enough information to do that. The only one who can see the whole picture is God, whose loving presence inspires all true religions at their core. This is why we need to have faith that there is a deep spiritual reason for everything that happens in our lives. In my experience, prayer is a good way to ask for perspective, to ‘freshen our eyes’ with The Source’s loving perspective. The willingness to take a step back from our own limited viewpoint is what opens the door for greater awareness to arise. It’s a cosmic paradox that we must first admit we don’t know everything before we can receive the insights that expand our understanding. When we argue with reality, we only create suffering for ourselves and others. This doesn’t mean that we go through life passively accepting every circumstance and injustice as out of our control. Rather, it means making a commitment to respond to events from awareness, rather than reacting based on old patterns of trauma and unconsciousness. This can seem like a tall order, but I’ve found that it’s the key to real freedom. If we want to be free, we must accept that our perspective is limited. When we let go of being right, we give ourselves the space to integrate the lessons that life brings us.

There’s a woman named Byron Katie who developed a powerful process that she calls the Work to help people recognize what’s really true for them underneath the false concepts that we all carry. Through the Work, people who are committed to becoming free are able to see that these misconceptions are the true cause of their suffering, not their life circumstances. Once this truth is seen, the lie can no longer survive, and the person experiences a profound sense of peace with what is. Katie, as she is called, wrote a book called Loving What Is that contains numerous transcripts of people finding freedom through the Work. There’s one line in that book that hasn’t left my awareness since I first read it: “‘God is everything, God is great.’ People who really understand that don’t need the Work.” Katie uses the words ‘reality’ and ‘God’ interchangeably. What she’s saying is that, at the most profound level, whatever is, is always what should be, and only when you really understand that will you be free.

There’s a parable that coaches often use to help clients understand these points, that is sometimes called The Parable of the Old Farmer; it appears in a variety of forms on the internet. I like the following version because it goes into more narrative detail, which I think helps the story stick in the reader’s mind. I invite you to consider how the wisdom of this parable might apply to your own life.

Of course, this is a parable carefully constructed to convey a point, but how many of us can find similar examples in our own lives? Raymond heard one such story from one of his clients; let’s call him Bill. Bill had worked for 35 years at Ford Motor Company, and felt he was living the American dream. Like so many men of his generation, he had poured so much of his life into his work that it had come to define him; it was almost like a part of him had become Ford Motor Company. So when the company abruptly announced that Bill’s entire department had been cut and he was now out of a job, for Bill it was like being told that a loved one had suddenly died. He called his wife in shock, unable to make sense of his life without his job. In an effort to shake him out of his despondency, Bill’s wife suggested that he take his granddaughter to her swim lesson as a way to take his mind off the day’s events. Bill took his wife’s suggestion, but found himself wallowing in a pool of self-pity far deeper than the one his granddaughter was swimming in – how could he go on living without the job that had defined his life for so long? Then the moment came that changed everything: without meaning to, Bill’s eyes came to rest on an empty corner of the pool. Suddenly everything snapped into focus, as he realized that he seemed to be the only one who’d noticed a child lying at the bottom of the pool. Without hesitation, Bill dove into the pool and brought the boy up, and the lifeguards were able to resuscitate him.

When Bill related this story to his wife later, her response gave him a renewed sense of purpose. She said, “All these years I thought you were working for Ford Motor Company, but it seems that God just put you on the shelf for 35 years until He needed you.” This made Bill realize that even things that seem like catastrophes happen for a reason, whether we understand it or not. Such events may even be the means by which we gain access to our true purpose in life, just as Bill’s job loss allowed him to be there to save the child. The point is, we need to let go of the idea that we know everything, and realize that there is a grand purpose to our lives of which we may not be aware.

Bill was fortunate to get a glimpse of God’s plan on the same day that his former identity was shattered by his job loss. For many of us, however, our faith is tested again and again before we’re able to put enough pieces together to begin to see the bigger picture. Sometimes traumatic events like this cause us to begin to question the path we are on, and re-evaluate how we can best align it with our greater good. This is where we must simply decide to choose love over fear, over and over again. I think that’s a good non-religious definition of faith: the decision to always choose love over fear, regardless of the circumstances that life presents us with. The Law of Attraction tells us that when we have faith in ourselves and the world, the idea of a benevolent and meaningful Universe will gain momentum in our field of attraction, until eventually it becomes our reality. The Law of Attraction never fails, but we have to be prepared for the possibility that our physical reality may take a while to catch up. When we live with that kind of patience and faith, we open...