Woke up this morning feeling really down. I have no idea why this is. I felt the separation which comes with loneliness. A closeness to something that was there yesterday was not there this morning. Even looking out of my window at the changing colours of the leaves could not shake a distance that I felt but find it hard to explain. It felt like a certain energy had left me. I felt like something vital was missing....but what.
Yesterday when I returned from the hospital I felt a strong need to do some activitiy to serve in some way. I called the organisation that I am going to do some voluntary work and explained that I was supposed to start my voluntary work next Saturday but if they needed some help that I could be available tomorrow. They were delighted and we agreed that I would work for 31/2 hours today. I felt good when I did this yesterday. One fundamental quality on this path is integrity - doing what you say you will do. Without integrity nothing works. Spiritual development and expansion certainly does not work without integrity. I had promised that on Saturday 1 September I would do something to serve people, which was the workshop.
A combination of a lack of integrity on my part plus building work at the centre meant that this wasn't now going to happen. However, to the Universe this is still what it expects to happen. Keeping one's word and having integrity is important for building the Soul's confidence that the ego personality is sincere in this path. Who I am is my word, my integrity, without my word I am nothing. Everytime I keep my integrity and honour my word my Soul grows in confidence and its energetic touch on the ego personality becomes stronger. Until a point is reached where the ego has complete control of the personality and can align with the Soul. Without integrity none of this is possible.
My integrity had to be maintained. To do this I had to find a way to serve. To have given some money to a homeless person and visited a friend in hospital was not going to be enough. So it is that I will spend over 3 hours calling people and speaking to them about the magic and mystery of transformation. In this way I will be keeping my integrity by serving powerfully.
At the beginning practicing keeping one's integrity is not easy. It requires much discipline. What I have found is that when I keep my word that life is simpler and much less complicated. I put something in my diary and that's it. This is a struggle at the beginning particularly for the ego personality. But what you will find is that after a while it seems to be just what happens. Now I find that if I say I'm going to be somewhere at a certain time then things happen and I arrive at that time even if it can seem like I am going to be late. It is like once I commit to something that the universe does everything in its power to ensure it happens. It will only do this though if the person has demonstrated integrity many times before. If you break your word many times and don't have integrity then the next time you want to keep your word the universe thinks 'Oh yes, we've been here before and kind of opt out' which means you have to work harder by yourself. But keep your word a few times and confidence is built and help is given to ensure that integrity is maintained.
This is how it appears to me from my experience. I am aware that what I write can sound and read bizarre. Firstly to give life to what everyone probably thinks of as an inanimate object the universe. To me the universe is far from inannimate. It is the playground of the Divine. It is living and breathing and if you have the courage to be thought of as silly by others and play around with this idea amazing things open up. For me the spiritual journey is like playing in a playground. Hear, read something, play around with it. If it doesn't work, or doesn't resonate then playfully let go and play with something else. It doesn't matter what it is, all will reveal that which is hidden if played with sincerely.
As I write this I am reminded of a sentence which appears in the first Conversations with God books. Let me have integrity and find the sentence I am referring to in the book....hm..it doesn't quite express what I thought it would but here it is 'Remember, you have asked for this explanation, you've waited for it for years. You've asked for it in layman's terms, not theological doctrines or scientific theories'. This spoke to me when I read it and seemed to suggest that asking with sincerity and humility from the rawness of the personal is the softening point into transcendent knowledge'.
I know that when I first turned towards the spiritual path I had no idea what it was I was doing. I knew that there was a pull to 'something' and then I read things and played with ideas in a light hearted way. But deep down I was deadly serious about my quest for Truth. The reality behind the illusion that I sensed but couldn't penetrate. This playing with ideas was not at a mind or mental level but involved taking them on with a kind of childlike delight to see what if anything would happen. It was important not to have any attachment either which is difficult. It is like planting a seed and then resisting the urge to go to it every day to see if it had flowered. You play with ideas without having any end result attached to them if this makes any sense.
The darkness and separation I woke up with has stayed with me. It seems paradoxical that I can write the above paragraph with the turbulence which is within me as I write. Is it that the Soul which knows nothing of outside events is upset that this workshop on really what is it's journey - The Royal Road to Enlightenment' is not going to happen. Or is it all just my imagination, the product of becoming too engrossed in this blog and of following this as a spiritual path too closely. Feelings don't lie though and hidden in the feeling is the truth. Strange as it might seem I can't help feeling that what I am experiencing is the feeling of a Soul disappointed that it's not going to have its day.
In that way going to serve later is exactly what is needed. When we forget about ourselves in service to others that is when we are most happiest. When our lives are only about me and my problems and what I did and didn't do the level of contentment that is possible is limited. I will throw myself into serving others and hopefully the Soul will feel in some small way compensated for being let down for the workshop....At least that's the plan....let's see how it pans out when I write again later.....
