Remain independent. Remain centered in self, pondering always who you are, why you are there, seeking always your singular path of heart. You are as individual as the next person and although you may pair up with another and travel together through life remain always a solitary being. For those granted a solitary life of aloneness, take you solitariness as a gift and use it to your advantage. Find your freedom and your uniqueness in where you are. For those entwined with another your charge is twofold, to remain entwined and yet to also disentangle yourself and be the solitary self on an individual journey. Both paths, that of the solitary being and that of the entwined ones, present unique problems to contend with.
Take your challenges as your greatest tools of learning, your teachers par excellence! Accept the path you are now on, keeping always in mind that thoughts keep you stuck and are meant to be challenged. Be fully open to the unfolding of your personal path. Remember that paths cross, split, and converge endlessly, and thus life offers constant change. Be the best student of the life you are now in and remain open to the changes that meet you as you take your journey so that you may always flow with the changes in your life. This is how to evolve and be open to what comes to change you and your life path.
Each morning when you wake up resume your journey upon your path of heart. Without resentment, regret, or fear of failure reestablish your intentions, restate your dreams, and reconfirm your commitment to grow, change, and evolve as a human being on a spiritual journey. Allow intuition and innocence to accompany you, the two “I”s that will bring the “I” of your wholeness into alignment. To say “I am” is to declare that one is on a path of knowledge. Let this path of knowledge be refreshed each morning. Give it your fullest attention and then get up and go about your day, letting life itself guide you and show you where to go next. Knowledge will be revealed every step you take upon your intended path. A path of heart will naturally lead you to fulfillment of “I am” and to greater knowledge, if you let it.
Find what you need in your own wholeness. You are enough. Part of you would like to point to the outside world and say that all of your problems are because of it, but there is another part of you that knows this is not true. This other part knows that you contain the whole world within you and that this inner world is the true one. Within lie all your comforts and discomforts, your fears and your calmness, your likes and dislikes, your trust and your security. Gift yourself of this wholeness, the structures of the self that are just waiting to wrap you up and receive you.
Take time today to connect with this world of you, unique and beautiful; like the heavens and the earth perfectly matched, like the moon and the stars perfectly aligned, like the sun and the waters perfectly reflective of who you truly are. Give yourself the gift of you today, and thoroughly enjoy and explore this most unique self. Be open to receive, even as you wish to give, allowing the self to be both giver and receiver.
Almost every morning, as Jan channels the Soulbyte for the day, I go off and open a book at random to let the divine deliver its message to me.
The other day, I opened Autobiography of a Yogi to an interaction between Yogananda and his master Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda had just experienced a great physical healing, which he thanked his master for. Sri Yukteswar craftily worded his response to suggest that the healing was actually effected by a change in Yogananda’s own thought process. Yogananda anxiously sought to disavow this power and the next day awoke completely unable to physically get out of bed, restored to the comfort of the familiarity of his old weakness. Sri Yukteswar then instructed: “The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God…whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.”
Can we take ownership of that Divine Spark, that God within us all? Can we wisely direct our thoughts toward greater union within ourselves, within the world? Are we ready to take full ownership of our power?
On another recent morning, enveloped in a mood of despair and stagnation, as Jan channeled, I turned to the I Ching for guidance. Not surprisingly, hexagram #12, Stagnation, appeared. Here heaven and earth are flying further and further apart, deeply out of alignment with each other.
It’s hard now to not see the signs of this dissociation every day, whether it be beached whales, fish fleeing the too warm waters of Maine, children slaughtered at school, women brutally raped, and the stories go on and on. We are in a time of total disintegration as nature and spirit dissolve the world as we have known it and move toward a new position, rebalancing into a new and sustainable format.
The I Ching tells me (nine in the fourth place) that the time of stagnation is nearing the point of change into its opposite. And finally, nine at the top, that though this time of standstill does not last forever, it does not cease of its own accord either; the right leader is needed.
Here I am led back to my opening quote, stating that the spark of God resides in every person. Every person is and has the power of God within, and that power lies in the power of intent. But we must truly embrace that power and believe it to effect the change we seek. One danger, of course, is to misuse that power. This has been the mistake of our human race to date, to exploit our Godly power to our own advantage: narcissistic greed. That mistake has brought us to this edge of oblivion.
Yesterday morning, I opened Autobiography of a Yogi again, to this quote regarding how to use our power: “Don’t do what you like, then do everything you like.” The guidance is clear. Ego must first check its narcissistic impulse to act. This impulse is cut off from the needs of the interdependent whole, just as the I Ching suggests that the earth and the heavens are cut off from each other, each swirling in opposite directions away from unity and wholeness. It’s all about me, me, me. If we pause, we give ourselves the opportunity to realign, to become the interdependent whole that then is freed to act with abandon, offered the opportunity to achieve true unity based on right alignment, with ego serving the Spark of the Divine.
We are all responsible for the unity we seek… for returning the world to wholeness. – Art by Jan Ketchel
Synchronistically, I turned on the news the other day to hear that two leaders have acted as real leaders, serving the interdependent needs of the whole, Cuomo and Obama. New York Governor Cuomo refused the interests of the fossil fuels industry to value Mother Earth and our true needs. NO FRACKING in New York. Bravo, Governor Cuomo! President Obama has established diplomatic ties with Cuba, ending a long divide. Bravo, President Obama!
Let us all be our own Godly leaders, exercising our own Spark of the Divine. Let us all have pure thoughts of greater union, of care of the true needs of the whole, of heaven and earth, of self and other.
Embrace the self in all that you are. Without judgment or faultfinding simply love the self for the journey you have taken, the journey you are now on, and the journey yet to come. In such simple embracing of the self that is, acceptance of and release of all that you were, are, and will be allows for growth that is without regret.
To live without regret is a great accomplishment. To move forward in life freed of your past opens you more fully to the present and the future. Do not run from your past, but reckon with it, kindly and with compassion for the self, as you would the past of another. See the self as you would a dear friend and without judgment offer love to the self as you would another. Before you move on check that you have not left any scraps of discontent behind you. Move on only when there are no ties that bind. Only then will you be freed to experience the self that is and the self that is to be.
