Q: Does the "law of attraction" actually exist or somthing like it ?( i.e what we set our minds on to our wants and needs can be attainable even if it seems impossilbe to get or reach)
A: The "law of attraction" does function on material matter because of material gravity and on spirit substance because of spirit gravity; those are the only two real laws of attraction, but that's not what you're asking about. You want to know if you want and wish for things focused and strongly enough if they'll be granted to you, a popular new age concept along similar lines to karma, and the answer to that is no; magic does not uphold reality even as much as we may desire that would be the case.
It is always to our benefit to entertain a positive outlook even in the face of disappointment and struggle, to believe that the best is available to us if we do our best, to set goals and strive to achieve them, to direct our lives along positive lines. If that's our life's outlook then the seemingly impossible can and sometimes does become our reality. Remember the concept that "God is no respecter of persons." This means that God (or fate) does not show favoritism to those who set their minds on wants and needs as opposed to those who have no such focus. Life on an experimental evolutionary world always poses rewards and defeats -- it's your attitude toward these vicissitudes that makes the overall difference in the quality of your life.
Q: Does God forgive adultery? I was truly in love with this man, still am, although I am no longer in the relationaship. I know it was wrong, regardless of my love for him, and am profoundly sorry and overwhelmingly ashamed and terribly guilt ridden.
A: Let me put your mind at rest, if I can. God forgives ANYTHING, from what I understand of his loving and merciful nature. God has forgiven you even before you know you need forgiveness. What a great Dad he is!!!
I am not going to presume that your experiences with adultery constitute sin - it sounds as if you might have already made that judgment upon yourself. But adultery is certainly a violation of accepted mores. You say that you felt great affection for this man, and those feelings seemingly justified your, and his, actions. Even though you may have known that it was wrong, you did it anyway because it felt so right to love as you did. Of course, there are far-reaching consequences to such actions, and maybe you also experienced some of those, or saw them in the other people whose lives were affected by your decisions.
Love in its purest sense is the desire to do good to others - but real love must encompass all of our brothers and sisters, not just a special one here or there. Real, honest love will never be consciously selfish or hurtful to another - and that includes the spouse and family of the married man.
Maybe you'll be comforted by this quote of Jesus from The Urantia Book:
p1861:5(170:2.19) "Jesus taught that sin is not the child of a defective nature but rather the offspring of a knowing mind dominated by an unsubmissive will. Regarding sin, he taught that God has forgiven; that we make such forgiveness personally available by the act of forgiving our fellows. When you forgive your brother in the flesh, you thereby create the capacity in your own soul for the reception of the reality of God's forgiveness of your own misdeeds."
In order for you to feel forgiven you must now proceed with the business of forgiving all of those in your life who may have wronged YOU. This is no small task for most people, but it can be easily accomplished with the right frame of mind. It may include forgiving your former partner, as well.
Learn to look for God's will in all of this, and try to see a bigger picture. Get your mind off of yourself, and try to see in others the same kinds of personality foibles that created your own misdeeds, be they pride, greed, arrogance, or selfishness. Remember how easy it was for you to fall prey to these, and it may be much easier to see how another could err in the same way you did - maybe not by doing what you did, but in other ways. Then, forgiveness becomes easier. Eventually, you will find God's forgiveness in your own heart, if you open that heart to real sympathy with others and the trials they experience. Set everyone free from your own judgment.
The fact that you are remorseful is a good sign that you may now think more carefully about it if you are ever again faced with such a possibility. You know by its consequences in your, and other's lives, that what you did was not good, not Godly, and you can amend your life in accordance with that knowledge - and also, maybe help others who may be tempted to fall into the same trap. And I think you'll agree that it was a big trap.
We all make mistakes, and we all fall short of our highest ideals. It is the human condition. But the important thing to remember is that in every moment, we can make a new start, and we can change our ways of looking at things so that we don't repeat those mistakes again. The consciousness of guilt and remorse is the way we know we have done the wrong thing, and it speaks well of you that you are taking that to heart, rather than continuing to justify your actions.
But also I would add that you must forgive yourself. Stop dwelling on those feelings of regret, stop beating up on yourself, wipe the slate clean and start fresh with your life. This might be a good time to re-assess what love really means to you...? With God's help, fearlessly address the personal shortcomings that created the mental atmosphere in you in which you felt justified to proceed with your acts, and ask him for healing in those areas. It may not happen ovenight, but it will happen if you remain sincere of heart.
Most importantly, remember you are a beloved child of God - stand firmly on that solid truth - and he will never forsake you when you ask him for his help and mercy.
Why would someone choose NOT to survive? And are there really "swines" among us?
Q: I have more questions that after reading the UB has made me wonder how or why a personality would chose to NOT survive death and NOT to go on to a career in eternality. Do you know of such reasons other than genetic make-up or the self-destruction of the body so it can no longer function for thinking and reason? Additionally, are there truly "swines" out there that UB tells us to not cast pearls upon? And if so, how do we know this or when do we know when to stop casting pearls? I always have hope that a grain of sand will perhaps reach into the soul of this so-called "swine" and lodge there like such as does in an oyster. The oyster tries so hard to throw off the grain of sand and in its struggle, it develops the beautiful pearl itself.
A: Thank you for your post and for your questions. I'll answer as best I can. About choosing not to survive -- there are a number of different opinions about what transpires here because The Urantia Book is not very specific and this is a topic we're all interested in and concerned about. It is my opinion that relatively few, if any, people can actually choose not to survive death while in this life -- others disagree and think many people don't make it to the mansion worlds. In any event, we can see the results of some pretty atrocious people doing very bad things but I don't know that any of that equates to personality extinction; the angels know and understand our motives better than we do. The whole ascension scheme of surviving death to awaken on the mansion worlds, the remedial work and the 570 different levels of morontia life we experience while there, fusion with our adjuster, and the beginning of our paradise ascension career as spirit beings is so thorough and complete it doesn't seem to me to be designed for only a few ascenders. Each personality is unique -- we each will contribute to the unfolding of the Supreme -- so every personality that is extinguished leaves a void. So it's my interpretation that here on earth this non-survival concern is not something to worry about -- particularly since our world has had so much happen to knock it off course and we're experiencing the results of those abnormalities.
When the time does come to be able to make a full and informed choice about eternal personality survival only those spirit beings who no longer relate to reality would be candidates for non survival. That occurs when a being first begins to reflect upon themselves, starts to idolize their own personality, feeds their own ego, disengages spiritually from the cosmos -- as exemplified by Lucifer.
Yes, there are "swines" among us -- usually we won't recognize them but I'm sure they stood out in Jesus' eyes. Your analogy of a grain of sand is a good one and one worth striving for, even with difficult people. The world is full of difficult people who would be redeamable if the right circumstances were presented to them -- they can always have the opportunity for redemption on the mansion worlds however. Probably the best concept for what "swine" would be is that there are people who through faulty genetics or accident or bad personal choice no longer function with human will dignity -- their connection to the higher adjutant mind spirits has been cut off. They look human and talk human but are really very high grade animal beings -- they'd be sociopaths -- and there's probably little if anything any of us could do that would be of value for them; it never hurts though to try to place that grain of sand that can become a pearl.
Becoming perfect is an ideal -- good to hold before us in consciousness but unattainable on earth. The last perfect person was Jesus and before that was Eljah as far as we know. I think our Father in heaven wants us to become the best mortal being we're capable of during this life. We're not spirit beings -- we're so far from that state it's nearly incomprehensible -- we're material beings with a spirit impulse. We have this one material life to live and experience before we're off to a new level of experience that is closer to the spiritual existence but still far removed. We do well if while here not attempting to renounce our nature or to assume the cloak of being spiritual but if instead we work at being the best material being we can be, knowing that the more spiritual is our purpose.
Good that you're sticking with reading The Urantia Book -- like peeling an onion. It's a life-time journey of adventure and discovery. Yes, it certainly can be confusing, but that's not because it doesn't make sense, it's because we don't yet understand, and rereading improves comprehension and understanding. There's nothing else like it for the seeker.
There are my opinions and I hope they help provide some answers.
What's the meaning of the "mark of the beast," or the number 666?
Q: What is the meaning of the "number of man," or the "mark of the beast" called "666?"
A: The closest Urantia Book reference to that number comes from the following paragraph:
"The grand universe number of your world, Urantia, is 5,342,482,337,666. That is the registry number on Uversa and on Paradise, your number in the catalogue of the inhabited worlds. I know the physical-sphere registry number, but it is of such an extraordinary size that it is of little practical significance to the mortal mind." (15:14.8)
Perhaps this number, which ends in 666, was revealed to John and all that he recorded were the last 3 digits.
There are no magic numbers. The universe is logical, not magical. Some numbers have significance because they refer to universe realities, but numerology and the magic associated with numbers is superstition based. The "mark of the beast" is a figure of speech signifying our evolutionary animal origin. It's referred to in the following paragraph which describes the gradual spiritual purging and purification we experience as we move through the mansion worlds following death.
The experience on this sphere is the crowning achievement of the immediate postmortal career. During your sojourn here you will receive the instruction of many teachers, all of whom will co-operate in the task of preparing you for residence on Jerusem. Any discernible differences between those mortals hailing from the isolated and retarded worlds and those survivors from the more advanced and enlightened spheres are virtually obliterated during the sojourn on the seventh mansion world. Here you will be purged of all the remnants of unfortunate heredity, unwholesome environment, and unspiritual planetary tendencies. The last remnants of the "mark of the beast" are here eradicated. (47:9.1)
Q: Is there anything called soul travel as practice by eckanker or other school of thought?
A: Thank you for your question. Yes, there is something called soul travel. It's associated with confusing beliefs about souls disconnecting from the body and traveling around, observing, becoming ghosts, reincarnating -- beliefs that are ancient and based in superstition. The process is along the lines that intent, or meditation, or drugs can allow the soul to detach, that it remains attached to the body only through a thin silver cord, that it can travel great distances -- to other planets as well -- and as long as the cord is attached the soul will return to the body but if it breaks it won't return. Eckankar focuses on teaching this technique and other meditation practices promote it as well -- after all, who wouldn't want to be able to fly off and observe all manner of interesting things?
It's a mind game deception. Our minds are powerful as well as directable. We do have the ability to direct our mind and a conscious connection so that it may seem we have left our body. Mind can detect information at a distance but "you" don't leave one place and travel to another. Through practice one can strengthen the connection to the subconscious mind's psychic abilities and participate in many otherwise strange mind games. Such a practice will disengage one from reality substituting the practical to make it become impractical.
The Urantia Book warns against attempting to augment psychic abilities, offering instead a practical, inspiring, spiritually beneficent cosmology which answers life's most challenging questions and gives focus to human longings and desires in a logical, positive, and uplifting manner. There's more than enough in reality to satisfy curiosity and the desire for adventure without veering away into augmenting unreality experiences.
Another of our responders has a few words on this subject as well...
I wonder if you are familiar with The Urantia Book teaching on the soul? I find it to be one of the loveliest parts of the Revelation. And it goes like this: When a child reaches the age of reason - anywhere from 5-7 years - and makes a conscious choice for good, that is the time when God sends a fragment of himself to indwell that child's mind. The Urantia Book calls this fragment the Thought Adjuster. And, it signals the birth of the soul. Thereafter, every moral choice that the child makes results in growth of the soul. The soul is comprised on only goodness, and it is that part of us that will survive us after our material bodies have died here on earth. It grows throughout our lifetime, and will actually be our true appearance when we awaken on the Mansion Worlds of God.
I only add this because sometimes people have a fuzzy understanding of just what the soul is - I know I did, before I read about it in The Urantia Book.
Personally, I would not like to think of my soul traveling away from me. I agree that our minds, including imagination, can play tricks on us - if we are so-minded. But they also can be influenced greatly by our spiritual choices. Maybe your spiritual frame of mind wants to think that your soul can travel to other realms, perhaps, but what does that really mean? There really are only two realms - the material and the spiritual. If you want to travel to spirit realms, you have to go no further than your own mind, where that fragment of God still resides, and get to know him. That is the best spiritual realm of all, and it is in the here-and-now, and will help your soul to grow, and you'll be conscious of everything.
If you are thinking more along the lines of remote-viewing or something, I would definitely not want to send my soul somewhere less than spiritual. This seems dangerous to me, only because it really could disassociate you from reality - reality being spiritual - and this would not be beneficial for your soul's growth. I don't know the limits of the human mind, and I find remote-viewing kind of interesting, but I doubt that it has anything to do with our soul. Again, this is a confusion of mind and soul, in my opinion.
Some additional soul quotes from The Utantia Book: The material self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul.
Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man's inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute. p71:2 (5:6.7)
The association of actuals and potentials equals growth, the experiential realization of values. But growth is not mere progress. Progress is always meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness. Such a mortal, while not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an immortal soul is evolving. p1097:3 (100:3.6)
You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having "wealth" from the book sales. This is a facinating short interview with Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Life " author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.
I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.
If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.
It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?
Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD.
Q: In the Urantia book 47:1.1, it is stated that the student visitors are entertained in the finaliter’s world. How do the students travel to this world? Are these students human too?
A: In answer to your question regarding student visitors, I offer the following:
Administrator Seraphim p436:1 (39:4.15) The Transporters. These are the transport seraphim who function in the local systems. In Satania, your system, they carry passengers back and forth from Jerusem and otherwise serve as interplanetary transporters. Seldom does a day pass in which a transport seraphim of Satania does not deposit some student visitor or some other traveler of spirit or semispirit nature on the shores of Urantia. These very space traversers will sometime carry you to and from the various worlds of the system headquarters group, and when you have finished the Jerusem assignment, they will carry you forward to Edentia.
Student visitors may or may not be human like us, but they are more than likely ascenders in the Father's plan as we are. Here is a description of the landing field - the sea of glass - on our system capital world:
Jerusem Receiving Field p521:6 (46:2.9) Transports arrive on the crystal field, the so-called sea of glass. Around this area are the receiving stations for the various orders of beings who traverse space by seraphic transport. Near the polar crystal receiving station for student visitors you may ascend the pearly observatory and view the immense relief map of the entire headquarters planet.
And on this subject of angelic transport, I thought you might like to read something about these transporters, and their connections with our ideas of the way angels look:
p438:5 (39:5.12) The erroneous idea that angels possess wings is not wholly due to olden notions that they must have wings to fly through the air. Human beings have sometimes been permitted to observe seraphim that were being prepared for transport service, and the traditions of these experiences have largely determined the Urantian concept of angels. In observing a transport seraphim being made ready to receive a passenger for interplanetary transit, there may be seen what are apparently double sets of wings extending from the head to the foot of the angel. In reality these wings are energy insulators—friction shields.
When celestial beings are to be enseraphimed for transfer from one world to another, they are brought to the headquarters of the sphere and, after due registry, are inducted into the transit sleep. Meantime, the transport seraphim moves into a horizontal position immediately above the universe energy pole of the planet. While the energy shields are wide open, the sleeping personality is skillfully deposited, by the officiating seraphic assistants, directly on top of the transport angel. Then both the upper and lower pairs of shields are carefully closed and adjusted.
And now, under the influence of the transformers and the transmitters, a strange metamorphosis begins as the seraphim is made ready to swing into the energy currents of the universe circuits. To outward appearance the seraphim grows pointed at both extremities and becomes so enshrouded in a queer light of amber hue that very soon it is impossible to distinguish the enseraphimed personality. When all is in readiness for departure, the chief of transport makes the proper inspection of the carriage of life, carries out the routine tests to ascertain whether or not the angel is properly encircuited, and then announces that the traveler is properly enseraphimed, that the energies are adjusted, that the angel is insulated, and that everything is in readiness for the departing flash. The mechanical controllers, two of them, next take their positions. By this time the transport seraphim has become an almost transparent, vibrating, torpedo-shaped outline of glistening luminosity. Now the transport dispatcher of the realm summons the auxiliary batteries of the living energy transmitters, usually one thousand in number; as he announces the destination of the transport, he reaches out and touches the near point of the seraphic carriage, which shoots forward with lightninglike speed, leaving a trail of celestial luminosity as far as the planetary atmospheric investment extends. In less than ten minutes the marvelous spectacle will be lost even to reinforced seraphic vision.
Q: In Matthew 27: 52-53, it is written that many bodies of the saints were raised from the dead after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Where are these bodies now and what really happened?
A: Thanks for this question. Here are some quotes discussing sleeping survivors, and what it means to be a sleeping survivor:
p341:1 (30:4.4) Sleeping Survivors. All mortals of survival status, in the custody of personal guardians of destiny, pass through the portals of natural death and, on the third period, personalize on the mansion worlds. Those accredited beings who have, for any reason, been unable to attain that level of intelligence mastery and endowment of spirituality which would entitle them to personal guardians, cannot thus immediately and directly go to the mansion worlds. Such surviving souls must rest in unconscious sleep until the judgment day of a new epoch, a new dispensation, the coming of a Son of God to call the rolls of the age and adjudicate the realm, and this is the general practice throughout all Nebadon. It was said of Christ Michael that, when he ascended on high at the conclusion of his work on earth, "He led a great multitude of captives." And these captives were the sleeping survivors from the days of Adam to the day of the Master's resurrection on Urantia.
There have only been a few of these dispensational resurrections of the sleeping survivors, and the one following Jesus' resurrection from the dead was the last one. There will not be another one until another celestial bestowal is made on this planet, which could be hundreds, or thousands of years from now. Here is a quote describing this amazing event:
The Dispensational Resurrection p2024:3 (189:3.1) A little after half past four o'clock this Sunday morning, Gabriel summoned the archangels to his side and made ready to inaugurate the general resurrection of the termination of the Adamic dispensation on Urantia. When the vast host of the seraphim and the cherubim concerned in this great event had been marshaled in proper formation, the morontia Michael appeared before Gabriel, saying: "As my Father has life in himself, so has he given it to the Son to have life in himself. Although I have not yet fully resumed the exercise of universe jurisdiction, this self-imposed limitation does not in any manner restrict the bestowal of life upon my sleeping sons; let the roll call of the planetary resurrection begin."
The circuit of the archangels then operated for the first time from Urantia. Gabriel and the archangel hosts moved to the place of the spiritual polarity of the planet; and when Gabriel gave the signal, there flashed to the first of the system mansion worlds the voice of Gabriel, saying: "By the mandate of Michael, let the dead of a Urantia dispensation rise!" Then all the survivors of the human races of Urantia who had fallen asleep since the days of Adam, and who had not already gone on to judgment, appeared in the resurrection halls of mansonia in readiness for morontia investiture. And in an instant of time the seraphim and their associates made ready to depart for the mansion worlds. Ordinarily these seraphic guardians, onetime assigned to the group custody of these surviving mortals, would have been present at the moment of their awaking in the resurrection halls of mansonia, but they were on this world itself at this time because of the necessity of Gabriel's presence here in connection with the morontia resurrection of Jesus.
Notwithstanding that countless individuals having personal seraphic guardians and those achieving the requisite attainment of spiritual personality progress had gone on to mansonia during the ages subsequent to the times of Adam and Eve, and though there had been many special and millennial resurrections of Urantia sons, this was the third of the planetary roll calls, or complete dispensational resurrections. The first occurred at the time of the arrival of the Planetary Prince, the second during the time of Adam, and this, the third, signalized the morontia resurrection, the mortal transit, of Jesus of Nazareth.
All of these survivors who were resurrected at this, or any other dispensational resurrection, resume their ascension careers as if no time had passed at all. They are treated the same as a survivor who awakens after three days.
...long ago our ancestors knew a fundamental truth that we are only recently rediscovering: good mental health is inextricably intertwined with deep spiritual development. Transpersonal psychologists in the past several decades have produced good science that shows that people who have strong spiritual beliefs and practices are generally more resilient in the face of life crises, and tend to have an easier time recovering from some physical illnesses.
This should not be surprising. After all, the psyche — a Greek word for soul — which has come to be used for the mind or one's consciousness in modern times, is inescapably spiritual in its core nature. And so are we. This does not mean that we must return to church or temple, or become ultra religious to fulfil the promise of deep spirituality as a safeguard for mental and physical health. Let's not confuse religious belief and observance with spiritual development, which is about cultivating awareness, empathy and wisdom, being of service, and having tolerance and integrity — all virtues that can and should apply no matter what religious framework one believes in. Healing emotions often involves developing one's spirituality.
These healing and development efforts in education and therapy are about raising consciousness in order to support transformation in the learner or client. Transformation is more than just change. It occurs at such a deep level that we are truly different beings when we undergo transformation. Transformative change is essential for all of us in order to become better people, able to make a beneficial difference in the world and in our own lives. No matter where you are in your personal spiritual journey, or mental health status, it is useful to ponder these five transformative questions.
In the way you are living your life, how are you being the medicine? In teaching naturopathic medical students, the relevance of that question is obvious. But if we think about medicine as energetic spiritual power, as the First Peoples of America did and do, I think this question applies to all of us on the path of transformational consciousness. Being the medicine is about how you are living your life in such a way as to be respectfully and appropriately using the spiritual power that is innate within you. What can you further develop in order to be the medicine more fully?
What do you trust? Notice I didn't ask who. This question is asking: in what do you place your belief that all is and will be as it should be? It's always interesting to try to take this question down as deep as one can with as much honesty as one can stand. In your everyday life, are you acting in congruence with what you say you trust? If not, what needs to be surrendered, reframed, or healed in order to be in alignment with what you say you trust? What cause will you give your life?
The answer to this question is often very telling as to how congruent we are with our espoused and lived values. What we prioritise in thoughts, words, and deeds on a daily basis is what we are giving our life energy to. Many of us say we value our families, but then we work 16 hours a day, rarely eat a meal together, and put business success above interpersonal family relationships. Doing this is giving life energy to work, to stress, to something other than the family that is supposedly valued. What we're actually doing is not congruent with what we're saying we give our life to. Philosophers might say that happiness comes from not waiting until circumstances force you to choose between the cause for which you would give your life, and the life you live everyday. Are you really living a life of purpose and meaning now, and if not, what needs to change?
What you put your attention on grows. Are you growing what you want to be growing? If not, how does your attention need to shift? It really means something spiritually profound and psychologically healthy to be able to say you walk your talk. Can you say that with full integrity? If not, look at how you need to re-prioritise your choices.
At the end of your life, what will you have dared so that you can pass on with no regrets?
Daring to take risks is one of the most essential transformative energies that I know of for both spiritual development and mental health. In fact many mental health and relationship problems start from a fear of risking being fully seen as our authentic selves, fear of asserting our whole truth, fear of risking rejection and abandonment by those we love, fear of risking pride or security, and other large and small risks. Daring is a catalyst for becoming everything we are meant to be.
Xerpi
