How Can We be “Spiritual” and Live Our Everyday Lives?
Living in the world while waking up – What does that mean? For many of us, it means Spiritual Surrender or surrendering to a current situation. How can we be in a world that responds, reacts, and listens to a message that is not loving and still be in touch with who we are? The most common question I receive is, “How do I go to work every day or live in my relationships and still consider myself a ‘spiritual’ person?” This question epitomizes our preoccupation with living up to a standard and fitting in, the first concepts that undermine the very essence of our spiritual core – our relationship with God. When we are actively searching for a deeper awareness of ourselves, who we are, and how we move among others in the world, it does not begin with other peoples’ rules or opinions of us. Our divinity begins and ends with only one relationship, and that hinges off our direct connection to God. We cannot find our godliness in other people’s opinions. We find ourselves in the understanding of the holiness of who we already are.
What God created, one must recognize its oneness, and rejoice that what illusions seemed to separate is one forever in the Mind of God.
~ The Song of Prayer, A Course in Miracles
Spiritual Surrender Is Not About Getting Rid of Something
Most of us try to overcome and eliminate parts of ourselves that we judge as “bad.” We take that belief a little further by then trying to decide for others and remove others that we deem as “evil, less than or undesirable.” The difficulty begins when we think that our minds and our reasoning substantiate our judgments. We incorrectly believe we “know.” We are treading dangerous waters when we think we know how other’s should live their lives when we cannot seem to be living the life we admire. Our nagging sense of unworthiness haunts us, and we cannot see beyond this fictitious veil we peer through. The first step in our deep engagement with God is not getting rid of something. We uncover our pathway to God by allowing, accepting, and surrendering to what is.
We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, and our lives had become unmanageable.
~ Alcohol Anonymous
Surrendering Is The Answer
Surrender is the most hardened substance for the ego to choke down. Letting go requires openess, vulnerability, authenticity and honesty. It is going with the flow regardless of what is going on and regardless of what people are saying. Just the thought of this state makes each of us begin to twitch.
You see, we are all addicts. Try to find one person that is not addicted to something or, at the very least addicted to control. We are all scared to death of losing control. We hate to feel and process our feelings. We lay awake at night, fearful, worried, and feeling we might miss something. Fear is a barricade to the experience of Peace. It is a fence that we build around ourselves that says, “I am afraid I might lose something.” When we are open to Love’s presence, there is little focus on- the Self, which is already complete, whole, and in no need of anything. How can we lose what is always there, that which is still present and pulsing? The Self cannot be undone.
Surrender to Our Imperfections
There is no diminished or more significant form of us. The soul remains in a perfect radiant state. Think about the Truths in our world – the sun, breathing, weather, and even death of the physical. No one cares to argue whether these states exist. They may complain about them, but there is no argument for their existence. There are no arguments for who we are. We exist in the infinite, and it is Love. No matter how we try to camouflage it or try to argue this point, we need to allow the experience of knowing that in the real world of the eternal, what is so can never be not so. God loves us and enables us to be as we are. He never forgets even when we do.
Spiritual Surrender to Where We Are
Therefore, the first step forward to walking in our beauty begins with allowing. Can we acknowledge the fact that we struggle with honesty, jealousy, self-esteem, or any shortcoming we seem to obsess over? Instead of living up to a standard or the person we think we “should” be, perhaps our first step in discovering God is to begin to accept the humanness of our daily existence. Our task is not to strive for pureness or advanced development. Our mission remains living with God now in the place we currently allow and accept.
