I didn’t believe in God growing up. I had two religious grandmothers but I didn’t see anyone embody a connection with the divine that made sense to me. The religion I saw around me felt like projected images, not an alive relationship. I didn’t resonate with that God. I was drawn to spirituality and witchcraft, but while growing up, I didn’t have much access to information around them. I was an agnostic; I didn’t deny a possibility of God but I also didn’t have any experience or connection with God.
At 20 I moved to my own apartment, started university, and made new friends there. We had a habit of gathering together and sharing ghost stories and paranormal experiences each one of us had had. I was already freaking out living in my tiiiny one room apartment on my own, and those evenings spent telling scary stories didn’t help. I asked my friends what they did when encountering these scary experiences, and they told me that they prayed God. It's hard to explain it, but somehow that made absolute sense to me, and since that moment it was clear to me that there was something beyond us. That might sound weird, but before that I simply had had no reason of believing in or connecting with God. I started praying God, and while it didn’t take my fears away, it gave me relief. It felt like someone was there for me, that someone was listening, and that I was not all on my own with my fears.
A little after that I started to really walk a spiritual path and learn about energies. It became clear to me that there is a universal intelligence, an omnipresent life force moving through us. For a long time I called that force ”the Universe” because I was aware I could be misunderstood if I called it ”God”. People tend to have all kind of personal projections when you say ”God”. I’ve realized that to many people it is not obvious that there is one single energetic force moving through all of us, and that force is behind everything that ever happens - that is God.
Nowadays I use "God" and "Universe" synonymously, but I really like the word God. I also like to use it intentionally just to take away the one-dimensional projection religions have given this word. "God" feels sacred, holy, and beyond us. Something so infinite we will never be able to grasp it, yet we can live our lives as a sacred prayer honoring that force. It is magical, mind-blowing, mysterious, inexplicable, beyond any words. Most people really only ever experience a taste of that in drugs or during sex, but actually that energy is always available to us. It is an ecstatic force beyond our wildest dreams. Experiencing God really feels like the best drugs you ever taken.
I pray God almost daily. In challenging days and moments, many times I day. I only ask help in healing, seeing and understanding the bigger picture, and learning what love truly is in all of its expressions. There is nothing else to really ask for, just love and wholeness (which are one and the same thing), as everything else is already included in them.
In the last years, we have seen a lot of spiritual people converting into christianity, and denying everything they previously believed in (manifestation, tarot cards, you name it). I have been curiously feeling into this phenomenon, as I do with all of the movements of the collective. I do believe everything happens for a reason, and that the pendulum needs to swing from side to side so that we could find the balance, the middle path, the heart path, as a collective. The heart path embraces all experiences and can hold an unconditionally loving space for all facets of the human journey without judgement. It doesn't deny tarot, manifestation, Jesus, or christians. It accepts all of them as a part of the One Infinite Creator.
What I hear from those converting to christianity, is that they walked a very ego-based spiritual path, believing they are in control and capable of everything on their own, such as manifesting all of their desires and so on. I talk about and believe in manifesting, too, but I do believe there is a huge difference in ego-based and heart-based manifesting. The ego believes it can have whatever it wants whenever it wants, and it works relentlessly to have all that, but... are the aspirations of the ego really what the heart needs? Usually not quite. The ego is the fear-based part of us, the one that believes it’s on its own, as a separate being apart from the rest of Creation. The ego is born from trauma. The heart surrenders to the manifestation, whereas the ego pushes, forces, controls, and ultimately just struggles.
What our hearts actually need, might be completely different to the ego’s aspiration. Surrender to the heart takes humility and letting go of the ego’s projections of ideal self and ideal life. Our heart is intimately connected to all life, in perfect alignment with God and the entire Universe. It’s not separate or afraid, it doesn’t need to survive, control, or prove itself. It just is, in eternal peace and love. Our hearts’ needs are forever supported by the entire Universe, and we don’t need to struggle to have these needs met, we only need to surrender.
However, you have free will. That means you can align your will to the will of God - or not. When you align your will with God's, life is simple and effortless. Everything you ever need comes to you. But you can as well choose not to align with God, and instead believe you are all separate and on your own. Your ego can work hard on creating and manifesting and hustling, never getting to any true fulfillment.
I don’t believe that you can walk a spiritual path sustainably long-term without knowing that you aren’t but a tiny fractal in the infinite tapestry of life. You are not God or God-like, but you are a part of God. You are a tiny speck of dust in this grand Creation. It might sound paradoxical, because you indeed are a soul, all-powerful and limitless, capable of creating stars and planets into being. Although that sounds huge compared to our tiny human selves, our souls too are tiny teeny grains of sand in the infinite sea. We are important, but never above anyone or anything else. Just equal, tiny little co-creators in an infinite universe.
Becoming our soul selves and living a soul-aligned life is not hard. It is the easiest, most effortless and natural thing ever. We don't need to work hard to achieve it, we only need to surrender and be willing to face our trauma, that part of us that believes it’s inherently separate. In the space of surrender, all the wounds and parts of us that are not love, are brough to the surface. We only need to wittness these parts of us with utmost compassion and kindness. Everything else is done by the Universe.
I often say that this path is not easy, because I want to validate the challenge of facing our most deep-seated and buried emotions. I am never going to say that it’s a walk in the park to sit in the fire of our biggest fears and illusions and let them burn us. That IS hard but a spiritual path in itself is not meant to feel like effort. We might need to sit in horribly uncomfortable emotions, but manifestation, aspiring for our dreams, and living a fulfilling life are not meant to be challenges in themselves. The more comfortable we are with all of our emotions, the easier life gets. Quite simply.
You are never carrying your burdens on your own, God is. You are a creator, but your creator-ship is a mere vessel for God to work its magic through you. You are not alone, but with God, intimately connected to all life, in all moments. There is nothing you need to do, just be, and let the universal inteligence live through you. There is nothing you need to know, for you are forever guided.
Comments