Spiritual Consciousness 101

"Living here in this world is a matter of living in two worlds at once. Or, more accurately, it's a matter of letting our consciousness go back and forth between two worlds periodically. Most of the time we are going to live in what I will call this "natural world," where we appear to be in control of our lives. But some of the time our spiritual eyes get opened, and then we see the "spiritual world" in which we also live. And in this world we can acknowledge that the life we experience is really just passing through us the way a mountain stream would pass through a glass tube if you held it under the water."

"How does that strike you? Is that true for you?"

"Don't you mostly think that you are actually creating your thoughts as they occur in your head?"

"Don't you mostly think that you are actually creating your feelings as they appear in your body?"

"Don't you mostly think that you are creating the motions in your body, as those motions take place, when you move, or speak, or act in some way?"

"And yet how could you possibly be creating those things? You don't even know how those things really work, do you? Even our most enlightened scientists and teachers and therapists can't actually tell you how these things work. How could you be creating things that are beyond our understanding?"

"Try this:

Spend the next few seconds pretending that whatever you are thinking is actually coming from somewhere else. (Now, if you want to avoid getting really scared, imagine that your thoughts are coming from a place where there are beings that really love you and love the way you are learning about life).

Go ahead. Try it. Sit back for a few seconds, close your eyes and just imagine that your next thought, after it appears in your head, has actually been sent to you from somewhere else. Somewhere where there are beings that really love you, and love the way you are learning about life."

"Did that make you feel a little more spiritual? Or a little more curious about life? Or maybe a little happier? Or maybe relieved a little? Or what?"

"This way of thinking about yourself seems to be one of the most basic ways of becoming more "spiritual." After all, the term "spiritual" comes from the word "spirit." Couldn't that mean that being more spiritual would mean being more aware of spirit? Well, suppose that there were more than one spirit. Suppose that there were spirits. You know, people used to think this way all the time. They imagined that their good thoughts were sent to them by good spirits, and their bad thoughts were sent to them by bad spirits. There are even old Disney cartoons where we see Goofy listening to two little spirits talking to him: a little angelic spirit on one shoulder and a little devilish spirit on the other."

"Of course you might think that all of this is childish, or archaic, or simple-minded. After all, maybe it's just a way of fooling ourselves into feeling better about things. Or maybe it might turn out to be a way that you would end up feeling worse about yourself. What if you got involved in thinking that you were bad, because you had a lot of "bad spirits" talking in your head?"

"Well, that might be a risk you'd have to take."

"But you wouldn't need to believe too much in bad spirits if you didn't want to."

"Being spiritual is risky business, that's for sure. It could get you thrown to the lions in more ways than one."

"And if this isn't your way of risking those lions, then by all means stop reading this! Just put it down and slowly back away!"