Your Sacred Self Read online

  Her inner faith has literally served to banish the doubt about her ability to deliver a baby in a spiritual and pain-free environment. She doesn’t believe that God is there for her, she absolutely knows it. The idea of any doubt being present is ludicrous for her.

  I have been in the labor room with my wife while women all around her were out of control with fear and doubt. Marcelene, relying on her faith, is participating in the act of creation as an observer and a faithful participant. In fact, she has taken that same inner knowing, based on faith, to assist other women in having their babies. She accompanies them through the entire process—from the first months of pregnancy through delivery—helping them access their inner selves and reassuring them that if they banish doubt they will have a spiritual childbirth experience. I have yet to see it fail.

  She instructs women to ignore all of the negative and doubt-filled sentences they hear from other “experienced” mothers. She helps them learn to go within, become peaceful, meet God and use faith to guide them through their experience. She is now in the process of writing a book about this spiritual approach to childbirth and infant care.

  Understand that faith is a decision that you make internally. As your decision becomes a knowing, you will begin to sense the sacred energy that flows through everything in the form of divine intelligence in the universe. It is a mental decision to know that everything is on purpose. Faith then becomes an energy that resides within you at all times.

  One evening, as I sat and watched a spectacular sunset on the Gulf of Mexico, I had a stunning realization. This entire planet, with everything on it, must weigh a zillion zillion trillion tons and more, and there is some energy propelling it around the sun giving the illusion that the sun is actually setting. What was really happening as I sat there was that I was setting and moving in orbit around the sun.

  I contemplated the enormous amount of energy that is ceaselessly working to move this enormous planet and keep it spinning and staying on course in its yearly excursion. The same energy is moving the sun in a larger orbit and moving the zillions of other celestial bodies in trillions of orbits.

  This energy gives the illusion that the earth is standing still, yet we know there is enormous movement. We have faith in that energy. We trust that there will be a sunrise tomorrow morning in the east. We don’t believe in it—we know it and have faith in it.

  That same energy is propelling you through your life and is within you at all moments. That same energy allows your lungs to fill with air, your heart to beat and your body to stay together rather than disintegrate. You know it, you have faith in it.

  That is the same kind of faith that you must develop about your entire life. You are being guided by that heavenly energy. Start to know it. You don’t have to see it to believe in it, any more than you have to see the wind to know it is there.

  This invisible energy that is doing so much is what you want to know. The inner faith becomes a power that was previously hidden from you.

  I have seen people walk barefoot as much as forty feet on red-hot glowing coals without blistering. Before they undertake this adventure, they are trained in nothing more than faith. Their faith gives them the ability to concentrate with an intensity that can prevent their feet from blistering.

  I have used this kind of faith to swim across a lake in 45-degree water without experiencing any sensation of cold. I type for hours and see poems and chapters emerge, without writer’s block, because I know that I am not alone. The cosmic energy is there within me for my use in fulfilling my personal destiny.

  I have witnessed precisely the right people showing up in my life to assist me with whatever I needed when I went to this inner faith and banished all thoughts of doubt. On one occasion, while sitting in a phone booth in New York City, looking up the phone number of someone I hadn’t seen in years, I looked up to see him standing there—an amazing coincidence or a connection to the universal energy that flows through both of us.

  I have often had precisely the right book or article show up in the mail when I was stuck at a particular place in my writing. Frequently I have visualized the appearance of a particular writer in my life by concentrating on his or her words, and then “magically” had them appear in my life. Inner faith can produce the people and events that you need; it will work. (However, this is not to imply that obstacles will not surface as well.)

  FAITH AND FRUSTRATION

  Even after you develop this faith in God and yourself, you will find that there still are obstacles in life. The act of doubt-free thinking and knowing does not mean that riches and abundance automatically flourish. However, as obstacles and struggles appear, you will begin to process them in a totally new way—a way based on faith rather than frustration.

  When you are tempted to view obstacles as hindrances, remember that life gives exams. Create a saying to remind yourself of the potential value in the obstacle. Your saying might be, “This restriction has shown up in my life to teach me something. When I get the lesson, I will then see my inner faith manifesting itself in positive ways again. I will bless this occurrence rather than curse it, knowing always that the ways of God will sometimes be mysterious to me.”

  Recently my wife and I spent some time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a retreat to renew ourselves and our marriage. On the first night there, we saw a menu in the hotel lobby from a health food restaurant and decided to have dinner there. However, there seemed to be a hundred obstacles that kept cropping up as we set out to find the restaurant.

  I kept getting lost and ending up back where we started. I’d make a turn that seemed to be the right way and end up back at the hotel. Santa Fe is a city that was laid out in concentric circles, and the street names change arbitrarily from one block to another.

  The frustration was mounting after we’d spent over an hour and still hadn’t found the restaurant. I had asked at least ten different people for directions and finally made a phone call to the restaurant for help. All the while, I was also determined to discover what this exam was about.

  When we finally arrived, the restaurant was completely filled. As we walked in, a woman from Naples, Florida, named Mary Reinhart entered ahead of us. She was being escorted to the only vacant table, and she turned and said, “Would you like to share this table rather than wait?”

  We ate together, and in the course of our conversation she told us about a beautiful spiritual woman named Gangaji who was scheduled to conduct Satsang (a meeting for truth) in Santa Fe beginning the next morning and continuing for the length of our planned visit.

  For the next five days, my wife and I attended Satsang along with hundreds of other people. We thought we had come to Santa Fe to be alone.

  We came to know Gangaji. She is an enlightened soul who had been on her own course of self-discovery in India and was now traveling the world conducting Satsang, bringing the message of love, peace and personal empowerment. She did not take any money for her work, and she provided us with so much spiritual food.

  In a private audience with Gangaji, she told me that her sister had read one of my books and that its message had contributed to bringing them back together. Her sister had chosen to leave when Gangaji had undertaken her own unique spiritual path. In our conversation, I received from Gangaji the missing link I needed to organize and write this book. She talked to me about the idea of freedom as a decision to be made each day and gave me the subtitle of this book. It was her focus on freedom as an absence of self-absorption that guided me to write on this subject.

  Our trip to Santa Fe had been planned many months in advance but had been postponed three times because a woman who was due to deliver her baby with Marcelene as her coach was overdue. Now, put this together with all of the information contained in the previous paragraphs and you see a multitude of obstacles and “coincidences.”

  The postponement of the trip, getting lost trying to find the restaurant (which turned out to be within walking distance of our hotel), incorrect directions, wro
ng turns, Mary Reinhart walking in at the precise moment that we did and inviting us to eat with her, Mary asking us if we were in Santa Fe to meet with Gangaji (whom I’d never heard of before), being invited to meet privately with Gangaji because an audience participant recognized me and the story of her reunion with her sister. And then the exact missing piece of organization for this book was handed to me by one of the most spiritual, lovely, kind, on-purpose human beings I have ever encountered. All of these so-called obstacles and coincidences conspired with fate to collaborate in producing the book that you are now reading.

  You too have stories like mine that you may not have paid much attention to. I’m encouraging you to try on a new perspective when you are caught up in difficult times.

  Detach from exclusive emphasis on your physical surroundings and your own body, and be on the lookout for what fate is conspiring to hand you. With this attitude you will have faith even when those obstacles seem insurmountable or overwhelming.

  All the deaths or “accidents” in your life, including your transition back to no-where from now-here, are a part of the divine order. They may not be understood, particularly considering how we are conditioned to view these matters. With faith and without doubt you know what Edna St. Vincent Millay meant when she wrote:

  Man has not invented God;

  He has developed faith,

  To meet a God already there.

  Your faith can remain strong in the presence of obstacles. Your frustration that God is not working at the pace you think she should can be replaced with the inner knowing that everything in your life is there to teach you something. Your sacred quest will lead you to the knowing that the enormous energy that moves planets and galaxies, keeping them always on course, is flowing in divine order through you too, and keeping you on course, though your limited vision prevents you from seeing it.

  Your faith cleanses your vision. What you then see are perfectly placed obstacles instead of frustrating impediments. The irony is that as you develop this faith and get the lessons, fewer and fewer of these blockades appear in your life.

  HOW TO BANISH DOUBT

  Below are some specific suggestions for removing doubt from your inner inventory. Keep in mind that doubt not only inhibits your sacred quest but can also be a destructive force in your daily existence.

  Make a decision that you are going to meet the invisible God within, the loving presence, so that you will know her. This means being willing to spend time in the inner silence of your being. Create the time and space for quieting and listening. Do nothing else, but do this daily. (Chapter 6 gives some specific ways to shut down inner dialogue.)

  As you push out your thoughts and revel in the silence, you will feel the energy of the loving presence flowing through you. Give yourself a holy instant to make a silent affirmation that you are with God.

  Do not feel that you must share your experience or convince others that you’ve felt God within. Simply notice for yourself how you shift from a belief to a knowing when the smidgin of doubt you’d harbored is gone.

  Allow the moment of revelation to be free from any inner criticism or doubt. Andrew Cohen puts it this way, in his book Enlightenment Is a Secret:

  When there is a profound revelation, in the very recognition that “this is revelation,” you have to become serious about your own life. The instant you recognize that you are seeing the truth as it is, you must realize the implications of what is being revealed to you. If not betrayed even once then your confidence in that revelation can only grow. The stronger the confidence, the deeper will be your wisdom. But if in the face of that revelation you needlessly allow yourself to indulge in doubt, you begin to walk down a precarious road, because by doing so your confidence will be undermined.

  Keep in mind always that doubt is produced by your ego. Doubt is not a part of your higher spiritual self. With this awareness you can learn to observe your doubt rather than choose to own it.

  You are working at knowing the knower, and the knower is your higher invisible self. Use your capacity to detach yourself from doubt and watch how it enters your inner world. Then observe how doubt literally forces you to act in predetermined and limited ways. This act of observation will in itself cause doubt to dissipate.

  When doubt surfaces within you and you recognize it, you now have to be willing to say no, I no longer allow these thoughts in my life. Many people and thoughts will attempt to sway you from your quest. You must be willing to see them as your tests and take the advice we give to our children about drugs: Just say no!

  Do you doubt your ability to know God? You may have no doubt about the existence of an absolute reality called God, but you may doubt your ability to know that higher part of yourself fully. If so, I suggest you reexamine your logic.

  The self-doubt may be an excuse you use to keep yourself from changing. If you have no doubt about God’s existence, then you are in the field of knowing. By acknowledging that you absolutely know the existence of a higher power, you’ve banished the doubt within. If you then realize that this higher power is in everything, you cannot doubt that it is in you.

  If you are alive, then you have the life force of God within you. It is as simple as that—your aliveness confirms the existence of the highest awareness within yourself.

  Begin to change the vocabulary you use to describe yourself and your expectations. Rather than using words that reflect your doubt, shift to words that indicate your knowing and your faith.

  Catch yourself when you use words and phrases such as maybe, possibly, God willing, if I’m lucky, perhaps, one never knows. Start using words and phrases such as certainly, absolutely, God is always willing and so am I, I’ll work until it does happen, I know I can do it.

  When you use words and phrases that reflect an absence of doubt, you will conduct your life the same way. Your actions will follow what you say, and what you say follows from what your inner world is. Change the words even if you don’t mean them yet, because eventually they will become your reality.

  Friends and family members suggested that I wouldn’t be able to sit and write for two months to complete a draft of this book because I had not written for several years. I simply responded with sentences like, “I trust that I will be able to do it. I am not alone and I will be given the guidance and assistance I need in order to create this book.”

  Never did I use a word or phrase that indicated any doubt, even if there existed some inner questioning. I said those words outwardly, began writing and, sure enough, the magic was there in the form of divine assistance.

  Your words and phrases suggest to your physical self exactly what course that physical self is going to take. Be careful of what you say, and when you speak, do so with conviction and faith.

  When you find things cropping up in your life that tend to substantiate your doubts, shift away from your old thinking habits. Here are examples of old expressions you can try to change: See, I knew that this was a lot of bunk. God doesn’t really care about me. It’s a cruel world and one has to accept it. Examine the following list of statements for new ways of expressing yourself: —If my joy is divine and I trust in a higher power when things are going well, then my suffering must also be divine.

  —I will refuse to judge this and instead will know that in some way that I do not understand at this moment, I will know why this happened as it did.

  —I will trust in God and the energy that is in everything and know that this too is in divine order, even though I do not like it in this moment.

  —I know that the soul is eternal and that all form will pass along, so why should I question when this occurs?

  —I will grieve the person who has died, but I will not question why he [or she] has returned to God at this time.

  —Now, or thirty years from now, is a speck in this thing called eternity.

  These kinds of inner sentiments will help you banish doubt and stop judging the ways of the universe. Keep in mind that your joy is divine—your sufferi
ng is divine.

  Make a list of the beliefs that you still hang on to which no longer serve you. Seeing them in writing will help you identify how absurd it is to stay rooted in the beliefs of others.

  As you examine your beliefs, see how many start with “should” and “shouldn’t.” These kinds of sentences were your earliest training and may still occupy such a large space inside you that you have no room for new knowings.

  Look for sentences like: You should pay attention to what your neighbors think. You should be angry when people mistreat you. You should hate your enemies. You shouldn’t disagree with me. You shouldn’t be happy when others around you are suffering. You should feel guilty about your success when others have so little. You shouldn’t forget about what your father always believed.

  There is a long list of should-beliefs that inhibit your entrance to the bliss of a spiritual life. Those beliefs must be replaced with knowings that come from your personal experience.

  Practice retraining your mind. Your inner world, your mind, is like a recording stuck on replay. The play of the mind can become so intense that you create vast images of disaster that become confused with your reality.

  In The Mystery of the Mind, Swami Muktananda relates how absurd our inner beliefs can become and how they can actually rule our world, with absolutely no basis in reality other than that we believe them to be so. Here is one of his examples:

  Once there was a poor laborer named Sheikh Mahmoud. One day his employer gave him a clay pot full of ghee (clarified butter) and told him to carry it to the next town. “If you do this,” the employer said, “I will give you two rupees. If you drop the pot, you will have to pay for the ghee.”

  Sheikh Mahmoud put the pot on his head and set out along the road. As he was walking, he started to think, “I’m going to get two rupees. What shall I do with them?” In those days, everything was very cheap. For one rupee, you could buy twenty-five chickens. Sheikh Mahmoud said, “That’s it, I’ll buy chickens. They will multiply, and soon I’ll have one hundred chickens, five hundred chickens, one thousand chickens, ten thousand chickens. Then I’ll sell all the chickens and buy goats. I’ll have goats and sheep and a big farm. The goats and sheep will multiply, and when I sell them I’ll buy goods. I’ll become a big merchant. Then I’ll get married and have a house. I’ll go to an office, and I’ll return home for lunch. I’ll have a very good cook to make delicious dishes. But if the cook doesn’t bring the food on time, I’ll get angry and slap his face. After all, I’ll be a big merchant.” As he thought about slapping the cook’s face, he raised his arm. As soon as he did so, the pot of ghee went flying to the ground.