Why is spiritual truth so elusive? Why is it that matters of spiritual significance are so hard to verify and validate?

I have been pondering hard on this subject for quite sometime. And these are my conclusions.

Spiritual truth is so elusive possibly because of several factors. They are as listed below:

1. Many seekers are using the wrong modes of seeking. What do I mean by this? Firstly we try to relate and uncover spiritual truth and reality with our own thinking faculty. This will lead us to nowhere because spiritual reality is what is encapsulating our limited thinking faculty. Spiritual reality is in a way 'beyond' the normal thinking mode assigned by a personality/self. No offence, but most people are doing this precisely. As such believers can ONLY believe and NOT experience divine spiritual reality.

My first experiences of Divine Consciousness were during meditation sessions. Very significantly, during these meditations, thoughts and thinking were much reduced. In a state of no thought (Yes and I mean not a single thought!), we will experience ourselves clearly as an all-pervading Presence. It is during these moments that one discover that the world and ourselves is not what it appears to be. And we suddenly understand what the ancients Sages from various traditions were talking about.

2. Being conditioned by societies' beliefs. Our upbringing very much demarcated what should be real and what's not. And this is supported by a very convincing structure based on scientific proving and visual/experiential validation.

Let me illustrate this point further... Since childhood, education and adults have been telling us what is correct and what is not. We all have been brainwashed to think like one another. As such our sense of identity has been influenced by our fed information and beliefs. Do you know that prior to any acquired learning, a child relates to the world very differently? Much of how we perceive the world is learnt... and is fundamentally different from our natural way of referencing. However, learnt ways are certainly not negative; it is just that modern societal influences tend to suppress and discourage certain in-born cognitive abilities such as intuitive clairvoyance. And intuitiveness is a necessary ingredient for efficient spiritual navigation.

3. We think we know it all. When we think we know it all. The thought of 'I know it all' will block us from knowing anything deeply. Why this that so? Because a 'know-it-all' will not seek to know deeply and therefore will not go deep enough...


Well, in a nutshell, you must make your own findings.

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Connor, a man in his late 40’s, has achieved everything he ever thought he needed to feel happy and secure. He owns a successful business, has a wonderful wife and two children, and a beautiful home. Yet when you look at him, he doesn’t look happy. He looks empty, with no sense of vibrancy about him.

His wife, Brianna. also has everything she ever wanted – a husband, children, financial security, successful work and a beautiful home. When you look at her, you see a person filled with aliveness and vitality, friendliness and joy.

What is the difference? Why are these two people, each who have the same outer things, so very different in their energy? The answer is that Brianna has a strong connection with God while Connor has no spiritual connection at all.

The longer I’ve worked as a counselor, the easier it has become for me to tell the difference between people who know and experience God and people who don’t. It is the difference between Connor and Brianna. It is the difference between being full from the inside or inwardly empty.

It’s not that Connor doesn’t want to experience God. He says he really wants to. He sees the difference between him and Brianna and he says he wants what she has. He sees his parents as empty and he says he doesn’t want to end up like them, with no sense of passion or purpose in their lives.

Yet Connor does not experience God, and the reason is simple: he places a higher priority on having control over money, employees, what people think of him, his wife, and his children than on being a loving human being. He says he wants to be loving, and the times he is loving he feels great, but it never lasts because his desire to control is greater than his desire to be loving. He is afraid if he is loving to himself and others his business will suffer, he will have less money, he will lose friends. His ego wounded self tells him that if he is open and loving, he will be taken advantage of, and that is the last thing he wants. So his primary intention is to protect against what he fears rather than to be loving.

God is love, the spirit of love, the energy of love. That love is always here for us when we open our heart. Our heart opens automatically when our intent is to learn what is loving to ourselves and others rather than protect against what we fear with our controlling behavior. To know God is to know Love. To know Love is to know God.

When Brianna looks at Connor with love, Connor feels afraid and turns away. If he opens to her love, he fears he will be vulnerable to being hurt. Maybe she won’t like what she sees if he is open and will reject him. Maybe she wants more than he wants to give. Maybe she just wants to suck the life out of him like his mother did. Protecting against his fears is more important to him than being loving and sharing love with Brianna. Brianna loves Connor but is often lonely with him because he is afraid to share love with her. Connor complains that he doesn’t feel good a lot of the time – he feels empty. He avoids his emptiness with food and TV, which doesn’t bring him joy.

Connor complains that he doesn’t know how to experience God. I tell him it’s not about how, it‘s about intent. When his deepest desire is to be loving rather than controlling, he will easily and naturally experience God. It’s all about intent. Our intent is what we have choice over. Our intent governs how we live, who we choose to be, how we behave. Our intent to love and learn about love opens our heart to the experience of God.

If you feel empty, consider that it may be more important to you to control than to love. If you know others who appear to be empty, consider that it may be more important to them to control than to love.

Opening to love does not mean that we will be vulnerable to being hurt, manipulated, taken advantage of. In fact, the opposite can happen: in experiencing God, we receive the wisdom and strength to know what is good or bad for us, what is right or wrong for us. In opening to God, we discover what is in our highest good. It is far safer than relying on our wounded ego self. Opening to the Love that is God through your intent to learn can bring you the deep sense of fullness and safety for which your heart and soul have always yearned.




 
 

Through the years, we accumulate a series of experiences. Our tendency is to evaluate and simply reflect on what we have been through and what we have learned. This inward site into what we can no longer see with our eyes allows us to see through them through our soul.

The landscape of the soul creates a movement and a synchronistic pattern between our heart and our mind through the inner visions of our soul. When the heart and imagination join forces to look back or look forward, we are deepening our awareness of who we really are. This deepening of who we really are is our soul.

It has been said that "our hearts will not rest until we rest in thee." This is our journey in life. It is our journey home. It is the journey into the spacial quality of existence that brought us into this world. It is the journey of what is leading us through this life. And, it is the journey back to where it all began.

One could say that the infant and the elderly are more soul than body. As you and I develop our personality and ego, we begin to think we are somebody. Ram Dass calls this "somebody training." We begin to think we are real and act on this appearance of being as we move into adulthood. When we mature, we go back into what Ram Dass has called "nobody training."

We spend a great deal of time learning to develop independence from infancy only to lose it again as we die. It is the journey from innocence to grace. The human expression is a journey with many ups and downs. What keeps us on tract and often sane in an insane world is the "landscape of the soul." The landscape of the soul gives us strength to do the impossible and give us hope when there is none.

Even though all parts of the self needs to be embraced with scrutiny and unconditional love, there is something inside us perfecting our true nature. Our authentic self knows we are growing through life and simply going through life at the same time. This delicate balance between these two forces of nature enables us to stay on our path. It is the path a knowing who we are through the various experiences and expressions of our life. Insodoing, we learn to trust in our soul and find direction there when direction in life is not present.
Samuel Oliver, author of, "What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living"