- look for ways to strengthen our
connection with the universe
Cultivating spiritual
strength
We all know the importance of
physical exercise and diet for our physical fitness. We all know it is
important to be mindful, to be aware of the thoughts we are thinking and to
try and be more positive mentally.
But real spiritual strength is something we generally do not understand. We
see inspirational people who seem able to, no matter what the calamity, sail
through with calmness and equanimity, even taking such events as lessons or
blessings. They seem strong, serene in their certainty, powerful in their
sureness.
How do we become strong, what muscles need to be exercised for us to be
spiritually tough?
There is a really simple explanation here.
Spiritual
strength is dictated by the number of souls we love with the fewest
conditions and expectations.
This includes every soul, every particle of
matter and beyond -
rocks, plants, animals, humans everything.
Let's be clear, this in no way
suggests anything other than monogamy with our partners. But in our society
we are spiritually very weak because we
advocate just a few expressions of love, basically within the family and
usually no further. The family relationships and even our partner
relationships should be a tiny percentage of the ways we experience love.
For most of us, 99%
of love is with our partner and
family and 1% elsewhere, whereas for us to be spiritually strong it should
be 1% at home and 99% elsewhere. That is not to say that we should love our
partner or family less, but rather everything else should be loved more. Our
partner, our family, should be the example of the unconditional love that we
want to radiate to everyone and every thing.
You might begin to see how this would make us stronger. Let us say we have a
relationship problem with a member of our family. In the model where it is
one of the few ways we experience love, it would become a huge event, an all
consuming soap-opera like that would deplete us and negatively affect our
emotional state. Taken a step further, if the problem was with our partner,
perhaps following on into real conflict, than this might result in an
emotional and spiritual meltdown.
If we are able to have many ways that we experience love, multiple points of
connection to the flow of love, then we become truly resilient,
authentically and spiritually strong. The more points of connection, the
stronger we are, the more God-like or like the universe we are.
Imagine yourself alone on a
mountaintop. You are enveloped by a sphere of light.
Take a moment to reflect on the greatest love of your life.
Perhaps it is your partner, perhaps it is your sport, perhaps it is your
children or your parents, your pets, nature, art or music - whatever
it is take a moment to genuinely and objectively explore how that love is
important to you in your life. As you reflect in this way see a shaft of light
from the heavens piercing your sphere of light and illumining it. This is your
first point of connection.
Then find one moment, one time in your life, where you felt the greatest love.
Be there. Breathe it in. Expand it in this moment. See that shaft of light
growing in intensity and filling your heart with love.
Ponder the shape of that love, how you can make it more unconditional with less
expectations, how you can make it connect even more powerfully with the love of
the entire universe or God.
Then look at all the ways you experience love in your life and imagine how you
could expand them to be as intense as this. As you ponder each one see another
shaft of light from the heavens piercing your sphere, opening yourself to more
and more points of connection to the universe in this moment, now.
Then find more ways. Realise that more and more points of connection to the flow
of love are opened with each moment of gratitude.
Find gratitude in what has happened, what will happen and most importantly what
is now. If you get this, you will find there is nothing that is not a point of
connection. Your sphere will become completely encased in more and more shafts
of light and love until your love will be whole and effortless and your sphere
completely opened in every way to the infinite light and love all around us in
every moment.
