How many of us have had moments in our lives where we have tried to escape certain qualities of ourselves by doing different things, only to find ourselves unable to escape the condition, unable to escape our present nature, so that finally the day comes where there's no escaping it, but there's no living with it either? And in the moment, we can no longer resist our own character based on the assumption that we ought not be that kind of human being. All there is, is what there is.
And in that moment, after you go through a crisis that you can't answer for yourself, do you not exit the crisis recognizing that what you thought was the crisis wasn't the crisis, and that you have become a different human being because you finally couldn't answer it? Basically, you just stop running. You found a new world that was already and always in you.
All the new worlds always are already within us, but the entrance into them is by walking through the world that we're in. The way out is through... always. And the greatest point of resistance, the moment of its greatest intensity, is always just prior to the moment of transition. Just as when a plane is about to break the sound barrier, resistance and release are connected. It is the same moment where two worlds meet. But we never find the release part because we always turn when the resistance hits the highest threshold.
If we are willing to examine it, we can see that there have always been these moments when life said, "If you want this, you're going to have to go through that." And because we wanted this, we went through that. But at a certain point, it doesn't make sense to us anymore to go through it, and we start the process of dying. And the reason we start the process of dying is because we stop entering into new worlds.
The minute that life becomes a series of sheer repetitions that are tolerated because there's a promise in them that maybe we'll be different tomorrow, then our life becomes this terrible road that leads to nowhere. And feeling that, we give up trying, which means we've dropped out of the potential of letting something greater than ourselves modify us so that some new form comes out of it.
So whether I see it or not, I go as far as I'm comfortable going and then stop when I get uncomfortable. There's a pain present in my life, and I don't think I can bear it. I'm thinking about making changes in my life, and as soon as I start thinking about that, I feel the pain more acutely. The pain tells me that I mustn't try to make the change. Why does the pain tell me I mustn't make the change? Because the pain belongs to who I've been, and who I've been doesn't want to lose "me." So here I am, and I always run into pain. I always run into something that says, "That's as far as you go." Whether it's my energy, whether it's what I understand, whether it's the possibility I think for a relationship I might have, it makes no difference.
When I've walked far enough -- and this is beautiful, not troubling -- I see that the resistance is part of the journey. In fact, without it, there's no other world, because that understanding that I have to pass through this resistance is the same as understanding that something has to unite me, something has to bring together in myself that which I have not been able to bring together. And I'll always know that moment when the most pain is present. Now, with this new understanding, I persist.
That moment where resistance reaches its greatest intensity -- the moment where the conscious suffering reaches its highest point -- is the point at which this structure of self, this active and passive part that has always been modified by its own content, reaches a moment where, under law, it must collapse into itself; it must pass through itself. And in that moment of terrible intensity, the resistance that I feel, I pass through it. But I don't just pass through it into a world of the same making; I pass into a world that was made anew because I was willing to let the world within myself be made anew by my willingness to persist through what I have mostly avoided all of my life.
This is a process of discovery. This is a process of exploration. It is an act of intuition and a willingness to act on and, if you will, to enable yourself to discover whether or not there is a world waiting for you that is not limited by the present world you live in. You must find it for yourself. This part of us that wants to change and this part of us that doesn't want to change, these two forces were made by a Great God, and that Great God sowed into those forces that which modifies them and reconciles them. And that is an eternal ladder.
Our participation has to be with understanding -- and then agreeing, giving our will to -- that which reconciles. "Father, not my will be done, but Thy will be done." "Thy will be done" means "I will let You do with me what You will do with me. I will not do what I've always done, which is to run from whatever I run into that resists me." This is practical and highly spiritual at the same time. It's a billion-dollar secret if you want to make money in this world. But it's also a secret that can lead you to a world where the wealth of it has nothing to do with anything that you put in your pockets, but rather what you've become for your willingness to embrace it.
4 Ways to Develop and Deepen Your Relationship With the Divine
1: To grow into a new and higher order of peace we must remember at the first sign of resisting some unwanted moment that we must work to detect and dismiss any tendency we have to identify with that negative reaction.
HOW? Instead of being the passive instrument of those dark thoughts or feelings that have come to justify that pain, we work -- in deed -- to be the active, impersonal observer of it... that we might embody a new Will that can't act against itself.
2: To grow into a new and higher order of faith we must work to remember this truth, and then ground ourselves in it as best we can: the limit of our present view in these moments is not the limit of our possibilities; and then deliberately, consciously test the reality of any resistance we may feel to that moment.
HOW? Work -- in deed -- to at least attempt to take one step past what we are sure was the end of what we can do. The way out is through. Find out!
3: To grow into a new and higher order of compassion we must work to remember that we are not the only ones who suffer.
HOW? Work -- in deed -- to practice being consciously patient with whatever may be the unpleasant manifestations of others. So that before we blame anyone or anything for our negativity, to bring that painful reaction into the awareness of ourself... that we might suffer ourselves before we blame others.
4: To grow into a new and higher order of wisdom we must remember to be fully present to the lesson in every moment, especially the ones we don't want... that have come to give us an insight intended to reveal, and then help release us from our dependency on failed, or otherwise incomplete beliefs.
HOW? Work -- in deed -- to remember, no matter what, our first task is to work in the garden of the revelation, rain or shine.
