A CALL TO SPIRITUAL WARRIORS
"We are no doubt at a very critical point in time. Our world hangs in the balance, and a precarious balance it is. Awakening to Reality is no longer a possibility; it is an imperative. We have sailed the ship of delusion about as far as she can carry us.
We have run her ashore and now find ourselves shipwrecked on an increasingly desolate land. Our options have imploded. 'Wake up or perish' is the spiritual call of our times. Did we ever need more motivation than this? And yet all is eternally well, and more well than can be imagined." Adyashanti
We are here in the experiential realm at a time like no other. It is a time where it is essential to awaken to what is going on in the experiential as well as Awaken to the Ultimate Truth of our beings, the One, the I Am. It is an amazing challenge to be able to hold this paradox and, at the same time, incredibly freeing. We were made for these times, all of us, but especially the spiritual warriors among us. The collective human experience, as well as the earth, the animals, the plants and the insects all need us to hold our connection to Ultimate Truth while facing the truth of all that is being experienced in this dream of chaos.
There are some of us on the spiritual path who have not only had amazing heightened experiences but have had to go through grueling rites of passages, one after the other. Personally, I have wondered why, what is this about? Why, as a person devoted to Awakening am I still being pushed, challenged while living in a state of Grace, of Silence and surrender. Those of us experiencing this have lived the life of the spiritual athlete. We are tried and True. Our spiritual muscles are developed and strong. We can face the scariest of situations, feel fear and yet, we are silent inside. We can face the worldly truth and stay in spiritual Truth. In the realm of time, our time has come. We are needed. An earthquake is building and a spiritual connection to Reality is desperately needed. I don’t know if you feel it but there is a spiritual war going on, an attempt to shut our connection down. It is time to soldier up and commit to our connection to Reality like never before. That is true for all of us on the spiritual path. All of us are needed. The path to Awakening has never been more important. In terms of Ultimate Reality this is an illusion of course, a dream, but that doesn’t excuse any one. We are here participating in the play, ultimately the Divine comedy and we are essential actors in the play and we must keep the portal to Reality open. I know, I know, it’s all God, it’s all the great I AM and nothing can shut it down. Still, we have a role to play and we must play it with steadfast courage and absolute commitment. I am not in the least bit being dramatic. No matter what your experiences have been, no matter where on the path you are, if you are spiritual you are needed. As Adyashanti says “Awakening to Reality is no longer a possibility; it is an imperative.”
I am of the belief that not only do we need to Awaken spiritually; we need to awaken within the dream out of the global hypnosis. Yes the ultimate hypnosis is that this experience is real. I am referring to the hypnosis within that hypnosis. I recently thanked my Awake/awake friend for prompting me out of the collective hypnosis. It is rough to see what is actually going on in this dream but we can only take care of ourselves if we know. Being under hypnosis is, on a certain level, shut down and personally I want to be wide open. I am sorry I am being vague here but it is not my job to remove anyone’s denial. That is up to everyone individually. Stephen Levine, the author of ‘Who Dies’, once said that taking away someone’s denial is cruel. I have certainly been tested with this in the last few years!
So what does it mean to me to be a spiritual warrior? For me it has meant that no matter how spiritually unmotivated or apathetic I may feel at any time I need to meditate, pray, read spiritual material, pay attention to the Silence, to be the Awareness. I have put signs around the house to remind me to be the Awareness, to listen to the silence. I have also been guided into radical surrender, to the point of even surrendering the very act of surrender. The spiritual war is both energetic and physical. Energetically it thrives on creating negativity and negative emotions. When I feel anxious, fearful or depressed and can’t seem to get out of it I catch myself and tell myself turning this around is not my job it is the job of Omnipotent Love. Before I know it, the feelings are gone and I feel strong again. The warrior stays in their power with negativity, stands up to it and surrenders it. Surrendering can also be the process of hanging out with your feelings as I described in my article ‘A New Relationship to Difficult Feelings’. Another thing to check in with is to ask if the low feelings you are having are yours. There is a tremendous amount of suffering in the world and many of us are empaths. It does not help anyone to carry their feelings. Keep those that are suffering in your beautiful hearts and know the absolute Truth for them, which in my book is prayer.
A healthy relationship to difficult feelings is strength building and the ability to turn them around and have a positive attitude is one of the highest forms of battle in the energetic realm. I know, positive attitude and battle don’t seem to fit but our energetic weapons are Truth, light, love, laughter and smiles against a force that is creating suffering, fear, depression and anxiety. Energy is a powerful creative force and it only takes a single candle to dispel the darkness of an entire room. I try to remember to start every day with the statement ‘this is the best day ever’. It has magical powers. I must mention here that when I speak of positivity I am not talking about taking a Pollyanna stance of putting blinders on. I am talking about staying as positive as you can while facing the truth of what’s going on in this dream of ours. Can we stand facing the truth of what is going on and know that the Real Truth is that this is all God and God is Love and that Love is the only True power. A questioner asked Ramana Maharshi why there is suffering and Ramana responded “Suffering is the way for Realization of God.” Let us remember to use suffering for its purpose, to remind us to Awaken to Reality.
Surrender has been my gym, the place that has developed my spiritual muscles the most. I know it is counter intuitive that surrender should be the way of the warrior. ‘I of mine own self can do nothing’ has never been more relevant. When it is too big for ‘little I’ then the only thing that can be done is to surrender to the ‘I AM’. My practice has taken me into surrendering many of the smaller aspects of life and it has developed the trust that Grace has my back and has made me spiritually strong. I highly recommend this. If you are not a surrender athlete start with the small weights, surrender the daily, the mundane. Surrender surrendering. Ultimately the way of the warrior is to know you can jump out of the plane and Grace will open the parachute. Sometimes it means hanging out with the fear of jumping but still making the leap. And sometimes it means taking that leap, knowing it’s what is right even though the collective says don’t jump and judges you for doing it. Being a spiritual warrior can, at times, be a lonely undertaking, but it is a noble one and my experience has been that it has funneled me to an, albeit small, amazing tribe. I feel incredibly blessed by the caliber and quality of friendships I now have. This has been a theme for me though, the more I follow what feels true for me, and surrender to Love, no matter what anyone else believes to be true, the more refined and Grace filled my life has become in the deepest ways. I have probably said it before but it is worth repeating here in the context of the warrior. If I am getting ready to jump out of that plane I say if this action is aligned with Divine purpose nothing will stop me from carrying it out. If it is not aligned there is no way it will happen. This is another form of surrender. You must be willing to do what you may not want to do or not do what you want to do. Omniscience knows what the big picture is.
This war is definitely physical also. You intuitively know how to best take care of yourself. This assault is extraordinary so I recommend getting informed.
Ultimately All is well. Love and Grace is All. Be the Light. Be the I Am. Be the Awareness. God wins in the end because there is only God and there is nothing to win.
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Collage by Katherine Treffinger with gratitude to the artists who originally created the images. This is a very old form of my creativity but it felt right for this article. Art of Katherine Treffinger