Being Whole
(The Nature of Spirituality)
Bliss
Ancient Eastern scriptures and modern Western healers (Jung, Kubler-Ross) have explained an easily understandable map to expand the quality of our lives. They used a circle divided into four equal quadrants. Each one represents an aspect of us. The first quadrant is the physical. It urges us to take care of our physical body. The second quadrant represents our mental or intellectual aspect, where our society likes to excel. The third quadrant has been underplayed. It is our emotional aspect, this is where much of our healing work is done. We must go back, in Stage Two, and connect to our earlier (or sometimes recent) trauma on an emotional level.
If we were traumatized as children, we usually weren’t given the opportunity to feel and express our hurt, name it and then grieve it so we could eventually let it go. Instead, we held it in and numbed out to it. Now, through our recovery, we exercise our third quadrant – our emotional aspect. And, when all three aspects – physical, emotional and intellectual are in balance – the fourth quadrant, according to Eastern scriptures, will easily activate. It is the Spiritual—not as an intellectual decision – but as an experiential connection.
During all stages of recovery, it is to our benefit to work on our physical as well as our emotional and mental state. I will stretch this to include my own experience of bliss by diving into my weakest quadrant – the physical – and working out at a gym in increasing intensity until I went beyond what I “thought” I was capable of. (My trainer also suggested a nutritional plan that is not only healthy but has given me abundant energy.)
What aspect of the four – physical, mental, emotional or spiritual—is your least developed? This is where your bliss may lie.
Ecstasy
Perhaps in this lifetime we can travel even further spiritually then we thought we were capable of by re-examining how far our beliefs are taking or possibly inhibiting us. Is it possible to experience ecstasy without a chemical intermediary? My experience says, “Yes!” Natural highs are built-in to our being. It is our natural birthright. And Stage Three opens the door – with the experiential understanding that we really are spirits here in a physical body. We were spirit before we were born and we will be pure spirit again after this body that is only part of who we are-- dies. Once we understand that, we are ready to expand our beliefs to include ecstasy and bliss as feelings we human spirits deserve and are naturally capable of experiencing
In Stage Two, we may have developed an experiential relationship with our Higher Self and Higher Power through prayer and meditation. And as our healing progressed we may have experientially learned to trust that relationship. We learned to co-create our healing with our Higher Self and Higher Power. The relationship among these three, True Self, Higher Self, and Higher Power, is so important that we can even consider them as being not just one single partnership/relationship but that they may be one single person, which Charles Whitfield has called “The Sacred Person.”
Higher Self or Spirit is connected to Higher Power so now we feel this connection in a stronger way and with it experience our life force energy and creativity flowing -- we move into contentment and are able to invite Spirit in -- into our being so we now experience It within us. We may even expand this partnership to include artistic endeavors – co-creating original poetry, paintings, music etc.
In the past we gratefully asked our Higher Self to “co-create” with us but now, as a Sacred Person we may take full responsibility for our creations. We can gently and humbly take responsibility for all the good things we have created in our life. In doing so we have opened to Spirit to join with us – become one with us – and create. And, we know the only thing that stood in our way before this was that Spirit needed to be invited in. The process is the same as when we co-created in the past-- but now we take greater responsibility for our work and therefore, create more self-empowerment.
Time and Timelessness
At the same time, there is no need to rush. We realize experientially that linear time is a construct of our intellect and has moved us to living on a horizontal line. With spirituality we are connected in a vertical relationship with spirit and experience time in a vertical fashion that reveals a sense of the eternal Now. We are like the giant oak tree – roots planted firmly in our physical body and our spirit reaching like the huge branches stretching up to meet the heavens. We still meet our appointments on time but our perception of time changes to give us a peaceful experience where we can focus on the task at hand and be totally present with it.
We have worked hard to heal our wounds and in its place comes so much more than we could have ever predicted. At this time in our own evolution, gratitude and humility give us a constant renewal that allows us to feel the overflowing abundance of the Universe. All our striving to become who God meant us to be -- happens. As our physical being and our spirit become one, our journey and destination become one—demonstrating the truth about duality and polarity. It was all an illusion. We are One, and separation collapses. We re-member who we are and we are home. Even the belief in heaven after this lifetime recedes as we experience creating heaven here.
Creation
Now, it is time to realize that we are continuously creating our own reality instead of walking into one created for us by others or by default.
It is here that our ecstasy lies. When we invite spirit – Higher Self – into our conscious physical being – it brings with it – what we have craved our entire life. We humans who at our core are spirit – need our root spiritual feelings – bliss and ecstasy. We naturally are spirit—and bliss and ecstasy are spirit’s natural state when it enlivens a human being.
We are now creating our destiny (no longer separating our self from our spirit in the belief of co-creating.) We re-member our powers of manifestation and create our version of Heaven on Earth. No longer do we ask in prayer for what we want. We now proclaim gratitude for all we have because instead of craving things – we witness the abundance surrounding us. As we accomplish this, we automatically empower those around us and everyone wins.
Both sides of the veil celebrate because:
