Deep within you is the knowledge of what you are in this life, to realize, embody and fulfill.

This inner wisdom lies deep within the memory track of our being—called in wisdom traditions: the soul.

The soul knows the direction to follow; the choice to make when you are at the crossroads. Our souls are our guides. How can we attune to and follow the inner guidance?

Spiritual practice develops our capacity to attune to inner wisdom.

Through spiritual practice, we open to the ever-present invitation of life: to be free, whole and happy here and now.

It sounds so simple.

So the mind objects:

“What about my problems?”
“What about the world’s problems?”

It’s curious how the mind believes that embracing freedom and happiness in this moment will leave problems to fester and grow; that accepting life’s invitation to be whole in this moment will cause us to neglect the world.

If we reflect on our experiences, I’m sure, we’ll see how skillful action arises from a prior connection to peace and wholeness; how sustainable solutions always arise from awareness of fundamental goodness and innate well-being.

 

 

Spiritual practice allows us to act from wisdom, not compulsion.

Life will constantly present us with opportunities to let go of conditioning; to discover how to act from well-being, compassion and courage. These opportunities will arise, whether we meditate or not.

But, how these opportunities appear will be vastly different for the meditator and the conditioned personality.

The meditator:

• Actively attunes to well-being, wholeness, and wisdom
• Recognizes life conditions/challenges as invitations to awaken

For the conditioned personality, life is a series of events that are either pleasurable or painful. Conditioning is fixated on the most surface level of being:

• Trying to control or avoid the changing patterns of events
• Compelled to action by reactive emotions

When consciousness resides on the surface of being it cannot discern the guidance of inner wisdom and the path to a more fulfilled life. The conditioned mind’s solutions are always predicated on a sense of lack, not-enough-ness, and struggle.

There’s nothing to judge in all of this.

It’s part of the learning process. Because, after enough struggling, awareness dawns. Consciousness begins, haltingly, and then persistently, to recognize that trying to control, avoid, or manipulate life is futile. The fundamental unsatisfactoriness that accompanies surface living becomes obvious.

As this recognition dawns, consciousness begins to seek another way to live.

The wisdom traditions suggest that it can take eons of struggle, countless cycles on the churning wheel of unsatisfactoriness—before consciousness begins to awaken.

This is where meditation becomes so important.

Meditation is the facilitator of awakening.

Meditation practice intentionally shifts our center of consciousness from the surface to the depths. Through practice, we progressively open to and align with life’s awakening agenda. We discover and re-discover, in every moment, that our lives are more than a sequence of surface events; more than a struggle.

Your life is awakening itself.

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

Images: Author’s own, elephant journal archives