What Does It Mean to Manifest Your Deepest Joy?

Some popular spiritual teachings simplify our vast interconnection within a multidimensional, evolving whole by encouraging us to use our individual will to create our life.

I am all for the power of choice. But the choice we have I feel is different, and far more powerful than this.

This kind of willfulness will ultimately create suffering for those who attempt to live by it. The idea that we control circumstances is the other side of the coin of feeling like life’s victim. In both, we perceive life is happening to us.

Both exist within the perception of reality that we are divided from the whole. They suggest that we either must apply willfulness to overcome our lot in life and get what we want, or we become subject to life’s agenda imposed upon our desire for happiness.

Involved in a battle of wills between what we perceive as the will of the universe and our will, in both scenarios, we end up exhausted, and unfulfilled.

The extraordinary choice we have is in the ability to clearly see that our habits, that inform our perceptions, create the paradigm of our lives. They are the lens through which we experience our version of reality.

All the while, life, as pure consciousness, arises. It is an effervescence that bubbles in each moment, beyond the grip of our personal agenda.

Most of us are busy imposing our thoughts, will and desires onto this moment, trying to direct how things should be, rather than meeting what is. We miss this effervescence and vitality, because we fight the perception that we need to make what we want come true, or experience perennial unhappiness.

We have powerful choice in each moment to step out of this divisive perception into understanding that we are always within the loving whole. We are one with the universe that vibrates at the frequency of joy.

So what and who is this “me” that we believe is creating?

It is our illusionary attachment that perpetuates the lens through which we see life. It tells us that we are separate, divided and must want in order to finally get the fullness we seek.

When you understand your role in the universe and the role and power of your personal will, the notion that you “create your reality” is subtly powerful. It is not for those who wish to experience the death of the ego instead of fueling its need to feel validated or in control.

From ash to ash and dust to dust, all the material gain and fame in the world will not bring us happiness. Manifested form comes and goes. It is impermanent.

We each must meet our personal destiny and let go of our belief that we are separate from the whole. As we do so, we return to the greater will of the universe that unfolds in perfect harmony, in each moment.

We then realize that our greatest joy, our deepest manifestation is already happening right now, in perfect flow with life as a whole.

When we experience challenges in life, we may believe we manifested hardships and have not properly created our reality. Seeing life through a divisive lens, we take it as a sign that we need to fine-tune our ideas of being the doer, and work harder.

When we see ourselves within a loving whole, we meet challenges as opportunities to soften to the love, the joy, the beauty that is right here and now.

We need to apply effort in the activities that make up our lives and to realize our full potential. But we do so by softening and aligning with a force that is already here, rather than striving to gain power through some distant idea of perfection.

Should worldly recognition or wealth come our way, we must not think we did it. This would be to get attached to ourselves as the doers, putting our ego in the driver’s seat and making us separate from the whole.

The flower that blooms does not think: “Wow! Look at how great I bloomed!”

It simply is, in all its splendour.

All worldly things will come and go. What lasts is our ability to manifest our unending interconnection to a loving whole, of which we are an integral part, so that we may witness our magnificent, eternal selves flowering as the divine light we are.

Thank you for reading! All my music, yoga and words are dedicated to MAPS, the Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary. MAPS is an urgently needed global intervention to protect the polar ice that keeps our planet cool and weather stable. The ice caps ensure we have the food and water we all need to survive. Please support MAPS at Parvati.org for the sake of all life on Earth. From my heart to yours, it literally means the world.

Image credit: Jeff Gerald

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