Thought for the Week
Our own experience is our best teacher, in other words, we learn best by experiencing things ourselves. We can be taught about things and told what to expect when certain things happen but until we actually have the experience ourselves we really don't know.
For example, we can be told about the taste of ginger, we can learn how it grows, where it comes from, how to use it, but until we taste it ourselves, we really have no idea of its flavour. We can get excellent instructions from a herbalist, a health practitioner, or a renowned chef. All their instructions cannot give us the taste of ginger. Only when we experience it ourselves can we truly know how it tastes.
When we move this thinking on to spiritual things the same rule applies. We can get lots of guidance and advice from teachers, priests, sages, masters and gurus, but until we have the experience of whatever they are teaching us, we are really not going to know what they are talking about. Some of these teachers haven't experienced the subject they teach and are just passing on information they've read. We can listen to teachers and get some idea of the point being discussed but there is no way we can experience it through their words.
We could be discussing out of body travel, with one person explaining their experience of an accident where they left their body and another using their daydreaming experience as a comparison. Both are real spiritual experiences but one is likely to be dramatic and the other quiet natural. One could be a life changing event, the other a regular part of daily life.
The thing to be aware of is that we are having spiritual experiences all the time. We are constantly using our inner selves to manage and survive in our physical lives. The reason we have a physical life is to discover our spiritual life. By experiencing life and all it has to offer we eventually come to the realisation that love is the key to a happier life. When we’ve spent enough time with hate, power, greed and violence we begin to realise they do not make us happy. The promise of happiness through using them is false.
When we daydream we are going within ourselves to explore. That is, we have gone to a different place other than our physical location using our imagination. This is a spiritual experience.
When we dream we are operating in our dream worlds, another spiritual world.
Coincidences, synchronicity and convenient accidents all point to another power or influence in our lives. Could these events be manipulated by spirit?
All these are evidence that we have a spiritual life. They are all part of daily life too, we just need to stop and take note of them. If we can build up an awareness of them we will begin to slip into the flow of life. We will be able to see the messages and signals from our inner selves in our physical world.
By opening our awareness to these spiritual elements we become conscious of our spiritual experiences. We can begin to consciously have our own experiences and learn what we need to know to have a happy and fruitful life. The key is to learn from these experiences. Learn the reason for our life, learn to be happy and learn about love.
Lots of Love
*Ed Parkinson
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