Spiritual Perseverance
~By Beloved

Deep within the psyche of humankind is the capacity, ability and drive to persevere. Although developed and genetically stored as a survival tool, it has become a spiritual ascension tool.

In the spiritual evolution of man, survival often meant you had to keep your beliefs under wraps. Truth cost lives, trials, torture, death and even wars. It wasn’t safe to believe in God; specifically your own version of God. And, it wasn’t allowed socially- so at the very least, you could be shamed, ostracized and shunned from your family and community.

Although there are still many people who do not yet feel free to express their individual beliefs spiritually, in this country, we have the right and opportunity to explore, refine and re-define our views and feelings.

As this freedom has opened the doors of heaven, so to speak, we find ourselves now in a spiritual explosion. This is a good thing! We have expos, workshops, techniques, healing modalities, therapies, products, etc., that all support the exploration of our body, mind, Spirit connection. We are encouraged to expand our thinking, feeling, knowing and experience through not only our five physical senses, but also through our inner/subtle/multi-dimensional selves.

All this brings us to a new way of persevering. We are forging pathways to truth. We are finding ourselves developing the ability to discern what is right for our next steps in spiritual growth, what feeds our soul and makes our hearts sing. The joy of our heart and the fullness and flow of life from this place becomes our crusade.

How blessed we are to have the freedom, time and energy to explore ourselves. So much of the world is still deeply involved with survival. From this point of gratitude, we can see that there are many people in the trenches of life who persevere with their beliefs; religious and spiritual, to carry them through. They may even say it is their faith in those beliefs and their God that does the carrying.

This brings us back to the place where many, and I venture to say where most, of us reading this are – in the lap of spiritual luxury. We get to choose, to ponder, to play with our spirituality. We can go into a workshop, a place of worship, a book, the woods, ourselves, another’s eyes, or even the mall, and find God. We aren’t limited, we are free! We are soaring with the discoveries we are making within.

So, we persevere. We may not know where we are going or exactly what we are looking for, but we seek and search. What is it we are hoping to find? A bigger, deeper, more exciting or expanded experience of God? Ourselves? Each other? The world? Yes, yes, and YES!! Of course. And, why not?

Which brings us to unity. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you, you get what you ask for. We are all going Home. Whatever we believe, whatever pictures we paint in our minds, however diverse our journeys, we are riding One train- all roads lead to Mecca. You get the point- however different we are in thought and living, we are one humanity.

So, as we persevere as infinite expressions of the One, we may find we are already that which we seek, or we may continue to explore, seek and search for the unlimited and multi-faceted expressions of ourselves.

As we honor what we are moving toward and the universal journey we share, whatever our beliefs in God, Spirit, universal life force, we can choose to be loving, gentle, powerful and joyous expressions of unfolding life. We can consciously influence through intention, thoughts, word and deed, all our experience.

We can become the thousand petaled lotus in infinite bloom. We ascend into the depths of our divinity. We create Heaven on Earth with each person, with each choice, as we spiritually persevere.