With the world in such turmoil, have you ever found yourself saying, ‘Stop the world, I want to get off?’ Sometimes the challenges that life presents seem too hard to bear and we yearn for peace and a life free from strife. And yet, there are so many people who are resigned to the choices they make, not realising they can actually make other choices, or simply don’t want to make them.
The journey of Life is a little like going on a river cruise. We leave our home and travel to where the cruise begins. After the boat leaves the harbour, we experience all the wonderful things the cruise has to offer: good food, good wine, different forms of entertainment to make our trip pleasant and enjoyable. But sometimes we can experience too much of a good thing. Without any challenges, life on board the boat—doing the same things over and over—becomes rather dull until we decide what we really want to experience along the way. When the boat moors at different harbours, we leave the comfort of the boat to experience what we have chosen and planned. At the end of each day, we climb back on board and discuss our experiences with other passengers or have a good rest, gearing ourselves up for the next set of adventures on the following day.
In our individual lives it’s much the same. We come to the planet Earth from our spiritual home on higher planes to experience a different dimension and all it has to offer. There is the need to grow in knowledge and wisdom through experiences on the physical plane, and so we make prior arrangements to take up a life that will help us achieve our spiritual goals. We then incarnate into a baby’s body, grow up, and meet the challenges we have decided upon prior to incarnation. When all is done, we return ‘home’ to assess what was achieved in the past lifetime and what further work is required in the future. We rest and once again take up life in the Spiritual Realm, until we are ready for the next lifetime whose experiences will take us further along the path on our never-ending journey towards the full awakening of Spirit.
Before incarnation, we decide with the help of our Elders what is most needed for our spiritual development. In the process we choose our parents, the physical environment, and all those with whom we will come into contact in order to provide the best conditions for the working out of our soul’s plans, but we are not shown the outcome of the experiences we have chosen. The challenge of each new embodiment is to make choices at each step. It’s like one of those books where you are given a situation to work out and have three choices as to what you will do next; each choice leads to three more choices and so on until you reach the end of the book. And so, there are many possible outcomes of the original plan. If we wish, we can also start again and make different choices, until we are familiar with every possible experience and can wisely decide which choice has the best outcome.
The good news is that we are on a journey that never ends until we reach enlightenment. Life continues with unlimited opportunities to experience the results of every choice we make, until we reach a state of mastery on the physical plane. It’s up to us as to how long our journey takes to reach full realisation; how many times we need to experience the same story until we ‘get it’ and begin to make choices that will set us free from the suffering that results from wrong choices made in ignorance. When all experiences are mastered and we have learned to bring love to every situation in which we find ourselves, we are then free to move on to far greater experiences.
We are told that we don’t need to change the world, only our thoughts about the world, i.e. only ourselves and how we experience the world. It’s generally not obvious that we ourselves create the events in our lives, because the effects that we cause aren’t usually visible immediately on this plane. The results of our thoughts and actions can take days, weeks, or even years to become evident to us. Everything we think, believe and expect is eventually reflected in our outer world. It’s as though we are living in floating bubbles and the walls reflect our thoughts and beliefs in vivid technicolour; these colours affect our lives in varying degrees when we come into contact with each other. It’s similar to dropping a pebble in a pond that creates ripples which travel to a distant shoreline. The ripples we create seem so real, but they are only waves triggered by thoughts that can be adjusted easily enough with a change of mind. So instead of creating and dwelling on negative thoughts, it is far better to create waves of peace and beauty and to nurture them into reality.
It’s difficult for us to realise that we are living a ‘planned illusion’ because everything feels so solid on this plane. But if it really were solid and set in concrete, we would not be able to change anything at all. At every moment we are experiencing the effects of choices that were frequently based on our limited belief systems. But we are learning that we can always make different choices and that we, as human beings, have far more potential than we realise.
In this day and age, there are those who can achieve what most of us would consider impossible. The renowned magician, Dynamo, for example, can walk on water and translocate—be in one building and in the next minute be buildings away. He walks vertically up walls, disappears, flies over people’s heads, causes water to move from a waterfall into a wine glass, and many other amazing feats. (One can witness his activities on the internet). When he walks on water to the middle of the River Thames and a police boat comes to pick him up, it’s clear that his acts are ‘real.’ It all boils down to what we believe is possible. There’s so much more to life than we realise—so much human potential that we have yet to develop.
So, rather than wanting to stop the world to get off, let’s look forward to the amazing opportunities life has to offer and let us meet the challenges with wisdom, understanding, joyful anticipation and gratitude. We are living in exciting times.
~ NWOL.US