Pathways Magazine_Summer 2021

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

Cracking the Chrysalis... ...continued from page 29

ignite with the fire of Spirit: to recognize we are just as spiritu - al, just as essentially perfect as we ever can be. It is up to each of us to be and share that knowing with others. It’s a time to turn off WIIFM (the “what’s in it for me” radio station) and tune into the values and qualities that make this human experience a gift. Start by consciously choosing to change how you relate to the world around you. There’s a very interesting and sometimes challenging practice that I like to call, “don’t just do something, sit there.” Sit there long enough to open to the Divine Within. When you encounter a chal- lenge, don’t default to habit. Choose NOT to deal with your circum- stances, however tempting that may be. Rather, deal with your inner experience. Center yourself and then, fromthat calmcenter choose how you are to respond to circumstance, remaining clear that circumstanc- es do not control you. You control how you work with circumstances. I invite you to join me in my commitment to do my part to create a world that works for everyone—in which all creation is honored, and in which each person is seen and heard and valued. A world in which we learn from one another. The journey begins by “doing our own work” so we are able to make a difference universally. Join me in walk - ing the path called out in the Prayer of St Francis (slightly modified): Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred...let me sow love

self-concept. It doesn’t match who or what the world says we are. By the way, our first and most limiting mistake is to accept the world’s opinion of who/what we are! There is within you (within each of us) a “divine prototype” … the person that Spirit is expressing … the im - age and likeness of God. When we subject ourselves to being designed by others, we are constructing obstacles between our human selves and our most magnificent experience of Spirit as us. Because we par - ticipated in constructing these blockages embracing human opinion, we have proven we have the means—our minds—to dismantle them. The call to transform is the call of Spirit within to align with our Spiritual Truth. It is not a call to build a new you. Nor are you be - ing called to make temporary changes to make it easier to fit into the world around you. The call to transform is the call to come home to being fully alive. The call is to return to our natural state. In his song, “I Return,” David Ault captures what it’s all about: Transformation is a moving inward to fully awaken to being the presence of Love. As Love we are then to function in the world—em - issaries of the most powerful healing force in the universe. In many ways, serving as bodhisattvas—those who when presented with the option to move on to Nirvana or return to the world of form to bring light, love and compassion—they have opted to be here now. Transformation is the return to a clarity of purpose, to a path of simplicity that can thrive within the chaos that often accompa- nies this human journey. It calls us to inspire, to breathe in and I return… to the source of my creation, opening to my place of transformation. Now I see - Love lives in me.

Where there is injury...pardon Where there is doubt...faith Where there is despair...hope Where there is darkness...light Where there is sadness...joy

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30—PATHWAYS—Summer 21

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