When friends feel troubled, what they are going through is just another step on the path of spiritual Self realization, and peace of mind lies just a few more steps down the journey. I speak to so many people each week that I’m able to see patterns of thought and behavior. A friend this week feels suddenly detached and isolated. I explained that’s the good news, and it’s just the next step on the Path: Feeling detached allows us to enter into the “observer” state. When life brings a lot of pressure to bear, we begin to feel compressed and over burdened. In past days, our remedy was to gather with friends and find distractions. At this stage, that no longer appeases us. Feet firmly on the Path, the first thought is to back off from friends and isolate. There is a reason for this.
You begin to feel isolated and alone, even among people. No one understands, there’s no one you can talk to. You feel everyone has forsaken you, even God if there is even one of those. My remedy in this work with friends is to have them write about it while in the emotion of it. That gives you a roadmap from where you are now to where you will be when you’ve overcome the situation. Once you’ve resolved the challenge, add that part of the story to what you wrote about the problem. If there are issues not yet ready to address; this is when they get pushed to the back, to resurface later. When this happens, write it down and then let go. There are always many others who are going through the same thing you are. You can also perform seva, service to your fellow man, by sharing your writing. By sharing in writing an example of a challenge you had, how hopeless you felt in the midst of it, and how you overcame it. That is how you give hope to troubled souls who are going through many of the life issues you are. If he can feel this way and keep going, then so can I. Never deprive someone of hope, it may be all they have.
As soon as we become in charge of the thoughts we choose to think and begin to exercise the power of our will to do so, we become very powerful creators. Domino began writing her thoughts down. It was transformational for her. It changed the tone of “her problems” to something lighter and more manageable. This is how the Universe tricks us into helping ourselves. We think we’re the students, when in fact all the while we are teaching ourselves, awakening ourselves, self actualizing ourselves.
Throughout all time, mystics, saints and spiritual seekers encounter this stage. Your meaning of life and purpose is suddenly in question. The emotion of loneliness surfaces and resurfaces. When isolation comes, embrace it. It won’t be forever, unless you allow yourself to stop growing and get stuck there.
Use this time to feel what you feel. Soak in the darkness and the quiet as much as you can, breathe it into you and let it do its alchemy, let it transform you. As you acquire spiritual understanding through contemplation, you regularly update your beliefs as well. Take the feeling of isolation and aloneness as time to contemplate in inner silence. When you get to this stage, the Universe/God is giving you time to reflect and clear any karma cluttering the mind. What you are actually doing is making space inside your consciousness for the new life waiting around the corner for you.
Your capacity for learning is hindered only by any resistance, any remaining emotional baggage. That is the only thing that holds you back at any stage of your spiritual awakening. Awakening is about using the mind, minus perceived limitations. The more empty your mind is, the more enjoyable the learning process (the people and circumstances around you) will be.
These moments of isolation are for you to contemplate your life thus far, contemplate what you’re attracted to yourself at this point in time, let go of what no longer serves and make way for greater things, and for the person you are meant to be.
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