Barbara Hebert – USA
The author
The news, from whatever source we receive it, shares distressing and disheartening information about the world in which we live. We, of course, know that the pain and suffering endured in the physical world is impermanent, but it is very real to those who are experiencing it. Hearing stories of anger, hate, racism, and despair weigh heavily on us as we sometimes despair of the inhumanity we see in the world.
Therefore, can we take just a few minutes to step away from the physical world and step into a world of imagination and fairy tales? For a few minutes, just imagine…
Your fairy godmother appears in front of you. Beautifully dressed with a face full of love, compassion, and understanding, she says to you: “My magic wand will give you limitless capabilities and boundless energy. It will allow you to see past all obstacles in your path. It will allow you to find beauty, peace, and harmony beyond anything you’ve ever imagined.”
Imagine what it would feel like to have this type of freedom and opportunity for expansion, to experience these feelings!
So, of course, we say “YES!!” to our fairy godmother, and she waves her magic wand.
We are immediately transported into a field of consciousness where we experience freedom, beauty, peace, and harmony that are indescribable with words. We know that we can do anything. All doubts and confusion are erased, and we experience something that is even stronger than confidence...it is a combination of knowledge and wisdom that pervades our entire being. We recognize the obstacles that we formerly faced, and we understand their role and perceive ways to move past them. We realize that this is who we truly are and where we have always longed to be.
We turn to our fairy godmother to thank her for bringing us to this place, and she simply says (like Glinda the Good Witch in Frank L. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz) “You always had the power, my dear.”
We don’t need a fairy godmother to wave a magic wand. We have the power within ourselves to experience this field of consciousness. We have simply forgotten who and what we really are. We have forgotten that we can experience this plane of existence with its beauty, peace, and harmony. It is as if we have been wearing sunglasses at night. Once we take off those sunglasses and the sun rises, we see the Real world.
We are limitless beings, living in a limited physical body. We create our own limits, doubts, fears and confusions based on our own conditioning and beliefs. The world of our fairy godmother, this field of consciousness, exists within our reach if we learn to step away from our self-imposed limitations. How do we learn to step away from this seeming self-torture of doubts, fears, confusion, and limitations?
The first step in changing anything is always recognition. In order to change something, we have to recognize that it needs to be changed. Therefore, the first step is recognizing that we are limiting ourselves, and then recognizing that we have created this way of living. We have incorporated messages into ourselves that cause limitations, fears, doubts, and confusion: messages such as “not good enough”, “not smart enough”, “not loveable enough”, “not enough in any way”.
Once we have recognized that we are the creator, then we can begin to change our perceptions. There are two ways, from my perspective, that we can make these changes.
One way to make the change is a very concrete one that is pertinent to our physical existence. When we “hear” the negative self-comments in our heads, we can address them by either changing them to realistic statements or we can recognize their fallacy and simply allow them to fall on fallow ground. For example, if the comment one hears is “I’m not smart enough to get that job” then we can change it to “I am capable of doing this job. I have the (education or experience or knowledge or skills) to do this job.” We could also simply see the falsity of the statement and let it go as we do with other false things we hear. Either way, we do not allow the negative self-comment to continue to grow in our minds and create limitations for us.
Another way to make the change away from self-limitation is less concrete but just as valuable. However, we begin the change in the same manner: recognition. Before we can change, we must recognize that there is something to be changed and that the change is necessary. At that point, we begin the journey toward a field of consciousness that is as real and as wonderful as our fairy godmother’s world is imaginary.
As Teilhard de Chardin says, “You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.” We are spiritual beings. The Ageless Wisdom tells us that we inhabit these physical bodies as part of the spiritual pilgrimage to become fully awakened human beings. Our natural “place” is not in these bodies dominated by physical aches and pains, by emotional tsunamis, and mental tornadoes. We are spiritual beings, rooted in the Universal.
As spiritual beings, we have no limits, no fears, no confusion or doubts. We KNOW that love, peace, and harmony permeate all of creation, As spiritual beings, we live in a world of eternal unity and bliss. The more we recognize ourselves as spiritual beings and the more we open ourselves to this field of consciousness, the more likely we are to experience it.
There are as many paths to this field of consciousness as there are people. For example, many people find their way through meditation or deep contemplation. Others may find their way through service to others. Some may find their way through intention and ritual. There is no right way to find this place, except through our own actions.
As we learn to overcome the obstacles that we face in our lives (even the disheartening and distressing news stories), we learn and we grow. This growth allows us to recognize who we are at our very core...spiritual beings. The more we grow, the more ways we will find to help us arrive at that place of beauty, peace, and harmony. With each forward movement, we drop the chains of limitations, of fears, doubts, and confusion. We begin to find ourselves robed with the beauty of our true selves. We no longer need to imagine a fairy godmother with a wand; rather, we become the fairy godmother who has brought us to this field of consciousness that is our spiritual birthright. We recognize ourselves as spiritual beings: unlimited, fearless, strong, and wise.