Nothing in life is as certain as change. As I have now completed sending a second cycle of my initial newsletters, I am stopping the mailing of weekly newletters. Decoding messages was very important in my own spiritual development and I believe remains an essential skill that is necessaring for one's spiritual development. It is Spirituality 101.
We are naturally event-focused, whether materially or spiritually. When we review our lives, what usually comes to mind are the events that seemed important to us. Yet the vast majority of what we think and do is quite routine and goes on almost invisibly in the background of our life.
In recent months, everything that others have done for me while fixing up my home has fallen so far short of what we had agreed on that it has to contain an important message. Even this week things that seemed good are not so good. And although I haven't really been taken advantage of, my good will has been stretched to its limit. What's the message?
Among the changes I have noticed in myself recently is a different awareness of elements in my own character that I had previously thought impossible to change. Now, I see that with work it will be possible to change them. The particular element that I have in mind is that when I decide to do something it is difficult for me to heed the common sense voice of my inner guide.
About a month ago, I decided it was time to get to know my “inner guide” better. I had always thought of it as being the voice of my conscience, but in the past week several messages made me aware that my inner guide was far more than this.
The changes that we track when we adopt a more intellectual approach to spirituality are the ones that bring our thoughts more into line with our principles. Of course, like in psychology, there are other changes than the intellectual ones that can be tracked but then you would probably use a different method.
Wherever we might be in our journey, we need certain basic bits of time-honored wisdom like the Golden Rule to guide our development. With practice, they become like mental tools that we use regularly to keep our lives running smoothly.
Last week, I recounted an interesting shift in my awareness in which I felt that Paul (my “I”) was no longer the center of my life or my awareness. The feeling has continued to come and go since then.
I have been working on my self-centeredness for innumerable years but been telling you about several of the ways I do it in recent months to try to encourage you to choose an issue that your messages seem active in and keep your focus on it.
