Richard Harvey
connecting psychotherapy and spiritual growth for human awakening
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Spiritual Realization
An important moment comes in the life of a spiritual seeker when, like Buddha, you see that all is suffering. Most people do not understand this. Most people are living foolishly, because they are living exclusively within the changing circumstances of life and they have no intuition of eternity. But a higher faculty of awareness and mind can propel you into a different space and time continuum, where you experience – not just understand or have insight into – but experience the truth that there is one single instance, a concertinaed moment in time and that moment is in a quantum dimensional shift. Suddenly, instantly, you are in every moment of your life simultaneously. Everywhere everything is going on. This is such a shock to the usual points of reference in your life that you are unable to handle it. Most reject it after only seconds, to establish themselves back in the world as they know it. But the world as they know it is not the real world. This is the world of illusion and our so-called relationship or separation out of identification and division is really the arising of conflict or survival or lower chakra, dog-eat-dog concerns.
What really matters profoundly and deeply is God. Another name for God is Reality. The individual, the heart and soul, the life of the spirit merging together with Reality in unity Consciousness is the natural course of a human lifetime devoted to spiritual realization; the only real objective that makes any existential sense. The rest is “a wandering,” a divergence, a departure, or avoidance of truth. Now who would want to delay their merging with the Divine, their transformation into the Divine body itself? Isn’t it avoiding the inevitable?
The intense seriousness of this must be balanced with great humor. The ability to laugh and celebrate, to enjoy the moment and to enjoy and derive pleasure from the unfolding process of inner development itself in the personal aspects, as well as the higher spiritual aspects of the journey, is essential for cultivating the right attitude of openness, tolerance, and receptivity. We mustn’t become burdened with too much seriousness, but equally we cannot afford to be too lightweight – we need to create a balance to maintain our intention and motivation along with our consistent application and resilience.
When the Zen monk asks when his spiritual training will bear fruit, the master holds his head under water until he can’t breathe. In desperation he cries out and the master raises his disciple’s face just inches out of the water and says, “When you desire the Divine like you crave that next lungful of air.”
This article is an excerpt from Richard Harvey’s book Your Divine Opportunity.
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This article was published on this site in February 2024.
