Take heed and listen to your deepest needs. Your neediness is the key to your redemption. That which you feel you need is truly what you must give. Whatever you think you need is simply an unconscious force trying to convince you that you do not already have everything you need. In giving that which you want, you help and love others. This is how the universal energy returns to the giver, tenfold.
If you have the desire to progress on the spiritual path, then you must realize you cannot do it alone. No matter what you think, how comfortable you make yourself, or how much money you have, if you do not get help from a source and resonance that has a higher frequency than you, you cannot move forward from where you are. One’s desire and willingness to proceed on a path is why one visits holy people and holy places. It is why we go to church. It is why we undergo initiation. It is why we search for a path to walk upon.
You will stay where you are for an indefinite period of time until you say, “I’m in a holding pattern; I’ve got to move from here.” There may appear to be movement in your life, but is it an ascending movement? Or is it only a movement from side to side in this dimension of polarity, from yin to yang, yang to yin, and back and forth on the karmic wheel? The back and forth groove feels like change when we move from one pole to another. In fact, we are caught in the karmic groove recycling our unconscious behavior. Only when your heart has been ignited with the desire to receive the next, new level, can you find a way to proceed and be successful. When you untie a karmic knot or tangle, you have succeeded.
When you say, “I am ready,” then you can set things up to help you succeed. Make a petition for your ascending movement, whatever that might look like. You might do a fast, go on retreat, or enter into initiation. Do not be surprised if you begin to realize grace, synchronous events and blessings to help you, even when you say Yes and do not really understand what it is you are saying Yes to. We do not always know what we are ready for because the karmic tangle is unconscious and therefore we cannot see it. We do not know how to untangle what is unconscious, and that is why we need help. It is not what you think.
In going forward, something must always be given up so that something new can be received. When you give something up,(what you think you know or how you want things to be) a space is created. That open space allows for the new level, the new awareness, to come in. Whatever you are giving up is something you no longer need, but you do not know that because you do not know what the karmic tangle is that is keeping you back. Whatever it is, you do not need it because it is the reason you are in a holding pattern. It may be something you are comfortable with, something you do not want to let go. That is the test. Are you willing to change and give something up in order to make progress? Some of the time you will get insight once you have gone through the process and have received the new level – you may understand something you did not understand before; it will come into consciousness and you will say, “Oh! I see.” However, we are not always given insight and yet we have made progress. We know we have made progress because internally and energetically we are different. Transformation has taken place. It is not always understood rationally. It is “realized” within us.
It is all up to you as you earn your way day by day, but you cannot progress without help; you have to have an accelerated resonance to bring in the new. When you are advancing academically, you seek out the right college, or find a teacher who specializes in what you want to learn. Someone who has mastered the intellectual territory can help you understand and expand your intellectual knowledge. In the spiritual realm, it is the same. That is why people go to church, or to synagogue, and why you go into the sweat lodge on your hands and knees. It is why you seek higher teachings from a teacher. It can be why you have your altar set up at home so that you can pray there every day and make it an active portal between yourself and God. You charge it, feed it, and nourish it. You keep it alive so that you may be connected to the stream of light and consciousness.
The tangle, or knot, is a challenge because it is unconscious. You do not realize there are actions you are taking right now that are holding you back. Right now you are doing something that is making you unhappy and frustrated, but you do not know what the core of it is or what the source of it is, because you cannot see it. The tangle is always a 180-degree twist. Whatever you are thinking about how this situation or that person is making you unhappy or frustrated is exactly wrong, it is off course 180 degrees. It is something, from your twisted vantage point, you believe to be real and in which your personality is invested.
Years ago a woman attended a Bernie Siegel seminar. She had 4th stage cancer and had to be brought in from the hospital, on a stretcher, and placed in the back of the auditorium. Her husband had cheated on her very early in their marriage, and they subsequently separated. She felt that he disrespected and disregarded her. It felt very personal to her. To get revenge and to make his life miserable, she refused to divorce him. In a moment of clear light, and in the process of a guided forgiveness meditation, she was able to untwist her tangle. In her epiphany, she saw that he was not to blame for her frustration and unhappiness. She really got it. In fact, none of his actions were about her at all. She divorced her husband, thereby setting him free and herself as well. Her cancer went into complete remission. This is a dramatic example, but the twist, no matter how subtle, will block your forward movement.
The most powerful and beautiful part of this understanding is that you have the power within you to progress. You make the petition, do the inner work, whatever it is, to move yourself forward. It is up to you. The part that is up to you is whether or not you answer the call to progress. Beings in the spirit world are always waiting for you. They are always on standby, holding vigil for any soul who is saying, “I will, I’m ready.” When that happens, they rush in to your aid, and they help you through.
The wisdom held in the words of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, teaches us in the most simple words, how to untwist the 180 degree tangle. The prayer asks the Lord to give you the ability to pardon any injury you have suffered, to cultivate faith when you are doubting, for you to allow hope to be present in the face of despair, to let light shine into darkness, and for you to find joy when suffering sorrow.
When you feel the need for consolation, turn 180 degrees to be the one who gives consolation. At the time you feel misunderstood, rather than trying to draw understanding to yourself, to be the one who embodies understanding for another.
Each of these acts require that you let go of your position in unconsciousness and turn in the exact opposite direction to be that which you are wanting from outside of yourself.
You then become the giver instead of the taker.
“For it is in the giving that we receive:
it is in the pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in the dying that we are born to eternal life.
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.”
Tune in to the next Dragon’s Fire article when we will continue to explore “accept everything” as the precept which acts as a karmic cleanser.