Spirituality, allows us to tap into awareness to overcome life’s difficult moments.  Why is life so difficult? It can be said that if you are not facing challenges, you are dead! The bible says teaches “like fish caught in a net, problems show up unexpectedly.” Somehow life manages to bring difficult problems, the causes of untold suffering and struggle.

How you, solve problems,  makes all the difference between the promise of success and the specter of failure. Successful people look at solutions while unsuccessful people only see the problem.

Eckhart Tolle says “we should live life accepting what comes our way;  not being too happy when good things happen to us and not being too sad when bad things happen to us.  Live in the now”.

What is spirituality?

Spirituality, begins with a decisive answer to that question. Spirituality, or of the spirit are our thoughts. The concept is that life isn’t random, there is a pattern and purpose to every existence. Deepak Chopra calls this Synchro-destiny. Every moment is pre-destined, it is as it should be. The reason that challenges arise is simple: to make us more aware of our inner purpose and Destiny.

When your awareness expands, events that seemed random begin to arrange themselves in a pattern; you become aware of a larger purpose and notice these events are actually related to the greater whole. Just as our bodies operate in a state of Homeostasis; in a similar way events and coincidences are all connected and are part of God’s plan for your purpose.

When you become aware of that purpose (which is unique for each person) you become like an architect who has been handed a blueprint. Instead of laying bricks and fitting pipes at random, the architect can now proceed with confidence that he knows what the building should look like and how to construct it.

Spirituality and Awareness

The first step in this process is recognizing what level of awareness you are working from right now. Every time a challenge comes your way, whether it is about relationships, work, personal transitions, or a crisis that demands action. There are three levels of, awareness. Become aware of them, and you will take a huge step toward becoming a sorcerer.

Level 1: Contracted Awareness

This is the level of the problem, and therefore it immediately grabs your attention. All you see is the problem. Something has gone wrong. Expectations have turned sour. You face obstacles that don’t want to move.  As resistance mounts, your situation still doesn’t improve. If you examine the level of the problem, the following elements are generally present:

• Your desires are thwarted. Something you want is meeting with opposition. You feel as if every step forward is a battle.

• You keep doing more of what never worked in the first place.

• There is an underlying anxiety and fear of failure.
• Your mind isn’t clear. There is confusion and inner conflict.

• As frustration mounts, your energy is depleted. You feel more and more exhausted.

You can tell if you are stuck at the level of contracted awareness by one simple test:

• Do you feel like the more you struggle to get free of the problem, the more you are trapped in it? In addition the law of attraction states that what you think about you bring about. The end result is that you get on the wave of negative thoughts that attract more of the same so not only does your problem not get resolved; but you attract more problems into your circumstance. Meditating on positive thoughts, smiling, prayer, repeating positive mantras or scriptures are ways to create positive energies and break the negative cycle.

Level 2: Expanded Awareness

This is the level where solutions to, solve problems, begin to appear. Your vision extends beyond the conflict, giving you more clarity. For most people this level isn’t immediately available, because their first reaction to a crisis is to contract and feel the pain of the situation. They become defensive, wary, and fearful. But if you allow yourself to expand, you will find that the following elements enter your awareness:

• The need to struggle begins to diminish. You put the problem in God’s hands.

• You start to let go. You stand on the principle that all roads lead to your destination

• More people connect with you. You get council

• You approach decisions with confidence.

• You meet fear realistically (fear is perceived) and it starts to lessen.

• With clearer vision, you no longer feel confused and conflicted.

You can tell that you have reached this level of, awareness, and, spirituality,  when you no longer feel stuck; a process has begun. With greater expansion, unseen forces come to your aid. You move forward according to what you desire from your life.

Level 3: Spirituality is Pure Awareness or Enlightenment

This is the level where no problems exist. You have transcended suffering as Buddha did. Every challenge is a creative opportunity. You feel completely aligned with the forces of nature. What makes this possible is that awareness can expand without limits.

Although it may seem that it takes long time to have true mastery of your mind and get on the spiritual path to reach pure awareness; the truth is exactly the opposite. At every moment pure awareness is in contact with you, sending creative impulses. All that matters is how open you are to the answers being presented. When you are fully open, the following elements will be present: There is no struggle.

• You are present in the now. Your mind is not busy with noise about the past or anticipating the future.

• Desires reach fulfillment spontaneously.

• The next thing you want is the best thing that could happen to you. You are a benefit to yourself and your surroundings.

• The outer world reflects what is happening in your inner world.

• You feel completely safe. You are at home in the Universe.

• You view yourself and the world with compassion and understanding.

To be completely established in pure awareness is enlightenment, a state of unity with everything in existence. Ultimately, every life is moving in that direction. Without attaining the final goal, you can tell that you are in contact with, pure awareness, if you feel truly yourself, in a state of peace and freedom.

Each of these levels brings its own kind of experience. This can be easily seen when there is a sharp contrast or a sudden change. Love at first sight takes a person without warning from contracted awareness to expanded, awareness, and is a spiritual experience.

Instead of relating in the normal social way, suddenly you see immense appeal, even perfection, in one other person. In creative work there is the “Aha!” experience. Instead of wrestling with a blocked imagination, suddenly the answer presents itself, fresh and new! No one doubts that such epiphanies exist.

They can be life changing, as in the so- called peak experience, when reality is flooded with light and a revelation dawns. What people don’t see is that expanded awareness should be our normal state, not a moment of extraordinary difference.

Spirituality does not mean no problem

Listening to people tell their stories of problems, obstacles, failure, and frustration (an existence trapped in contracted awareness) one sees that reaching a new vision is critical. It is all too easy to get lost in particulars.

The difficulties of facing each challenge are often overwhelming. No matter how intensely you feel your situation, which has its own unique difficulties, if you look to the right and left, you will see others who are just as caught up in their situations.

Strip away the details, and what remains is a general cause of suffering: lack of awareness that everything is impermanent. Unless you are shown how to expand your, awareness, you have no choice but to experience the state of contraction caused from pain and suffering.

Just as the body flinches when faced with physical pain, the mind has a reflex that makes it draw back when faced with mental pain. Tony Robbins says that “people move away from pain and towards pleasure” Here again, a moment of sudden contrast makes it easy to experience what contraction feels like. Imagine yourself in any of the following situations:

• You are a young mother who has taken your child to the playground. You chat for a moment with another mother, and when you turn around, you can’t see your child.

• At work you are sitting at your computer when someone casually mentions that there are going to be layoffs, and by the way, the boss wants to see you.

• You open your mailbox and find a letter from the Internal Revenue Service and you remembered that you do not have your receipts.

• While driving you approach an intersection when, out of the blue, a car behind you swerves past your car and runs a red light.

• You walk into a restaurant and see your spouse sitting with an attractive companion. They are leaning in toward each other, holding hands and talking in low voices.

Changes in awareness result in Anger

It doesn’t take much imagination to feel the sudden change of, awareness, that these situations provoke. Panic, anxiety, anger, and apprehension flood your mind; these are the result of brain changes as the lower brain takes precedent over the higher brain, triggering the release of adrenaline as part of an array of physical responses known as the stress response.

Any feeling is both mental and physical. The brain gives a precise representation of what the mind is experiencing, drawing on infinite combinations of electrochemical signals coursing through one hundred billion neurons. A brain researcher can pinpoint with ever-increasing accuracy exactly those regions that produce such changes.

What cannot be seen on an MRI is the mental event that incites all these changes, because the mind functions at the invisible level of awareness or consciousness. We can take these two terms as synonyms, but let’s explore them a little.

Spirituality, deals with your state of awareness. It isn’t the same as medicine or psychotherapy. Medicine deals in the physical aspect where bodily changes occur. Psychotherapy deals with a specific difficulty, such as anxiety, depression, or actual mental illness. Spirituality confronts awareness directly.

It aims to produce higher consciousness. In our society this is seen as less real than the other ways of approaching problems. In times of trouble, people cope as best as they can with a swirling confusion of fear, anger, mood swings, and everyday struggle. It doesn’t even occur to them to pair the two words, spirituality, and solution in the same sentence; this points to a limited vision about what spirituality really is, and what it can do for you. We must incorporate our non-physical being with our physical body to solve everyday problems.

Myrna Morris Young, Life and Executive Coach

President and CEO of Myhelps Inc.

Phone: 954-999-6125

Email:myrna@myhelps.us

Web: http://www.myhelps.us

Author: “Becoming Conscious, My Awakening”