In those moments when we meet a challenge that stands in our way, we are not meeting some immovable, transient object. In reality, we are meeting nothing more than our own present understanding of that event. Wherever we are — whatever we encounter — we meet there our own understanding.

This is such an important insight for us to ponder: the dimension — the breadth and depth of any event transpiring before us — is actually a reflection of the level of self that perceives it. In other words, life cannot be any deeper, wiser, shallow or selfish than permitted by what we are capable of understanding about it.

There is such beauty and freedom in this realization about the nature of our reality: we look at life through the mirror of our consciousness and what we see there — whether all bound up or boundless — is determined by our present level of self-understanding. In other words, whenever our present nature meets some barrier, a limit of any kind, all it’s really run up against is itself. The self that sees limitation…is the limitation it sees; this is why it can’t see past that point! It is the “end” it sees; they are one thing.

On the other hand, true spiritual success is one and the same as our realization that, in real life, nothing “ends” without the birth of something else taking place in that same moment.

Our True Self is the creative ground of a ceaseless genesis; our great task in life—through our awareness of the whole of it — is to be a kind of midwife to this eternal miracle of birth. And what is continually being born in us and into this world of ours — whether for its bitterness or brightness — depends on how we meet these changes that drive creation forward… [to be continued]