Primarily, I wish to concede my incapacitation to offer anything materially or spiritually tangible. But like Christ told the woman by the well in John 4:13-14 on quote;
“everyone that drinks of this well water will remain thirsty but whoever drinks of the water I will give him, will never be thirsty again. The water I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to everlasting life”.
The above quote was from Christ. No living being is at the level of Christ, but the merciful God has made his grace our common heritage, provided we are ready to offer the required sacrifice to access it and as it is well known, gold is not found on the surface of the earth. He who truly wants gold must dig deep.
NO OTHER WAY
This message is aimed at assisting us to have peace of mind that seems elusive to mankind and the pursuit of it appears to be our main occupation. The truth of the matter is that we are generally restless because we have let go the hands of the Lord. Worse still, nothing in the creation can and will ever give us lasting happiness.
This is because we are imperceptible souls, and being originally pure souls that we are, our real self is of divinity and imperishable. Therefore, nothing in this world can ever give our soul any lasting happiness, because everything the ordinary eyes can see is perishable, beneath and inferior to the soul. The cosmic law is: our soul can never find any enduring happiness in anything beneath it. Thus; seeking lasting happiness in a world of duality is equated to seeking of nectar in a cobra’s venom. It is an utter impossibility.
The ready question then is: how did we let go the hands of the Lord? The answer is not farfetched. It is simply for the fact that we have reduced the Lord to a mere doctor that we only remember when we have health challenges.
Perhaps we are deeming the Lord as a lawyer that we only need when we have a case to answer or a mechanic that is only relevant whenever our vehicle develops faults. The list is endless. Being our common pedigree, the Lord is the very core of our being that we must be in touch with every moment of our lives. Were it not so, the Messiah would not have stressed on the importance of ceaseless prayers as he admonished in the parable of the ten virgins narrated in Mark 13 vs 35 thus: “watch ye, therefore, for you can never tell when the husbandman will come calling”. In forgetfulness of this injunction, we are compared with a child that follows the parent to a fair. At the fair, the child holding the parent’s hands or having the parent in view is fascinated by the lighting, dollies, games, lollies, candies and other trappings the fair has to offer. He continually feels the fun it is getting is all coming from the fair. Fine, we will say: now, let us imagine if, by happenstance, the child lets go the parent’s hands. Obviously, the child will become miserable at once. All the trappings of the fair are still there, but they have now become insipid to the child, upon letting go the parent’s hands. So is the situation with mankind. We are generally restless because we have let go the Lord’s hands. No respite for any of us, until we get a grip of our Father Lord once again.
The good news is that the way about this is not lacking in any religion, provided we search for the truth in all the religions and embrace their truths only, as it is taught by the Messiah in John 8 vs 32 that: “only the truth shall set you free”. Searching for the truth is very vital and is an individual thing. We should try to avoid what Jesus cautioned against in Matthew 15 vs 14 as: “a case of the blind leading the blind”. While we individually search for the truth for the purpose of adopting the truth only, it is not out of place to, in the interim, place at our disposal some axioms about life, until we are able to individually access the unchanging truth. This is our goal in the coarse material plane. No more no less.
GOD IS REAL
To start with and to assist us, it is of the essence for our peace of mind that we accept that there is a Creator and the world is going on according to his grand design. In other words, God has not created this world and lost control of it. We need to bring this into our consciousness constantly to avoid being agitated by happenings and events in and around the world. More so, what keeps the world running is the inviolable karmic laws. We may not accept it, the truth is, we are here harvesting the fruits of the seeds we planted previously. As we are harvesting, we are planting the seeds of what we will harvest in the morrow, in a manner a farmer cannot repudiate the fruits of the seeds he has planted.
If anyone argues about this, we should challenge such to explain the seeming imbalance that pervades the world. That is, if we are all arriving unto the world for the very first time, can we claim to have a fair God, when some have descended into the world with all kinds of deprivations such as bad health,
even blind and crippled, some unable to make ends meet, while some seem to have a Midas touch. From a limited perception, the world looks unfair but believe it, we have a perfect God. Everything is karmic. We have caused our today with the choices we made before. What is going to happen tomorrow is contingent upon the choices we are making this moment. It is therefore circumspect to choose right this moment for a better harvest tomorrow.
INTROSPECT TO GAIN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Therefore, to mitigate the karmic effects of the past and to harvest better fruits in the morrow, it is advisable that we must discriminate at every stage. The noble rule is to discriminate between what is right, what is wrong, what is possible, and what is not, in a particular situation, when we are challenged or tempted, we
must remind ourselves of what is the course of action suggested by the wise men, by the scriptures, and by our own good conscience. How have great souls reacted in like situation? Introspection at every stage is necessary to clarify the vision and to gain the right direction. A mechanical life where one follows the natural call of the senses and emotions is only to walk straight into the karmic trap of the negative power. In effect, if we do not discriminate, we are scarcely better than the animals of the lower species, simply because we cover our nakedness.
BECOME SELF-RELIANT
The purpose of religion and indeed spirituality is to pay off our karmic debt not to add to it. On this, we are to ever bear it in mind that another means of incurring karma is dependence on others even for basic needs. Dependence is karmic, it is pain, it is burdensome, while independence is bliss. Those who depend on others are at the whims of those they depend upon.
Worse still, everything we receive we must repay here or within the continuum of hereafter, because nothing is free. We are to shake off the lethargy of dependence on others. The Lord has not created us to live on alms. In Genesis 3 vs 19, I culled, “by the sweat of thy brow shall thou eat”. Were it not so, God would not have created us naked and with a better brain than that of the animals, for the purpose of fending for ourselves. Besides, everyone that renders us favours has a karmic credit against us now or in future.
Why should we be subservient to anyone? We should try as much as possible to be self-reliant. This we can achieve in so many ways. If we earnestly try, we will discover that there are many areas left in which we can excel and still maintain our self-pride. The truth of this matter is; the Lord that created the
billions if not trillions of mouths (which include mouths of the animals of the lower species) we have in the world had created also along, what will go into those mouths.
The irony according to the sages is that, people generally don’t seek the food where the Lord has placed it. We all want to copy the other. In this part of the world no one wants to do a menial job. Yet, it is against the progressional rule to climb a tree from the top.
DISCERN AND CHOOSE WHAT IS GOOD NOT WHAT IS BAD
We are to constantly discern between the worldly easy path and the way of the valiant. We will have to do this again and again, every time the mind tempts us to follow the lily-livered way of the world, to imitate others. This desire to imitate others is exceedingly powerful and has overpowered even great men. We are thus asked to be ourselves and not the other person. To do this is to worry not about acquiring a car, especially, if we do not have the affordability. What does it matter if all our friends or neighbours have, even a fleet? We are to bother not about how to send our children abroad, simply because our neighbours or cousins have sent theirs to Florida or Oxford. Ask yourself, so what?
Equally, we are to remind ourselves constantly the true purpose of life is not in the acquisition of earthly things. The case of alexander the great should serve us a lesson. His last wish was that his hands should be made to dangle out of his coffin to show the world that with all his acquisitions, he was returning to the creator empty-handed, the way he came.
BE WISE AS A SERPENT BUT BE HARMLESS AS A DOVE
For our peace of mind, we are reminded to keep away from temptations of all sorts. We should not walk into places of temptations and then struggle to resist temptation. It will tax our will unnecessarily. Even if we succeed in resisting the temptation, it may leave a craving in the mind. Craving induces restlessness.
MIND YOUR BUSINESS
Some of us try to interfere in the affairs of others with the feeling that they are wrong. But why should we be disturbed on that account? For our peace of mind, we should not criticize anybody or anything. God has not delegated to us the authority to sit in judgment over others. All men act the way they do because the spirit within them promotes them that way. We are all in this world the way we are essentially, operating according to the evolution of our souls. It is a good rule to mind our business, so as to earn our peace of mind.
Mind your own business, is an excellent dictum to follow for the man who prices peace of mind above everything else. Nothing in this world requires our mindboggling, there is a God that looks after everything. In fact, he looks after you and I as well. We should not forget this fact. By all means, we should mind our business. We should not criticize anybody or anything. Criticism earns us heavy karma. Why? Because whatever happens, happens by the will of God. Why would we want to criticize the supreme being for whatever reason? We are to remember always that nothing can happen without the concurrence of God. The fact that something has happened, no matter whether it is good or bad, from our point of view, is in itself proof positive that it has God’s approval. And if we criticize the happening, we are questioning the will of God, the wisdom of God, and the justice of God, we should not do that. We will do well to keep our peace.
LET US BE HUMBLE
God sees things by the whole, man sees things by parts. God sees happenings over the three periods of time. Man sees events only in the present, isolated from the past and the future. That is why man sees discord where God sees harmony. Man sees lack of logic, whereas God finds perfect logic.
…To be continued next week!
For story submissions and inquiries, please email us at citypeopleonline96@gmail.com