Whatever path to God you follow ought to make you able to stand on your own feet here as well as in the inner worlds; here and now, in this lifetime, before you drop the body in death.
If the path isn’t able to do that, then you ought to keep looking until you find one that gives you this ability.
Sri Harold Klemp – Touching the Face of God
All of us are on our own unique way back to God. It doesn’t matter what path we follow. I’ve chosen ECKANKAR as my path, but I could just have easily chosen Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam. There are many religious paths including being an agnostic or atheist. Soul needs to experience every one of these throughout its many reincarnations.
In ECKANKAR we learn to trust our intuition. We tend to call them inner nudges. An inner nudge is like an idea. You wake up after a good night’s sleep and you get an insight to a problem or something troubling you in your life. This trouble could be another person, a financial issue, or even a physical ailment. Whatever the problem is, most people can figure out a solution to their problems.
One problem hinted at in this quote is the responsibility to self. We must carry our own load. There are some in this lifetime who need outside support. The disabled need help in this lifetime. The chronically ill need help. But for most of us, it simply means we have to find a way to make a living.
But there is more to standing on our own feet than just making a living. It is also about serving our societies, our families, and our friends. We must take responsibility for our actions in this life and previous lives.
Some religions profess to offer salvation by accepting a savior. You could be a mass-murderer and if you accept salvation, you are all good. This could not be more wrong. No one escapes karma. Many think they are getting away with doing wrongs. Sometimes this thought is supported by a life where a person just gets away with everything without paying the piper. This illusion is dissolved when they come back and have to pay for all their wrong doings in previous lives.
We have all hurt others and have been hurt by others. Karma does not forget, despite our inability to see what we did in a previous life. It is set up this way, because we must learn from scratch in each lifetime. Slowly, we start wondering why our lives are this way or that. Why am I cursed with such bad luck? You are not cursed. You are simply paying back things you did before. No one escapes this.
When we finally realize the truth of this, we start to live our lives in a more responsible way. We avoid hurting others if we can. We avoid selfishness. We begin to see that service to others, including ourselves, is key to resolving our karma, so we stop building our karmic debt. In fact, we start to clear up some things and make it easier on ourselves when we return yet again.
I hope all of you have a terrific Sunday!
May the blessings be…
Dave
Daily Ramblings... 