Donna Goddard shares her love for the Divine and the world with a large international audience and has a strong social media presence. She has authored about twenty books on spirituality and personal growth—nonfiction, fiction, children’s fiction, poetry, and specialty books in writing and dance.
Not only is most of humanity not awake nor aware, but they do not even realise it is possible. However, our greatest gift as humans is that we can be conscious and live life with awareness. We have a choice, and what a blessing that is to our life. Consciousness is the path to alleviating every problem. When issues come our way, we will know how to receive the right ideas for dealing with those problems most effectively. Suffering will be hugely reduced until it is, one day, eliminated. Practise seeing yourself as being awake in all the various situations of your life. Practice is the path to eventual mastery.
True generosity does not want something in return, so it does not get frustrated and tired. True love does not want something in return, so it does not become hurt and withdraw its love. It does not evaluate the scales of what has been given and taken and decide that not enough is coming back. It is inexhaustible. Every time you get into the sphere of genuine love, it is a reward, not a drain. First and foremost, love blesses the person who is in the loving consciousness.
Somewhere along the way, there develops within the soul a yearning that can no longer be ignored; a craving for the great Love affair. We feel it drawing ever closer. It is the greatest of them all. It cannot fail. It is all-consuming. It is incomparable. It is the love affair with our own true nature and the source from which it comes. The desire is in all of us but, more often than not, it is ignored for other interests. We wrestle with each interest, trying to make it work, growing with each adventure until the light has grown bright enough for us to reach for it.
We love with all our heart, in every way that we can love, but the heart is not burdened. We learn to keep it light and pliable. It has space. It breathes. It waits on Life to give instructions. It sings with sweetness when the winds are soft and warm. It stands with calm patience when the storm is brewing. It lets go when death and seeming endings have left their irrefutable mark. It moves. It heals. It hopes. It allows Life to be lived in the safe, fertile, and still inner space where it grows stronger and more compelling every day.
The fruits of serious spiritual devotion have an unmistakable flavour, sometimes even more retrospectively. It had been a challenging few years. I was twenty-six and had been progressing through an existential crisis, an involuntary falling apart of life’s meaning. I felt a profound human aloneness, and with all my praying, I failed to feel God’s love in any way that could help my state of being. Besides the care and protection of my two little children and my spiritual studies, I had no interest in anything. Everything seemed trite to me, meaningless and often painfully intolerable. I had lost faith in everything human to give solace to my soul. It was not intentional. It is simply what happened over the space of a few years. I was at the bottom of the valley—all things lost, but nothing gained.
What else could I do but pray? Only God could rescue me. I did not doubt that God would do so, but first, it seemed that all would be taken away so that new ground would be available for working with. One morning, during the earlier years of this struggle, I walked along a path at a quiet beach near our home. I had my toddler in a stroller and my baby in a tie-on carrier. It was a beautiful suburb in seaside Sydney and all the more beautiful for the glorious day. However, try as I did, none of this had any ability to lift my spirits.
The preceding few days had been particularly difficult. Even the tiny bit of hope I was given after prayer seemed to have disappeared. Tears of grief and despair were my increasingly constant companion, though I knew not what I grieved. Much later, I realised it was the necessary grieving that accompanies the loosening of the ego’s hold over our consciousness. It is the inevitable struggle of being born human, yet the soul seeks release from the bondage of thought that constantly revolves around the precious one—ourselves. We grow up trying to develop enough of an ego to be able to survive and thrive in the world. That, in itself, is a mighty effort. Even before we have it mastered, the deeper Self starts speaking to us, whispering in our ear that this life is not enough. Then we, almost without noticing, begin the quest to pull apart the ego we so courageously tried to build.
Having no other option but to go forward, I walked along the beach boardwalk with my little ones hoping that the natural beauty would, even marginally, rescue me. After a while, I must have forgotten about myself. I was looking out to sea, and the grandness of it all caught my attention. I forgot, for a moment, to feel so bad. That was the chance. And given a chance, It came rushing in. It was so brief that it was over before I even noticed it. But there it was, nevertheless, unmistakable. It came like an invisible breeze brushing past me, coming from the sea, returning beyond, into the Infinite. It wasn’t a breeze. It was the breath of God.
As soon as it went, I called internally, No, stop! Come back. I have been trying to find you. Stay with me. I need you.
I knew it was the Divine by the lightness it brought. It was a sweet presence, softening the mind. It was a very welcome breath of fresh air. It could not stay at that time, but it would later return and become a progressively more comfortable acquaintance. The veil was beginning to part.
If we can’t see people clearly, we can end up trusting people and situations that are not in our best interest and dismissing people and situations that would make our life better and happier. It is not just in regards to little things, but if we understand the far-reaching and powerful effect of thought, we realise that it can even be a life-and-death matter. Thought is very powerful, and the underlying intention is everything.
What is This For?
To get to the underlying intention of anything, it helps to ask ourselves, What is this for? We can ask it about everything. Eventually, it is not necessary to ask it so often as experience and wisdom lead the way with little effort. Once asked, we must listen for the answer. Don’t listen to the ego’s answer. Its answer will usually be the opposite of the truth. Ask with an open mind. If we discover that we are deceiving ourselves about some matter or that we have been deceived by someone else (intentionally or not), then that is a good discovery. Once we know what a particular venture or relationship is based on, we will also know its outcome. To those inexperienced in such thought processes, this may seem like magic or foolishness. It is not magic. It is simply understanding the human mind. And it is not foolish. Those who do not understand their own minds can never be fulfilled or happy.
A balanced, inner calmness radiates from a peaceful centre. It neither craves others’ approval nor rejects others’ presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants. It has compassion for the inevitable weaknesses of the human condition. It has nothing to gain from others’ approval. It is not self-seeking. It is not needy, grabbing or manipulative. It embodies gracious respect for everything beautiful including other human souls. It has a lively freedom, a happy composure, a quick and engaging wit, and an intelligent, interested, and interesting mental attitude.
It is often in the utter despair of humanness that we become willing to consider deeply spiritual answers. The door and the guide will be different for people, but once the door is open, we are all in the same territory. Spiritual truth irretrievably alters our way of seeing reality and our ability to heal both ourselves and other people. Most spiritual awakening is due to a total disappointment in the human condition to provide any sense of substantial happiness. It is a blessing in disguise. Our greatest need is for the love and assurance that spiritual understanding brings. If it were not for the common experience of human lovelessness and limitation, we would not be driven to seek a higher love.
