What  Is  The  Role  That  Is  Ours  To  Play?

Neale Donald Walsch

In the opening installment of this series of articles I made the observation that I could not remember a time during my half century of adulthood (and my 71 years altogether) when the average human being on this planet found herself or himself looking directly into the face of more stressful events, circumstances, and situations than those now presenting themselves daily around the world.

I posed the question: What is the spiritually evolved response to these kinds of circumstances? I talked of not only our daily bombardment with illustrations of the dark side of life at every turn, but, as well, the pressures building in just about every individual's personal life. Family finances. Job losses. Forced relocations. Relationship challenges. Dementia tragedies.

I said that our initial spiritual response to all of this depends, it seems to me, on whether we choose to play our role consciously or unconsciously. That is, whether we choose to be active or passive in the creation of our tomorrows (both individually and collectively). And that choice appears to me to depend on how each of us sees the experience of Life itself; on what we imagine to be its origin, its purpose, its function, and its process. Let's take a look at that here.

I have come to an awareness within myself that before any of us can consider that question, we must answer an altogether different question that we must ask of ourselves.

In my view, you cannot really explore or examine how you see the experience of Life itself until you explore and examine how you see yourself within that experience.

That is, Who are you? What is your real and true identity?

It seems to me that you have two choices when it comes to how you think of yourself.

Choice #1: You could conceive of yourself as a chemical creature, a "logical biological incident." That is, the logical outcome of a biological process engaged in by two older biological processes called your mother and your father.

If you see yourself as a chemical creature, you would see yourself as having no more connection to the larger processes of life than any other chemical or biological life form.

Like all the others, you would be impacted by life, but could have very little impact on life. You certainly couldn't create events, except in the most remote, indirect sense. You could create more life (all chemical creatures carry the biological capacity to recreate more of themselves), but you could not create what life does, or how it "shows up" in any given moment.

Further, as a chemical creature you would see yourself as having very limited ability to create an intentioned response to the events and conditions of life. You would see yourself as a creature of habit and instinct, with only those resources that your biology brings you.

You would see yourself as having more resources than a turtle, because your biology has gifted you with more. You would see yourself as having more resources than a butterfly, because your biology has gifted you with more. You would see yourself as having more resources than an ape or a dolphin (but, in those cases, perhaps not all that many more), because your biology has gifted you with more. Yet that is all you would see yourself as having in terms of resources.

You would see yourself as having to deal with life day-by-day pretty much as it comes, with perhaps a tiny bit of what seems like "control" based on advance planning, etc., but you would know that at any minute anything could go wrong—and often does.

Choice #2: You could conceive of yourself as a spiritual being inhabiting a biological mass—what I call a "body."

If you saw yourself as a spiritual being, you would see yourself as having powers and abilities far beyond those of a simple chemical creature; powers that transcend basic physicality and its laws.

You would understand that these powers and abilities give you collaborative control over the exterior elements of your individual and collective life and complete control over the interior elements—which means that you have total ability to create your own reality, because your reality has nothing to do with producing the exterior elements of your life and everything to do with how you respond to the elements that have been produced.

Also, as a spiritual being, you would know that you are here (on the earth, that is) for a spiritual reason. This is a highly focused purpose and has little to do directly with your occupation or career, your income or possessions or achievements or place in society, or any of the exterior conditions or circumstances of your life.

You would know that your purpose has to do with your interior life—and that how well you do in achieving your purpose may very often have an effect on your exterior life. (For the interior life of each individual cumulatively produces the exterior life of the collective. That is, those people around you, and those people who are around those people who are around you. It is in this way that you, as a spiritual being, participate in the evolution of your species.)

So which of these two choices describes how you see and experience yourself?

In my third installment, I will share with you my own answer to this question, and we will look at the implications of your choice, and of the collective choices made by all of us, as they affect all of us. And make no mistake—they do.

It is very clear to me that the choice that you, individually, and all humans collectively, make bears directly on the initial question that started this whole inquiry: What is the most spiritually evolved response to all that is happening in our personal and collective lives during this unbelievable challenging time?

http://www.humanitysteam.org/node/4278