Yesterday I wrote about man's "natural" beauty. When we're young we don't try to be beautiful, we just are. This lasts longer for some than others, depending on the length of time we're covered in an appreciative love for everything we are and everything we're capable of still becoming. It's like good soil, sun and water for us to grow up healthy, wealthy and wise.At some point most of us start trying to be attractive, whether to our parents, our world, or to that "just one". This is a learned thing, that how we are naturally somehow isn't good enough. Once this mental path is taken it seems to get us emotionally and spiritually lost. The longer we travel it, the less we are able to see real beauty in ourselves or in others. And what we see as beautiful too closely matches what the media says we need to be acceptable and beautiful.
Then one day we wake up, look at our less-than-beautiful messed-up lives, feeling ugly and lost. Without realizing it, we have been worshiping the opinion of our fellow man to tell us our lives have meaning and importance instead of listening to our inner voice. We have been praying to the saints of money and materialism to tell us of our worth in this world, instead of allowing abundance to flow into our lives as a by-product of following our joy and developing our talents. We realize we are so lost; in the deep woods with no sunlight to guide us out.
There always is a way out, if you believe there is. If you're unable to reconnect with your inner child, perhaps you'll be able to follow your inner compass. This is from my friends at Daily OM. As Ben Franklin said, "...I was conscious, that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own...but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo of it.."Daily OM
August 7, 2007
Information And Inspiration
Roadmaps Of Life
All the major spiritual traditions serve the purpose of offering us a roadmap to guide us on our individual journeys to enlightenment. These roadmaps are made up of moral codes, parables, and, in some cases, detailed descriptions of mystical states. We often study the fine points of a particular ascended master’s narrative in order to better understand our own and to seek inspiration and guidance on our path. In the same way, when we plan a road trip, we carry maps and guidebooks in an effort to understand where we are going. In both cases, though, the journey has a life of its own and maps, while helpful, can only take us so far. There is just no comparison between looking at a line on a piece of paper and driving your own car down the road that line represents.
Some people seem well-suited to following maps, while others are always looking for new ways to get where they’re going. In the end, the only reliable compass is within, as every great spiritual guide will tell you. The maps and travelogues left behind by others are great blessings, full of useful information and inspiration, but they cannot take the journey for us. When it is time to merge onto the highway or pull up anchor, we are ostensibly on our own. Strange weather patterns, closed roads, and traffic jams arise in the moment, out of nowhere, and our maps cannot tell us what to do. Whether we take refuge in a motel by the side of the road, persevere and continue forward, or turn back altogether is entirely up to us.
Maps are based on observations from the past and we are living in the present, so we are the only true experts on our journey to enlightenment. We may find that the road traveled by our predecessors is now closed. We may feel called to change direction entirely so that the maps we have been carrying really no longer apply. These are the moments when we learn to attune ourselves to our inner compass, following a map that only we can see, as we make our way into the unknown territory of our own enlightenment.
