There once was a berserker named Edison. As a young teen his mother fell victim to a life threatening appendicitis. She needed to be operated on immediately or she would die. It was not possible to move her to a hospital so the emergency procedure had to take place in their home. There were not enough kerosene lamps in their modest home for the doctor to perform the life saving surgery. His mother’s life now hung in the balance...not enough light and his mother was going to die.

Young Thomas Edison allowed himself to think beyond the normal boundary and dared to take action. He immediately directed the doctor to put his mother on the kitchen table and prepare for the emergency surgery. The doctor looked puzzled but followed his orders.  A few moments later, young Edison charged into the room with a four-foot long mirror. He positioned the mirror on the table a few feet alongside his mother.  As he worked frantically he asked the skeptical doctor to “Please continue to prepare for the surgery!” The doctor obeyed.

Edison positioned each kerosene lamp between his mother and the mirror. After placing the last lamp, he stood at the edge of the table and held up the mirror on its side facing his mother. As soon as the light from the lamps met the mirror, his mother became immersed in a bright light. The reflection of the kerosene lamps on the mirror lit up the whole room.  The astonished doctor immediately gave the sedation to his patient and performed the operation. Thomas Edison saved his mother’s life by going beyond the boundaries of normal consciousness.

Edison continued to question and explore outside of the norm. He eventually discovered the electric light. It took him close to 10,000 attempts before he found the right combination of gas, filament and design that would harness electricity and light up the world. A reporter once asked him, “How does it feel to fail 10,000 times?” And with his berserker tenacity, he immediately replied, “I do not know what you mean by failing! I successfully discovered what did not work 10,000 times and each step drew me closer to the electric light!”

Edison did not hold the normal view of failure. He knew that unless one makes mistakes, one never discovers the answers. He embraced each mistake and changed his perception.  Each failure was really a success. Edison had an ego like all of us. His emotions obviously experienced frustration, fatigue, financial disasters and all the obstacles one meets along the road to heroism. He chose to focus on the desire to succeed rather than the fear of failure.

Thomas Edison eventually lit up the whole world by thinking the unthinkable. What keeps someone like Edison going in spite of all the setbacks? Where did he find his strength to continue and keep going? He was a berserker and berserkers don’t give up. They may pause momentarily to catch their breath, but soon the human Spirit is back at it with a fire fuels them. And those who eventually get what they want never stop taking action. 


Edison’s spiritual endurance became the mirror that reflected the light of genius to show him the way. The human will is the emotional fire that fuels minds and bodies with the desire to keep going. It is what makes one persevere, no matter what! When you know how to tap into this infinite resource, nothing is impossible.

How can we learn from berserkers like Edison? We often fall victim to our own life story. It makes us tired, emotionally exhausted and often leads to chronic suffering. We forget that we positioned ourselves in our lives and are responsible for how we perceive our circumstance. We must learn to question our method of perception and how we measure our successes and mistakes. We often discover our destiny on the road we took to avoid it. The curriculum of life must involve trial and error so that you can learn. If your belief system says to be afraid of failure, you will fear taking action. Change your belief and you change the experience and outcome. Your beliefs dictate your reality.

Life will come at you. No matter what you plan and how much you prepare, your Spirit has a curriculum for you that will make you grow. Your life curriculum is unpredictable and the ego does not like that. Your ego doesn’t have a clue how life works. Your Spirit may at times knock your ego sideways by providing you opportunities in life that you had no way of knowing were going to happen. The greatest preparation anyone can take for the unpredictability of life events is to keep an open heart. Open hearts will open the mind. And an open mind will always explore uncharted territories.

The first step is to know that you cannot achieve something you already have. You cannot get Spiritual endurance. You are born with it. Your life is the cosmic gym where you exercise and strengthen your Spiritual stamina. You are born with the same ability for genius as Edison.  You have become “De-genius-ized” through the system of normal consciousness. You have been taught to think in a limited manner. And after a lifetime plagued by fearful illusions, you become a master of living normally.

You have succeeded at creating a reality where failure is possible. And with the essence of failure, enters the notion of fear. If you are reading this, there is a good chance you have graduated from the School of Suffering 101. The problem is that there never is a graduation day because the ego is in charge of how long it takes to get out. There will always be another class on suffering to take and the cycle goes on - forever.

Chronic suffering, depression and hopelessness can often be the prerequisite to a powerful motivation for change. Pain is a motivator.  Old world normal consciousness is boring, redundant and coming to an end. A new earth is being created from the ashes of old beliefs. Berserkers like Edison who dare go into the darkness of unexplored thought will be able to embrace what is coming. In order to live in a new world, we must see with new eyes. We must dare to question our realities starting with our own lives.

Each human being is born with a spiritual conference room. It resides in your heart. We often seek guidance when we are in pain. If you could go to a master that had all the answers to set you free, would you listen? Well, you have such a master. You must take a course of action by leaving your normal routine behind and enter your conference room where Spirit awaits.

If you create movies in your head that are scripted with anger, blame or fear you need to go to the conference room. Ego will tell you to just keep going in circles and rehearse the redundant thoughts of recycled mind sewage. Ego will convince you that you are too busy and there is not enough time to become spiritual.

The only way out is to break the pattern and old mind habits. If you find yourself in the darkness and can’t see a way out, then go further in. Do something that will break the pattern or you will be stuck in the whirlpool and keep going in suffering circles.

The greatest action you could take is to follow your Spirit without hesitation. To follow your Spirit is to follow your heart and the path of love. It will be the compass your soul seeks. The compass given to you by Spirit often will tell you to go deeper in to the darkness. Spirit does not hold darkness as bad or evil. Darkness is just an opportunity for you to go home. Often it is the fastest way to awaken. You spent your first nine months in darkness before you entered this world and every night when you close your eyes to refresh your bodies, you enter the darkness of sleep. Darkness is an invitation to your greatness. It is the potential for light.

The ego may suggest that things are going to get worse if you engage in this process. It could feel like you are moving backward instead of forward. If this occurs, just remember that you sometimes have to take a couple steps back in order to clear the hurdle in front of you.

And when you are being challenged and it appears that it can only get worse, remember our young berserker Edison. Your Spirit will reflect the best part of you and light up your world so that you can see the proper direction to take. And yes my friends, it may take 10,000 times before you discover this light. But it is the only journey worth taking. And like young Thomas, you will get closer and discover with every attempt what successfully works and what does not. This is what it takes to build a new earth. Bless you on your journey.

Jeff

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