Your Spiritual LightHouse
by Dr. Jeff Alexander

 

My monthly trip to California started as usual, point the car in the direction of the SeaTac Airport and go on autopilot. The car seemed to know this route so well; it required minimal brain energy to get there.  

Not one mile from my house, a three-foot neon orange sign blocked my passage flashing “Detour.” Another smaller sign announced that this road would be under repair for one month. This is not supposed to be happening right now.

An immediate tightness seized my body. Frustrated and stressful thoughts raced into my head from the unseen software of my unconscious mind. My ego grew angry at the orange sign and those unseen enemies who placed it there. My body reacted to my thoughts with tension. This detour and new route would add an extra 20 minutes to my trip.

“A whole month of inconvenience” headed the list of jabbing angry thoughts. I launched off into an automatic series of painful contractions each preceded by a painful thought.  And right in the middle of my suffering a voice entered. “Stop.” Yes, “Stop” was what I heard from a place deep within.  The voice asked me to stop for a moment and notice the pain taking over my body. I became aware that my chest, stomach and throat were reacting to the negative thoughts in my head.

But right now, it appeared that I was going to be late to for my flight. I notice that my life lessons mostly come during my times of unconsciousness. I teach to follow your Spirit, and do your best to listen, all times. Funny how life circumstances create the invitations for Spirit to enter, even when you aren’t ready.  That is when Spirit works miracles, during the dark times. My intention has always been to listen. So I stopped. I listened. My car kept going, but I stopped and listened.

I noticed a silence and stillness. The tension was still present in my body. However the instant I “noticed,” something shifted. In the noticing, I became separate from the experience.  A magical gap opened up where “no thinking” was present.  I could feel my body and the energy moving through it. I could step back and notice what just had occurred.

 I had reacted to the external stimulus of the large orange sign with a conditioned response that was in opposition to my true nature. That is a mouthful.  Another way of saying this was that I reacted to a stimulus in a very predictable way that causes harm when left unattended.

The way out of suffering first starts with knowing that you are suffering. You must first admit you are in prison, if you want to escape. Deny that you are in prison, and escape is not possible. So the moment you become aware of your suffering, you have accomplished the first and hardest step.

 Anyone can suffer, and most do. Not everyone is aware that they are suffering. Without awareness, there can be no detachment. It is in the surrender to the story that one fully experiences the problem and can solve it. The energy wasted on resisting the story is now converted to the energy of creation that is directed to solve the problem. It is not the cure of a disease that brings us to God, it is in the striving to cure that we connect with each other, which brings us to God. In that space of connectedness, the cure manifests naturally as the completion of the experience.

The Buddha said that the way out of suffering is to first recognize you suffer. And this awakens you to a state of awareness. To become aware is to become detached to that which causes suffering. You may still feel the suffering physically in the body, but you are watching it rather than 100% being it. The instant you flip the channel of awareness on, you become the watcher and the pain lessens. The mind can only watch one thought at a time. The minute you introduce awareness into your being, the brain separates you from the full effect of the situation so you can see all sides of it. To watch or notice your suffering takes practice. It is the walk all masters go through. The results will lead you to freedom. A new route and often a new destination come forth.

The truth of what followed over the next month was profound. By the second day on my new alternate route to town using side road here, a short cut there, and I had a new interesting way of getting to an old destination. I began to see some new sights I had never noticed before. I discovered a small park beautifully set in the forest, not three minutes from my home. Some shops and neighborhoods I never new existed before emerged along the way. A feisty old man who walked down the sidewalk, at the same time each day just waved at random to whomever passed by. Interesting how soon I began to expect to see these new sights as I drove to town each day. Almost a full month had gone by. My new path was no longer new.  It was now routine.

To my surprise, I noticed one afternoon that the large detour sign was gone. The old road was now open for travel. But by force of habit, I turned and went down the new path I had traveled the last month. Wow, again I noticed that old familiar contraction in my body the moment I was hit by a new stimulus. Time to resume my old route, the road is open again. And here I was refusing to travel down it and chose to continue with my new route. I thought back in time and tried to remember what the upset was about. Was it really about the detour and change in road conditions? Or could it be about something else?

Well, either I am insane or I am not really upset about what I a think I am. Maybe it is not about the story at all. Maybe the story or contents of your upset is not what causes the pain of contraction. Stories come and go, but our reaction to them often reveals hidden beliefs. Consider the possibility that your upset comes from within and not from the outside world. Consider that your reaction to the stories cause your suffering.

When one experiences loss, it is natural to have grief. Pain is part of life and grief is a way of recognizing the impermanence of the material world. The pain one feels is proportionate to the love they gained during the experience. So, one can notice the pain and fully experience the loss without being at the affect of the experience. This allows you to be fully present with the situation and not with the thoughts about the situation. You no longer resist it, you feel it fully.

So my simple story in this example illustrated how Spirit teaches us when we have ears to listen. My story was like a million other stories we go through each day.  I had mastered a route to town that worked well. It was blocked and I got to master another route to town. By having to take an alternate route, I experienced new sites and people.  And now I had options and choices of how I want to get to my destination. That is the story.

 But more valuable than passageways and travel, was the wisdom of the adventure. I became aware of my hidden structure of beliefs regarding change.  Change in this example appeared to be inconvenient. Change offered me an unknown, and for some reason this opened possibilities of more anxiety rather than more adventure. How interesting. Maybe the lesson here had nothing to do with the story, and everything to do with my belief about change.

What if we could immediately jump into this realization when faced with change and uncertainty? What if we knew that our Spirit never rests and is always vigilant and ready to teach us how to be present and connected to all things? What if in the middle of painful contractive reactions to our thoughts, we could jump out and know the truth. It is possible to be in the middle of pain and know you are having an experience and see it through the eyes of Spirit.

Your Spirit never sleeps. Your Spirit is always watching and scanning the horizon of your life for ways to awaken you. It is your lighthouse during dark turbulent storms. Your Spirit will use your life circumstances to bring you close to God. And know that your Spirit often uses those uncomfortable areas where limited beliefs lay dormant. You tend to move away quicker from pain than you do toward joy. So Spirit has no problem using painful events to get you to move.

 

The awareness of your Spiritual lighthouse awaits your arrival. It burns the brightest against the contrasting darkness of the stormy nights. When the seas become so turbulent you lose your way, just know you have a lighthouse forever blinking on the horizon and look in that direction. Whether you see it with your physical eyes or not is irrelevant. It is there. Like the sun that hides behind the clouds, it shines brightly.

Yes, some stories are painful and invite us to suffer. You can become lost and sink deep down into the black sea of despair. Keep looking and in the looking you will eventually catch the faint beam of light from Spirit.  Head toward that light and do not stop. Keep going, one inch at a time and you will reach your destination.  You will get there. It is in the acting, that you manifest the result.  I will meet you along the way.

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