Awakening to what we are is not usually a matter of an alarm going off and voila,, we’re wide awake. Rather, it is a process that begins at birth in our “first” life and continues until we complete our “last.”
Each stage of that journey brings new challenges for us to experience and explore.
One of the greatest comes with the ego’s expanding awareness of its other aspects (e.g., the soul or higher self) vis-a-vis its efforts to deal with the challenges of its life.
Even while the inner lines separating them begin to blur, the ego remains enmeshed in these outer dramas. And to make sure the growth continues, often they bring problems of ever-greater magnitude, constantly raising the bar over which we must jump.
Sometimes those challenges draw attention to conflicts over who we serve in any particular moment. For though we may have declared, “Thy will be done,” that will is truly our own and we’re left to decide which aspect of self is to be served.
The outer drama may involve a situation of struggle or hardship that directly results from serving our “higher” aspects by advancing the “calling” it transmits to the ego. When this happens, the ego is left in a quandry. Does it continue to serve the calling, or put attention on providing for its own needs and desires?
Sometimes that calling comes with unclear direction, leaving it up to our outer minds to set course through the obstacles at hand and still try to do its bidding (like leading you on a mission that provides little financial support to meet responsibilities to family, creditors, etc.).
But when the only viable possibilities involve dragging the ego even deeper into the drama of its struggles, it can find itself facing a Gordian knot. Continue on despite the potential for greater hardship? Stop and go in another direction, effectively “selling out” its commitment to the soul in the name of expediency? Or stay where it is in hope a way out appears?
Sometimes the ego may reject the available choices, and sets off to perform the mission in a way that serves both the soul’s needs as well as its own.
For instance, if it’s a financial struggle you’re in, you might try every which way to generate income while performing the mission.
Alas, though, that very act may reveal many other things about yourself that can only be seen while you remain in that situation of struggle. So instead of your mission moving forward and selling your wares, you may find yourself at an impasse to do either.
Must you struggle to make your mission a “success?” Need you become caught in your own net, so to speak, unable to move forward or go back while left to squirm right where you are?
No, not at all. It depends upon what’s written in your life plan. And that is determined by what your soul needs for its evolutionary development, not by the desire of your ego for something other than what you’re already getting.
The path of awakening often is like walking a tightrope, requiring a balancing act to serve the needs of all — soul vs. ego, others vs. us, even us vs. God. There is no right or wrong way to decide when all cannot be fully and equally served. It is the experience of being within those situations of choice that brings their value. And often that means having to choose, then find a point of balance as we move down the new path. Then as we come to the next fork in the road, to choose and balance all over again.
If you encounter such a situation, don’t beat yourself up or consider your efforts a failure to be all that you can be, because you are all that already.
Instead, go into it with your eyes open knowing that there may not be a solution, and your job is simply to choose and balance as best you can, and to experience all that it brings along the way.
God bless you indeed. In fact, He already has by allowing you the experiences you’ve created for yourself. Enjoy every moment.
