Photo of Sister Mary Jo Sobieck - see more of her on CBS Local
It has been proven to me time and time again that the emotional body is the gateway to what we’re really looking for.
Being overly full of emotional waste is the source of physical pain, heaviness, and the bulk of our mental anguish. So clearing density at the emotional level is the quickest way to find relief. And spirit or the light is a crowbar for this. It helps us get to the emotional levels so that we can release what is stored in there.
But what is our end goal? Why do we want to release pain? What are we hoping for when it’s all gone?
Have we ever thought about this or are we suffering so much that we’re focused only on the promised goal; heaven on earth… enlightenment?
Seeking this end state, defined let’s say as, “free from all pain and suffering” is a powerful catalyst to provide incentive, inspiration, hope, and the dream and drive toward a world with no more suffering. It juices us with the life force required to cut through heavy cloaks of world history that make being human miserable, or at best, mundane. So it’s an important goal. Like aspiring to become a multi-millionaire, it pulls us through the impoverished and almost unbearable agony of what we took on when we came into this body. It lifts us out of poverty consciousness.
But what really happens as we shed the ironclad bars of karmic pain?
Do we think we end up completely pain-free? Do we think we no longer suffer heartbreak and drama, sickness and death? Of course not. If we’re doing the whole enlightenment thing correctly, the closer we get to it, the more human and normal we become - the more relatable and real, sensitive and immersed.
None of us want to be perfect - in a pain-free sense. And if that is what we see enlightenment to be, or those who are supposedly enlightened, then the more we heal and the closer we get to it, the less we’re going to want it - which is exactly the point. As we strip off the dark layers and regain presence in our body and world, our renewed love for everything makes us want to jump right in and play in the human dirt because this is what we blossom and grow out of. We don’t really want to split off into an ethereal enlightened state, playing a gold-filled, god-like being who lives at the top of a mountain with a herd of disciples around us to prove that we’ve “made it”. Not that there’s anything wrong with this per se, it’s just important to see it for what it really is - the mirage we use to get us to the well - not the end goal as we initially need to believe.
The well we end up finding [as devastating as this is to our spiritual ego], is the one where we embrace our humanness with all its follies and messiness, hurts, and challenges. Only now we’re able to handle it without going under thanks to the good work we’ve done, and thanks to those mentors and gurus who served as signposts along the way. We’ve cleared the debris and built the structure to be able to feel the beauty of the pain and to go through the torture of birthing and dying without shutting down to it all. Because none of this is ever going to stop - no matter how much we hide within our gilded spiritual castles, pain, and death are here to stay.
What I believe we really want is to off-load our baggage - the stuff that’s not real or true and not ours to carry around, so that we can be released to LIVE FULLY AND HUMANLY IN THIS BODY, on this earth, fully ourselves without hiding or holding back - being goofy, passionate, funny, careful, scared, quiet, loud, sexy, shy, a joker, an intellect, an explorer, an introvert, a cryer, a lover, a truth-teller, a mess. Whatever makes me, me, and you, you. We crave the freedom to be all of it whenever we want to be, and to live fully in relation to everyone and everything around us with an underlying feeling of acceptance and love.
So I no longer promise myself or others 'enlightenment'. This is what my body and soul just metaphorically divorced. What I do promise is that we can all learn what it means to use LIGHT to make our human experience a more fulfilling one - to make it not just bearable or manageable, but exciting, inspiring, and well worth being here for.
Jennifer Millar © copyright 2019. All rights reserved.