Life and Living - Peace & Spirituality

What is the point of life and living? Sometimes when I am feeling frustrated, I like to remind myself of what life and living are. This allows me to refocus on who I am and on the beauty of all creation. God has created both the spiritual (heaven and spirits) and the physical (Earth, and it's inhabitants) to allow us to experience anything that we wish. Therefore, the physical universe was created to help facilitate two of God's greatest gifts to us, life, and living. Life is a conscious choice to live as a partner to God and to know ourselves as Godlike through our powers of creation. Living is embracing all the opportunities that the physical world provides for us, such as love, relationships, food, sex, adventure, and beauty. Life and living together create a spiritually based, physical existence that allows us to live as we see fit. Life Physical Life as God's Co-Creators From a spiritual perspective, the point of physical life is hugely varied. It is essential, therefore, to examine why God created us, as it's inhabitants. First, God created us, his children as a means of helping God to know himself fully. What I mean by that is that God only knew himself and only knew his perspective in the spiritual world. It is no different than what we experience daily. We know and understand what we look like, think, and feel, but there are things that we do not see because we can only assume a singular experience. It, too, was God's dilemma, so God decided to engender us to be his co-creators in the physical and spiritual world. God did this by literally dividing himself into many pieces that became us, his spirit children. Once God created us, he now could experience what we experience in real-time while also experiencing what he chooses to experience. To put it another way, imagine if a school teacher could know everything that a student is thinking and experiencing during a lesson while simultaneously teaching the lesson. It would allow the teacher to gain a greater insight into the student's comprehension but would also give the teacher a much fuller experience of teaching. It is also what God is up to because God wants to experience being both the teacher and the student and everything in between. God created us to help him know himself fully and not only as God. Context Creates Experience One of the objectives of physcial life is to create a specific context and experience what we know in theory. Though it seems like this is our only life and that when it ends we die, that isn't the case. We all reside permanently and fully in heaven. However, we choose to come to physcial life to experience specific spiritual ideas that we cannot encounter back home, and it's because everything in heaven is perfect. There is absolutely none of the pain, grief, sadness, anger, or violence that we experience here on Earth. As soon as we pass away, we have a team of spirits that guide us and wash away the pain of our past life as we reenter an arena of pure love and bliss. Imagine you are a brand new soul, and a fellow soul tells you about a crazy concept called patience. When you first hear the idea, you are unsure of what it means and how it works. Your fellow soul fills you in, and soon, you feel empowered because you want to know yourself as being patient. The only problem is that you cannot create conditions in heaven that will allow you to experience yourself as a patient. In heaven, there is no frustration or waiting. You can go anywhere and do anything right now. But here on Earth, you will experience a variety of situations that will allow you to demonstrate your new found patience. We use the physical world to create a context that differs from what we experience in heaven. To put it another way, you cannot know love, kindness, compassion, or forgiveness without experiencing the opposite or absence of those ideas. We come to Earth to create a context in our lives so we can fully experience all that life has to offer. To Know God Fully When we incarnate in the physcial world, we intentionally forget almost all that we know, and it is part of God's design to give us a clean slate every time that we start a new life. Imagine what the world would be like if we remembered the many crimes and indiscretions that we committed and those that others committed against us. I think it would be easy to see how guilt and vengeance could quickly expand given conditions currently on Earth. Since we use amnesia as a tool, we forget that God is with us every step of the way. Though this seems unnecessary, remember that to know something, you must experience the opposite or absence of that thing. In other words, to honestly know God, in some incarnations, you must genuinely believe that God does not exist. Fortunately, the absence of God in our lives is only an illusion brought on to create specific conditions in the physical world. Once you "rediscover" God, it will mean so much more to you because you have experienced life devoid of God. To Be Godlike Another point to physcial life is to experience ourselves as God. Though this may seem like blasphemy, it is one of the primary reasons that we incarnate in the physical. Keep in mind that God created us in his likeness, not in a physcial sense but a spiritual sense. God gave us his significant powers of creation to use as we see fit. The issue is that we do not believe ourselves to be God until we experience ourselves as God in the physical world, which requires us experiencing the absence or opposite of God. If God tells you that you are Godlike (which he has said to all of us countless times) it will have less of an impact than if you experience it first hand. Examine the experience of Jesus. He knew himself as Godlike but was able to truly experience what that is like on a grand stage by healing people and performing daily miracles. We are up to the same thing but only in a different way. We each use our creative Godlike powers to manifest the people, situations, and events of our life moment by moment. To give you a more relevant example, imagine the person who is deathly ill. The person realizes that they are worse off, but they decide that they can heal themselves even though most people that they are encountering are saying the opposite. The ill person sticks with the idea that they will be okay in the end because they believe it wholeheartedly. Eventually, the person heals, and now they have begun to know themselves as God through experience as opposed to theory. Though this might seem outlandish, it happens every day in our world. You Chose Life… Every example of physical life in God's universe is imbued with the "I Am" spirit. This simple idea means that you wish to live and experience physical being as an individual. You were able to choose the time and place of your incarnation along with your family and friends. In many cases, you were able to choose your body, sexuality, as well as your social and economic background. This idea is essential to note because often we feel and behave as if life forced upon us. The reality is that God does not break free will under any circumstances, so we were not born into our lives unwillingly. But What Is Living? Though the two terms seem the same, life and living are two different things. Life means being alive whereas living speaks to how a person lives and if their feelings about living are positive or negative. In other words, some of us wake up in the morning looking forward to the day, and others dread every moment. Most of us experience both the exhilaration of living but also the malaise of having to deal with minutiae of day to day life. Therefore, it is essential to examine what excited you about living in the physical world before you ever incarnated. Each of us embodied with specific spiritual goals that were meant to be fleshed out throughout our life. However, we also wanted to experience all of the things that make a physical world beautiful and unique when you consider that in heaven, many of the physical experiences are not available to us. Living! When you dreamt of your future physical life in heaven, you probably made a laundry list of activities and experiences that you couldn't wait to partake. The list is not comprehensive, and every example will not apply to every person, but I think you will get the point. The Physical- Perhaps the best part of living in a physical world is embracing all that is physical. Once you incarnate, you now have this fantastic body that can run, jump, swim, and experience flight. Perhaps, even more, you have skin that can feel the sensation and touch of another person. The same skin that also gets to experience cold rain, warm sunshine, a cleansing shower, and the comfort of your bed. You also have eyes which can see infinite beauty and landscapes all over the world. Finally, your ears can perceive the words of a loved one and the sounds of the oceans. You incarnated to experience all that is physical. Falling in love- Imagine when you were back home in heaven, you and another spirit decided to play a game. We will incarnate in relatively close position to each other and see if we "bump into" each other and fall in love. You both embody in the same city but attended different schools with different social circles and interests. You both ended up living in a different town than the one you grew up. One day a friend introduces you to a friend of theirs, and it turns out you have many things in common with this new person but also so many things that are poles apart. Soon the romance is in full swing, and it turns out to be your first "true love." Though it doesn't end in a lifetime commitment, you truly savored spending all the time you could with a person who understood who you were and where you came from while bringing something new to your life. Though this scenario is often not pre-determined, the act of falling in love is one of the great things about living in a physical world. Food- One of the most beautiful experiences we can offer each other is through food. It's something that we require for survival, but we have made it so much more than that. In heaven, food is not necessary and therefore not a part of the experience of the spiritual. However, many spirits look forward to experiencing the rich tastes and textures that various foods provide. Imagine the toddler who tries ice cream for the first time or the traveler who eats the dish that she has yearned to experience for years. It is something that most of us enjoy. Food also allows us to experience other cultures and people as we look to expand our palette. Finally, we use the experience of food to help build and maintain relationships with others, along with giving those who prepare our meals a valuable purpose. Sex- Though I cannot say with certainty that sex is exclusive to the physical universe, it is one of God's great gifts to us. When people have sex with someone that they are in love with, all of our seven chakras are engaged, which leads to a deep feeling of connection and fulfillment. As Neale Donald Walsch pointed out in Conversations With God, the act of sex occurs when two people yearn to be ever closer to each other until they are connected. In essence, sex brings people closer than close. And what better way than to bring a new life into the world than two people yearning to be closer and closer to each other. Relationships- What would life be without actors and actresses to help us live out our dramas and comedies? We often choose spirits with whom we are closest to incarnate with us and appear in our lives at various times to bring joy and love. Imagine every deep conversation, tender moment, and great laugh that we have had with others. Our lives wouldn't be nearly as rich or varied without our friends, families, and loved ones. Relationships are how we express ourselves and define ourselves. For example, if you are the primary caretaker of a loved one, you now know yourself as loving, kind, and giving. If you are slow to anger with a friend, you now know yourself to be patient. Music- What is your earliest memory of music? I fondly remember listening to whatever records my parents or sister were playing during my early childhood. As I progressed from Walkman to CD to download as the rest of the world did, I noticed that music marked many periods in my life. Several of my memories are deeply tied to songs as I'm sure you can attest to as well. Doesn't it almost feel like some of the musicians of the world were born to play an instrument? We are quite blessed to live in a physical world were vibration can create such wondrous sound. Animals- Do you have a pet or a favorite animal? Have you ever seen an angler fish? They live in the deep ocean and have a spotlight that hovers over their head illuminating the way. For some reason, I find the fish endearing and inspiring. Every pet that has entered my life has been a blessing and a source of unconditional love. Plants Imagine our world without plants. Aside from the nutritional implication, our view of nature would be markedly different without plants. We are blessed to have trees, flowers, bushes, and cacti as part of our daily landscape and experience. God gave us beautiful partners in all forms of life. Creation- We are all creative beings that can manifest physical reality and do so every waking moment. One of the best experiences available to us is to see ourselves as the intentional creator of our lives. All of us have had experienced this by having a great idea, and having that great idea grow into a goal. We support that goal with effort and focus. Enough time passes that the hard work and attention has created a new reality in which we have intentionally created something that we desired. Once it becomes apparent that we need to be deliberate in our thoughts, speech, and actions to produce positive outcomes, the more we will strive to do just that. The final step is to deliberately and consciously create every moment and at which time we know ourselves as a creator. Adventure- Though we get to choose many of the people that enter our lives, free will dictates that many of our experiences will be a product of our decisions and the law of attraction. If we aren't deliberate about our thoughts, words, and actions, life can get a little adventurous. But what is life without a bit of adventure? And make no mistake when you imagined your physical experience on the other side, you wanted an adventure. You did not sign up for things to always be perfect and happy because you knew that our world is challenging at times. The beauty of problems and setbacks is that they always lead to a breakthrough. God has built that simple mechanism into our spiritual development. Once the breakthrough occurs, you are going to realize your strength and appreciate what you have overcome. We have all yearned for the grand adventure, and so it is living in the physical world.