Connecting to Spirit

Every soul that is currently experiencing life on any level begins and ends as a whole. Our essence - the very core of our spiritual being - remains One with God. We always have been, and always will be, a part of 'the whole' that is the God-consciousness level.

Our soul essence, which began as whole, remains whole throughout the soul growth process, and will still be whole when the growth process has been completed and we no longer leave the whole to pursue our own life studies.

It is not that we, as spiritual beings in physical form, must learn something new in order to become whole, regardless of what aspect of our growth we may be working on. It is not that we need to make a 360 degree change in direction from the way we are living our lives now.

What we DO need to do is get in touch with our inner self, which is always connected through Spirit to our soul essence, which is part of God. Our inner self always understands the true purpose of our life, and looks at people, events and circumstances as the learning opportunities they were intended to be.

That objective perspective about life as a learning experience is sometimes very different from the perspectives we have developed over the course of our lifetime. The perspectives that drive our day to day choices are usually based on our emotional responses to what we have experienced, and are usually driven by one or more of our lesser aspects (emotional, intellectual and/or physical) instead of by Spirit.

On a conscious level, with no connection to our soul essence or God, life seems to be a very emotional experience. We have no choice but to think our way through the never-ending situations that arise, and all that thinking usually has a detrimental effect on our physical bodies. For many people, life is really not a very pleasant experience at all, with it's continuous struggles. It's not unusual, in the human factor, to spend most of our time looking back with regret and/or worrying about what will happen next. Surviving the present moment has become our priority in life.

God never intended life on any level to be a struggle. God provided every life form on every level of existence with everything they needed to be happy. Not just happy, actually - it was intended that every living thing exist in the blissful state of being One with God. The structure under which the souls were intended to learn their life lessons was one that accommodated growth through connection on a conscious level to the soul essence itself, which would guide the souls to self-awareness by walking the life path in a state of Grace.

When Man chose to separate himself from God by closing his connection through Spirit and allowing his conscious mind to become his driving force, he gave up that state of bliss in favor of experiencing the mental, emotional and physical repercussions of his choices on a full-time basis. He became a physical being, instead a spiritual being in physical form.

As physical beings living in a physical world, we have developed behavior patterns on every level in an effort to make life 'feel better.' Most of these behavior patterns have been developed as our way of responding to what life brings us. If we experience a good deal of emotional trauma, we may decide not to be emotional anymore, and close our emotional aspect down. We may find that there are certain things that we choose not to think about, because they cause us worry and distress. We may avoid certain physical activities because they cause our bodies pain.

We become who we need to become to survive life as physical beings in a physical world. We give little, if any, thought to the more abstract issues of life. Who has time to think about spiritual things when the physical, intellectual and emotional things in life are all-consuming? Very often, the way we respond to life is in direct conflict to the way we believe life should be. The way we think about life is what drives the way we feel about life, and it is the way we feel about life that determines how we respond to it.

These external behavior patterns are often in direct conflict with our inner truth. It's not what we say, but