We are all familiar with the general laws govern our physical well-being; eat healthy foods, exercise both mind and body, and avoid toxic people and places whenever possible. Adhere to these simple laws, and be relatively free from suffering; break them, and you place yourself under another set of laws that pretty much guarantee you won’t be happy with how you feel.
Much in the same way, as shown above, there are spiritual laws that govern what we will, or won’t discover about ourselves in this lifetime. And when we understand that self-knowledge is to our spiritual growth what a spring rain is to the wildflower seeds that await it, then we also realize how vital it is to not just embrace these higher laws, but to embrace them…mind, body, and soul.
Recognizing these laws as they operate in our daily experience, and then becoming skilled at using them for our spiritual growth, is essential for our life-long learning. If we are watchful, every day offers countless opportunities to learn how to live within the laws of life instead of fighting against them. Then our possibilities become limitless, because we are living in harmony with the greatest force in the universe. Following are five laws to help you awaken and to realize your highest spiritual possibilities.
The First Law: If It Doesn't Flow, There's More to Know.
Learn to recognize all forms of strain – whether at work, in your creative efforts, or in your relationships – as being unnecessary. The friction you feel mounting when busy at some labor is never caused by the task at hand, but by what you don't yet know about it. This means the only real reason for your strain is that you've got hold of a wrong idea you don't yet see as wrong. This new insight allows you to release yourself by showing you what you need to know. Flowing follows your new knowing.
The Second Law: Refuse to Take the Easy Way
There's no getting away from what you don't know, which is why any time you feel compelled to go around a problem by taking the easy way, that problem always comes back around again. And isn't that what makes life seem so hard? Learn to see the "easy way" as a lying thought that keeps you tied up and doing hard time. Getting something over is not the same as having it completed. And as this insight grows, so will your understanding that the whole idea of the "hard way" has always been just a lying thought as well. Now you know: the complete way is the easy way. So volunteer to make the "hard way" your way, and learn what it means to live the effortless way.
The Third Law: Watch for the Opportunity to Learn Something New
Everything is changing all the time. That means life is an endless occasion for learning something new. But this means more than meets the eye. Just as you're a part of everything, everything is a part of you. The whole of life is connected. And your ability to learn is part of the wonder of this complete, but ever-changing whole. Learning serves as a window, not only into the complex world you see around you, but through it you may also look into the “you” that's busy looking into the world. And when you've learned there's no end to what you can see about the amazing worlds spinning both around and within you, you'll also know there's no end to you. So stay awake. Learn something new every day. You'll love how that makes you feel about yourself.
The Fourth Law: See Conclusions as Limitations
If you approach the possibilities of learning about your life as being limitless, which they are, then it follows that any conclusion you reach about yourself has to be an unseen limitation. Why? Because there's always more to see. For instance, let yourself see that all conclusions are illusions when it comes to the security they promise. There may be security in a prison, but there are also no choices behind its confining walls. Learn to see all conclusions about yourself as invisible cells, for that's exactly what they are. The seeming security these conclusions offer are a poor substitute for the real security of knowing that who you really are is always free to be something higher.
The Fifth Law: Persistence Always Prevails
If you'll persist with your sincere wish for higher learning, you can't help but succeed. Persistence always prevails because part of its power is to hold you in place until either the world lines up with your wish, or you see that your wish is out of line. But, for whichever way it turns in that moment, you've won something that only persistence can pay. See the following: if you get what you think you have to have to be happy and you're still not satisfied, then you've learned what doesn’t work. Now you can go on to higher things. And should you learn you've been wearing yourself out with useless wishes, then this discovery allows you to turn your energies in a new direction: self liberation.
Key Lesson: Learn to fall in love with seeing what’s Right, Bright and True – regardless of what’s revealed by that Living Light – and the rest of your days on earth, and ever-after, become a journey of discovering the best in you.
Adapted from The Secret of Your Immortal Self by Guy Finley, Llewellyn Worldwide, 2015
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Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Your Immortal Self and more than 40 other books and audio albums (plus over 1,000 unique audio programs) that have sold millions of copies in 24 languages worldwide. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks open to the public two times each week online.