Not too long ago, I used to be interviewed about my new e-book Humanity’s Non secular Rebirth: Knowledge to Remodel Struggles into Energy. What follows are the profoundly wealthy and perennial religious questions that Linda Mackenzie (host of the Linda Mackenzie Present) requested me and the responses I wrote the night earlier than calling into her radio present.
I want to share this transcript with you, with Linda’s permission, as a result of I humbly imagine there could also be some nuggets of inspiration tucked inside which will aid you by yourself journey of awakening.
Peace and love,
Forrest
On struggling
Linda Mackenzie (Host): Because it pertains to struggling, what do you imply once you write in your e-book that we should “Rewrite the Narrative”?
Forrest Rivers: By “rewrite the narrative,” I imply to say that struggling doesn’t need to be checked out as one thing inherently unfavourable, as most of us in Western tradition are conditioned to imagine. Quite, from a religious perspective, struggling can grow to be the sandpaper for our personal awakening. Our expertise with struggling can strengthen our interior resolve, humble us, construct larger braveness and assist open our hearts to the very chance of rising in our knowledge and compassion.
I feel many people have endured excruciatingly troublesome experiences in our lives that on the time appeared just like the worst issues conceivable to bear. However then by the passage of time and after a lot interior reflection, possibly we got here to realize a deeper understanding of how these durations of struggling served to expedite our personal religious progress within the methods outlined above.
Wanting again at my very own life, I can say with absolute certainty that enduring struggling strengthened my interior resolve, grew my humility and braveness, and hopefully made me a wiser and extra compassionate particular person. That is what I imply by rewriting the narrative: shifting our personal perspective of our relationship to affected by one that’s wrapped up in our ego’s reactions to the very actual emotions of concern, despair, ache, disappointment and disgrace that we really feel after we undergo; to that which soulfully acknowledges how our struggles are reworked into knowledge and energy.
On dying
Linda: How will we transcend our concern of dying?
Forrest: A method that we will transcend our concern of dying is thru embracing the impermanence of all issues on this bodily world. Every little thing in our universe is all the time in flux, is all the time altering. But, there may be this everlasting seed embedded inside us that we could name our spirit, our soul or our deathless self. And it’s unchanging and infinite in its essence.
So if we take a look at dying on this approach, what’s there actually to concern? Our souls take beginning in these our bodies. And after a sure period of time, our our bodies die, however our spirit/soul/deathless self lives on. Then we take beginning in one other physique to proceed our work. It’s not altogether completely different from the cycle of the seasons.
By way of embracing this sense of impermanence, we be taught to narrate to dying as not solely a really pure course of, however as a profound transition of kind merging again into the formless spirit—our unique nature.
On gratitude
Linda: What’s the Mild of Gratitude that you simply allude to in your e-book?
Forrest: The sunshine of gratitude is an expression of divine grace that’s bestowed upon every one among us. And this grace permits us to stay in humble appreciation for the day by day miracles in our lives. In fact, the truth that we’re right here within the first place as acutely aware souls in these our bodies, sharing on this common expertise—this cosmic dance—is the final word of all miracles!
The sunshine of gratitude additionally means for us to get up day-after-day grateful for all the nice that exists in our lives, such pretty much as good well being, entry to shelter/clear meals/water, and dependable relations and associates.
On goals
Linda: How and why do you have to discover the braveness to chase your goals?
Forrest: A method that yow will discover the braveness to chase your goals is by quieting your thoughts by practices like meditation. One of many (many) advantages of the apply is that it helps us transfer past the self-limiting ideas and emotions of unworthiness that stand in the way in which of chasing our goals.
We should always all chase our goals as a result of God/The One/your greater energy (or no matter title you want to name that elegant religious intelligence that lives within us) needs us to be comfortable and fulfilled. However we will’t discover the braveness to chase our goals if we will’t first learn to overcome our self-limiting ideas and emotions of unworthiness.
On prayer
Linda: Clarify what it means to outlive by religion and heal by prayer?
Forrest: Religion turns into our interior device to transcend the very troublesome moments that life typically presents to us, just like the dying of a cherished one, a persistent or terminal sickness, private addictions, homelessness, divorce or bodily and emotional abuse. Our expertise of those type of struggles can really feel overwhelming and particularly hopeless if we don’t personally discover an interior refuge in our greater energy, our guru or guides.
Religion not solely helps us navigate the challenges and hardships of life, however it helps us discover each that means and goal in our struggling, which is commonly instrumental for our religious progress. As my very own guru Ram Dass (who himself suffered a devastating stroke and was in a wheelchair for the ultimate quarter of his life) was fond of claiming, “Struggling is grace.”
He didn’t imply to say we must always invite struggling into our lives or flip a blind eye to a different’s struggling. By no means. Quite, we must always lean into the profoundly wealthy classes that our struggling gives us in the way in which of opening our hearts to the deeper truths of our being.
Religion is the bridge that takes us past fearful fragmentation to fearless fullness as a part of the changeless complete. And from that deep reservoir of religion that we uncover within the very depths of our struggling, prayer emerges as a robust expression of our full belief in and peaceable give up to the desire of the One, God, Universe, Spirit and its inherent knowledge (which can also be inside every one among us).
Put in different phrases, by surrendering our personal ego’s will by prayer, we quit our judgments of our personal struggling and start to open to the likelihood that it would certainly serve a larger goal within the awakening of the soul. The truth that religion and prayer enable us to positively relate to our personal struggling on this approach (an open, expansive and non-attached approach, versus one which’s tight and reactive) goes a great distance in direction of the therapeutic of our souls.
On Mom Earth
Linda: What’s Earth Communion and why ought to we commune with the Earth?
Forrest: Earth communion means to forge a blissful union with Mom Earth. The that means of Earth communion is akin to a sacred covenant by which we honour, serve, shield and worship the spirit of divinity that’s inherent within the Earth. We should always commune along with her as a result of we’re part of her. We aren’t separate from her. We rely on the Earth for our sustenance, and we derive nice that means from her.
It’s not a shock that modern-day ills like nervousness, melancholy, violence and alienation proceed to worsen, as one of many basic sources of every of those ills is our detachment from nature and the pure rhythms of the Earth. Our world’s worship of expertise has put us in a really awkward and unlucky predicament: We now not know who and what we’re as a result of we’ve severed ourselves (in our minds) from the guiding knowledge of nature.
So why ought to we commune with the Earth? To reclaim our spirit. To recollect who and what we actually are: youngsters of the Earth.
On self-mastery
Linda: Why is self-sufficiency the street to self-mastery, as you write in your e-book?
Forrest: By turning into self-sufficient, impartial actors within the manifestations of our intentions, ideas and actions, we grow to be free-thinking and acutely aware beings. If we don’t grow to be impartial and self-sufficient in these methods, we’re nothing greater than mechanical robots on the whims of societal programming. “Assume this!” “Do That.” Chase after this even when it doesn’t convey you a way of goal, happiness or pleasure.”
How can we probably obtain any semblance of self-mastery (the power to regulate our personal impulses, feelings and behaviours and stay a extra centered and spiritually oriented life) if we aren’t in a position to specific our personal interior freedom? Self-mastery can solely be realized by the lengthy and troublesome strategy of understanding your self so deeply to the purpose at which you’re in a position to align your interior world with desired outward actions.
To do that, we should free ourselves of our conditioning. We should grow to be, because the Zen Buddhists say, “empty.” That’s, with out conditioned ideas, opinions and judgments of the world round us. Simpler mentioned than finished, to make certain!
On love
Linda: What’s Love obtained to do with all of it?
Forrest: EVERYTHING. Love and connection is every little thing. Love is us. Love is the connecting root of all issues and the glue that binds us as religious beings in these bodily kinds and past all kinds. Because the Nice Indian Saint Neem Karoli Baba used to say, “Sub Ek,” which interprets to “all is one” in English. Love is that Multi functional.
Earlier than something, earlier than even our exterior identities that we progressively assume by our conditioning as youngsters and younger adults, we’re seeds of loving consciousness. At our roots, that’s who and what we’re. That’s what God is. That’s what lives inside every of us … loving consciousness.
Once we see the countless horrors and injustices carried out by world leaders towards our personal brothers and sisters, what we’re actually bearing witness to is a good forgetting of who and what all of us essentially are. And who and what we’re is loving consciousness. By way of this Nice Forgetting, the shadow of darkness reigns and the devastating outcomes are there for us all to see: The desecration of the Earth, brutal wars, the immense exploitation of the poor and downtrodden all through our world, hunger and illness.
However not all hope is misplaced. If we might all simply flip inside ourselves and switch in direction of love, the heaven on Earth that so many individuals appear to imagine won’t ever be attainable would grow to be a actuality in a single day. I actually think about that assertion. If all of us turned inside ourselves and turned in direction of love, in direction of God, in direction of the One, heaven on Earth would grow to be a actuality in a single day.
In the long run, we’ll discover that love all the time prevails. And that love is destined to transcend all of the darkness of hate, concern and separation. All the time keep in mind, the sunshine of affection shines vivid inside you, identical to Christ’s love: inextinguishable and ever-present.
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