From the beginning of my Spiritual Quest that God set me on, my spiritual practice was driven by necessity as well as a spirit of scientific inquiry. Necessity was the crises I found myself in from my late teens on, driven by the emotional/spiritual pain. The scientific spirit of inquiry was my determination to know the absolute truth about life and its ultimate meaning.
When I met Mother, she taught from a state of realized truth that was a result of her Spiritual liberation. Far from asking me to be a blind follower based on faith—that asked me to check my reason at the door—all she taught was logical, it made sense and promised this goal: I could directly realize that same truth and experience that same level of liberation that she and saints around the world describe. Sign me up!
From the beginning Mother was transparent about the difficulties entailed in realizing this truth—it would not be a cake walk. It was the “Pearl of Great Price,” and it included a process of transformation she called “The Mystical Crucifixion.” That we must be prepared to give all in order to receive all. If I had not been driven by an inborn necessity my natural entropy may have eventually exhausted itself and I would have sought what would appear to be an easier life of simply living in the world, as many others satisfy themselves with. Fortunately, I say now, the inner pain would not allow me to rest in this way—now I consider that painful crises I lived in a result of transcendent grace.
Through many years of undergoing the Mystical Crucifixion and the gradual transformation that resulted, I could observe the results of following this journey that God and Guru had set me upon. Throughout it all I was determined to stick to only what my experience taught me and not add layers of philosophical speculation—I was only interested in practical, realized truth.
One of the things we are taught by the world’s great spiritual masters: this world is filled with opposites—for every high there is a low, and with every pleasure comes pain—and that only by attaining transcendent God-consciousness can we know a state of being that is proof against opposites. As Swami Satchidananda stated it, “Bliss has no opposite.”
I think anyone following these posts over the last four years could agree that my life has had its challenges—some pretty big ones. Putting on my scientific inquiry hat—fact, no fluff—I have observed that what Mother and the great masters have taught is true. This quote from Mother from this morning’s Message from Mother:
If you will put your full attention upon God, He will open up whole new worlds for you. He will take you places that you never even dreamed of. He will actually help you to rise above these limitations, which are keeping you in the consciousness that you are the body. He will show you what you should do for the future so that you may become a radiant, successful being, filled with the love and the truth and the bliss and the glory of God. This is possible. I promise you it is. I know that it is. – Mother Hamilton
Throughout the challenges of these past four years the Divine Presence has been constant and abiding. Whether I was in a sick bed recovering from sequential operations or rehabbing from repeated states of paralysis, God’s bliss has filled me to overflowing. In addition, His spiritual abundance of love and light has overflowed and given itself to all those around me. His direction has guided me through the maze of decisions, and throughout radiation and multiple medical procedures I have had a bedrock of peace—exactly when there was much that was uncertain in the world of opposites. In short, the Divine Presence has been a constant source of what is good and right without interruption, and that has made all the difference—it has been proof against the opposites, and proven what my Guru taught is the absolute truth.