I have a fairly resilient friend who's been through tough times. Her motto, borrowed from Winston Churchill, is, "When you're going through hell, keep on going." Last week I asked her how things were, and she said, "All things considered, pretty darn good, but I know it won't last. Sooner or later it will all fall apart." I asked her why she thought that. "Just the way the world works," she said with a shrug.
But is it really the way the world works? Or is it possible that what we perceive as inevitable breakdowns are really caused by our failure to sustain higher thought? After all, if we expect things to deteriorate, they probably will. It makes sense that a negative expectation would set us up for failure or at least contribute to the process. Mystics and spiritual masters tell us that elements of the concrete world are first formed by substance of the Mind. In less esoteric terms that means -- thought precedes action. The collective Mind is said to be infinite and unlimited. Any personal limitations are those we've probably placed on ourselves or allowed others to place on us in the form of inherited, unchallenged belief systems.
Spiritually speaking, I don't believe in limitations, which doesn't mean I don't experience any. But I realize that the limitations I do experience derive mostly from fear, unbelief, or the unforgiving boundaries of the physical world. On the whole, I'm an optimist of the supernatural sort. I've witnessed a miracle or two in my life, including the significant healings of loved ones, just-in-time money, and broader global movements like the collapse of Communism and peace in Northern Ireland. Did any of these perceived miracles contradict the laws of physics? Probably not, but they didn't occur in the absence of prayer or intention either.
Skeptics may counter (and I may agree) that in the case of medical miracles, the body has been known to muster utterly natural resources to heal itself in spite of great odds. It does happen. And money has surely been known to show up sooner or later in the pockets of intelligent, hard working people. That's how the economy is supposed to work. Of global shifts in power, one could argue that systems like Communism collapsed of their own weight decades before their final public gasps.
So if these are natural occurrences, what exactly constitutes a miracle?
Miracles spring from higher consciousness. There are plenty of gurus who preach the power of intention, and that's certainly the predecessor of any conscious act. First, we have to bring the problem and the desired result into our awareness. Maybe the sustained articulation of clear intention -- to heal, to gather wealth, or even to destroy embedded social systems -- (especially when it's done collectively) is enough to make it happen, if not immediately, then over time. After all, if I have a strong intention to overcome an obstacle and follow it with deliberate action, who says I can't do it? And if I do, is it a miracle or just a case of mind over matter?
Maybe mind over matter is the miracle.
Human minds are famously undisciplined. Harnessing our minds takes hard work and patience. Anyone who's ever tried to meditate knows this is true. (I have unintentionally planned entire dinner parties while trying to meditate.) The conquest of an undisciplined mind -- that is, the intense and sustained focus of our inner lens on a goal of any kind -- is the first and most essential step in an act of conscious creation. Consciousness is the creative force of the universe. Harnessing that force is our opportunity to partner with our Creator to produce the kind of abundant, compassionate (some would say miraculous) environment we all crave.
Not that it's easy.
At this point in evolution, unconscious creation is the norm. Unconscious creation is the product of undisciplined minds, and this type of creation is powerful, too, but in a profoundly negative way. Through unconscious creation, the mind creates situations through default. Addictions and other bad habits are given form by the constant repetition of desire and indulgence. Phobias are Thought Patterns created by fear. The subconscious and unconscious personal and collective mind is generally ruled by undisciplined thoughts. Repetition of these thoughts on a communal or global basis gives them form, also known as Elementals. Entire wars are caused by these -- just think of the many thousands, even millions of people waking up with hatred for people they've never even met. By awakening to this hidden reality -- by accepting responsibility for our individual thoughts, fears, and desires -- we learn to face these enemies, reduce them, and ultimately eradicate them from within. When we reduce and eradicate them from within, it benefits not only us, but everyone in our sphere.
In other words, the entire world.
When we learn to replace negative thoughts with healthy, beneficial thoughts, we strengthen our minds and improve our lives. When we nurture beneficial Elementals, we increase our ability to summon what spiritual masters call the Super-substance of higher Mind to conjure a higher world. A world that, from down here would look pretty darn miraculous.
In one of the Christian gospels Peter the Apostle is invited to walk with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. He obeys, amazed at his ability to walk on water. Look at me! Reveling in his higher divine nature, he is joyful, buoyant. Then he looks down, and with his lower mind thinks, "This is impossible. I'm defying the laws of nature."
In that moment, he sinks.
We, too, are called to do great things, things which may even appear to be impossible. How do we prepare ourselves? First it is useful to clean house -- throw out all the nasty dynamics, destructive relationships, negative patterns of thought and behavior, addictions, and sloppy living that restrict us. We have to rein in our thoughts, stop the loop of negative thinking that plays unconsciously and repeatedly in our heads. We do this through prayer, meditation, affirmations and the will to awaken. We find a path supported by like-minded souls, eager to learn. We find a teacher, and we listen. We forget what we think we know, and summon the humility to learn what we don't. We open our minds to the possibility that all things are truly possible.
In the process, we find ourselves walking through the portal of expanded consciousness allowing the limitations to fall away, one by one, until we experience the frontier of the higher Mind where true freedom dwells. The only things we have to remember on the journey are to keep focused and follow the lighted path. Look up, not down.
And believe.