I Asked For It

Personal responsibility is one of my most important ideals. Please note that an ideal is like a target - I practice personal responsibility, but I'm far from perfect. I do not believe that I can achieve healthy, long term physical and emotional sobriety and good mental (and physical!) health without personal responsibility. As I quoted in an earlier posts, victims don't stay sober. 

I used to say to a lot of situations that came up in my life, "God, I don't need this shit!" I have since come to believe that those situations were exactly the ones I did need, even though they seemed to interfere with MY plans.

Some years back, I studied a bit about Edgar Cayce, termed the "Sleeping Prophet". He would go into trances and help people heal from all sorts of issues by contacting The Source. What I learned is that we come to this plane of existence with some sort of purpose, and we are set up in our lifetime to fulfill this purpose. It's a win-win sort of thing if I can figure out what my purpose is and let it happen. Edgar also said that we can make other choices, and go other directions, but that we do have a definite purpose.

My belief today, and I've heard others intimate this, is that I came into this lifetime with a purpose, a framework of sorts, that I've agreed to do. This relies on the theory that in the beginning, there was God (Source), and that was it - nothing else. God wanted to know itself, but since God was all there was, it was impossible. So, God created - beings and planets and stuff that were God-like, but not exactly God. In other words, in order for God to know itself, it had to know not-God. God wants to experience itself in all of its glory, so it creates beings (us) that are conscious, but don't necessarily know that we are connected with Spirit (and with each other). As we grow in awareness of our God aspects, we create and live and give, and that's what we see going on all around us - humanity remembering who it is. (To me, it makes a lot more sense than a fall from grace and vicarious atonement through blood sacrifice. That never sat very well with me).

A lot of times now when I'm going through something that I find unpleasant, or I don't really want to do, I say, "God, I asked for this?" and I imagine God smiling and saying, "yep, you did!" What this does for me is that it tells me that it's all good - that whatever I'm experiencing is ok, and will turn out fine. What this way to believe does for me is it makes all that I've experienced in this lifetime meaningful - not necessarily understandable, but meaningful.  It also gives me hope that I can learn and grow. It would be a very cruel and unusual God that would make Its beloved go thru several useless cycles of recovery and relapse and then die from alcoholism and depression. What a waste!

So, why explain the way I look at the Universe? Because it explains how I try to look at life, and my place in it, and my relationship to others (we're all connected - even the people I don't like). And it's the best way I've discovered (or remembered) to deal with the things in life that I don't like, or don't think are fair, and get through it all not only with dignity and grace, but also successfully. At least if you look at my definition of success. And lastly, because it's important to know in order to read my next post.

Namaste,

Ken