Regardless of your spiritual path, our only challenge is that of “waking up” from the deep sleep that tells us that this physical world is the only world, the real world.  A Course In Miracles and so many other spiritual teachings tell us that we are truly not separate and alone.  That we are all ‘light beings’ who all put on “body suits” and then forgot.  The Course tells us that we are all connected in ways that we cannot see with our physical body’s eyes.  But that, if we choose to, we can see with our spiritual eyes or higher Self. 

 

Our biggest challenge, while we are in our physical bodies, is to re-member Who we really are, which is an integral part of a matrix of energy that we may call God or Source or Infinite Energy.  (Use whatever words you would like that don’t offend or turn you off, or connote images that bring about fear or guilt, or negative notions that you may have learned in school years ago and that don’t feel good or right.)

 

Whether your spiritual or religious path embraces the teachings of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, A Course In Miracles, Christian Science, Unity, The Science of Mind or any other religious or spiritual text, and whether it follows Jesus, Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Mohammed or any other prophet or leader, the path Home travels via the alchemy of “forgiveness”, which means to “surrender” or to let go, and is re-defined here as a release of the ego’s illusory world in which we all appear to be separate and alone. 

 

It is a letting go of the attachment to the belief that this physical world is the real world, the only world in which all things end, and loss is everywhere, and in which change is the only constant, and a consequent release of the resulting, overwhelming fear, sense of loss and grief, anger, and judgment — of others and ourselves,  as well as of our guilt and shame.

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Rumi said, "Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged."

 

On the most profound spiritual and metaphysical level, all of the perceived problems and challenges of this world result from the same thing:  the ego’s illusion of separation from our infinite Source: God/Spirit/Universal Energy.  Marianne Williamson equates us to spokes on a wheel, all radiating out from one center.

​If you see us vis-à-vis our position on the rim, we all seem separate and distinct.  But from the vantage point of the center of the wheel – our Source – we have a common and shared identity.  A Course In Miracles likens us to waves that think they’re separate from the ocean, or sunbeams thinking they’re separate from the sun.  Whatever our spiritual practice is, be it prayer, meditation, affirmation, etc., the challenge is always the same:  it is for us to re-member Who we are.

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Thus, the corrective principle is a forgiveness — or a letting go — of the illusion of separateness and all that entails, - particularly fear, judgment, guilt, and shame - automatically restoring us to Love, to Joy, to Peace of Mind, Abundance in all areas of our lives, and to the highest potential within us.  This is our birthright and our natural inheritance.