This quote was presented to me by my sponsor years ago when I first became clean and sober… free of alcohol and drugs. As my body and mind became clearer and healthier my thinking began to change. It is in this transformation and change I would like to talk about today.
In my early life, I was living without meaning, without purpose and without direction. My mind became so conditioned by society and the times I was living in that all I was concerned with was having a good time full of fun and pleasure. I didn’t see the world as it was. I only saw it the way I wanted to see it and this was not the true reality I was a part of. Although I had some ambition for success, I also had this inner need in my heart pulling me closer to do something of service for others and this calling was the only thing that kept me closer to my center line and golden thread of my life…my true purpose for being here. This is the miracle and the Mystery we are all being pulled by deep within us. I came to recognize this years later in my life up until now; for as my life became clearer to me without the confusion and distortion alcohol and drugs brought to it, so did my reason for being here in this world become more clearer. I was starting to seek the truth of my life and why I was here in this world. I feel we all have these thoughts and desires to seek the truth of our own existence however fleeting they are.
My life was changing because my thinking was changing. The real change was a change of heart within me. The things I thought were important and necessary were beginning to leave me. Things like having a lot of money, being successful only to look good in front of others. Competing with others because of my own ambition instead of learning how to relate to them were losing their importance. Seeking meaning more than pleasure or success were becoming more important to me. Something of greater value started to emerge within me. I just didn’t know what it was or what it meant. But it was always there guiding me along the way to the next step of my evolution in this life.
“You must assess your real needs, the deeper needs within yourself, and contrast them with your preferences and your desires. If a need is genuine, it stands apart from what you simply want. There are primary needs of course—the need for food, water, shelter, safety and security. There is the need for true companionship, a need to be engaged with other people in meaningful and productive ways. These are essential needs. They must be met or you cannot function in the world.
Then, of course, there is the need for a greater kind of relationship based upon what you are really here to accomplish. That begins to move you into a higher level of need, the need of the soul—the need to find the deeper Knowledge that God has placed within you to guide you, to protect you and to lead you to a greater life within the world. There are psychological needs for creativity and productivity, for recognition from others and for honest and productive communication.”
Ah yes, it was in my forties that I began to feel that the need of my mind and its desires were holding me back from following another path. This path became clearer to me a few years later when I found something of great importance for my life…and this was and is the need of my Soul! This was the great void I was feeling for much of my life. Living life only for pleasure and the pursuit of happiness were holding me back from the one true need I and we all have but very few recognize…it is the most fundamental need of life. It is the need of the Soul.
When I read this passage it felt clear deep within me that this is what I have been searching for and longing for all my life. This is what is tied to my existence and to the thoughts and feelings I have had regarding the universe in which we live and the Greater Community I felt as a child we belonged to. I was home…
“To meet these needs within yourself, you must change. You have basic fundamental needs, you have psychological needs, and then you have the need of the soul. To meet these needs, you cannot be what your past has shaped you to be so far. You may want the world to change around you, and you may agitate for this, and perhaps your requests are genuine. But fundamentally you must change, or you cannot meet the needs of the body, the needs of the mind and the need of the soul. You cannot simply demand that the world gives you everything you think you want, for you do not even really know what you need beyond the basic requirements of life.”
We all want change. Yet, we know so very little of what true change entails. I lived with so much confusion and still do today but it has diminished because of my thinking has become clearer. For it contains more meaning, purpose and direction for my life. I am learning from my errors. I am learning from others errors. I am learning from the worlds errors. I am learning of my past and where I have been. And the more I learn from where I have been the more I learn of where it is I must go! I am becoming more open to thinking outside the box. That box which makes up the walls of my self made prison and the jungle I have been living in for much of my life.
“Many people want and demand change in the world. They see a genuine need for change, but they themselves are unwilling to change. They are unwilling to reevaluate their thinking, their behavior, their engagements, their beliefs and their attitudes. So they agitate for change on the outside, but they themselves will not change. They are as entrenched in their position as the people they claim to oppose. So you have conflict in the world by opposing parties that are entrenched in their views. They are unwilling to change.”
“We resist change because we know it is going to bring about something different, something unexpected. … We do not know what a particular change is going to bring about, and because we fear not knowing this, we will resist change for as long as we possibly can.”
Our world is changing. Many can see and feel this and many more cannot. The Great Waves of Change are moving in the world. Their forces are becoming ever more present, obvious and alarming. If we as a race do not begin to change with these forces then we will become a victim of them. Our world is also emerging into a Greater Community of Worlds full of intelligent life. These two thresholds and events will change human destiny and what we do now and into the future will determine the destiny of future generations. And yet, in many cases our thinking has not changed and it must if we are to continue living in this world.
I have shared some of my experiences in my life because I know many can relate to them. You who are reading this now read it because you either have been where I have or are their now. You are searching for some kind of meaning for your life and I can tell you there is great meaning for it. You carry it within you! It just takes work to find and great practice of being honest with yourself, humble, determined and accepting. To see for yourself that your thinking must change in order to see the true reality in front of you is a gift. Cherish this gift. Remember this gift each day when you can and open it. For then and only then can you see and feel that your life is much more than what you think at the surface of your mind. It carries with it deeper currents.
The currents of Change are a constant for life and the world are always moving. I/we must change with these currents . Yet, for me, before I could truly change and bring Real Change into my life I had to learn how to listen and become still. I had to learn how to listen so that I may listen how to learn.
