September at CSLDallas

Together We Rise 2.0

 
September 2021 

 

Every person on the face of the planet has suffered grief and loss, hurt and pain in their life.  Every child has suffered disappointment, experienced rejection, and lived with failure. Each of us has wounds, traumas, and setbacks. These are experiences and real hurts, and to say otherwise is to disrespect and deny our embodied, soulful human life. But to think that is all  there is to life is to believe, as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote, that the natural  state of  humanity  is  basically “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” There is that within us which intuitively recognizes the beauty,  joy,  and abundance of life and wonders why we aren’t experiencing it. The conclusion? Either there is something wrong with us (translation: we don’t deserve it), or there is something wrong with life. (Translation: we are victims.)

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Yet humanity has, over and over again, risen out of this mindset in profound moments of spiritual revelation and human connection.  As  we,  at  CSLDallas,  continue  our  spiritual  journey this year, we once again affirm that “Together  We  Rise!”  “We Rise” is our belief that we are not victims  (individually or collectively)  of life or outside forces.  Life doesn’t only happen to us;  we also happen to Life!  No matter the conditions or circumstances, we constantly seek to awaken to our spiritual nature and the spiritual truth of all of creation.  As we wake up to the indwelling spiritual nature, we also wake up to our participation in the life we are experiencing. Taking responsibility for our creative spiritual nature gives us the tools to consciously co-create a better life for ourselves and for the world.  This means we take responsibility for our lives by taking responsibility for how our past is shaping our future.  By grieving the hurt, releasing the resentment,  and rewriting the belief systems, we begin the process of creating a different future. “We Rise”  by taking charge of our thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions.  We discover the strange paradox that spiritual discipline is the road to personal freedom. And we realize that being  “Together”  with others of like mind, we are supported and sustained through the challenges of the journey. 

But the spiritual journey isn’t a straight path or a linear progression. It’s often two steps forward and 1 step back, and our soul may cry out in the pain of exhaustion and despair – feeling as though peace and joy are not actually sustainable in the face of the human condition. The dark night of the soul invites, perhaps, even demands surrender. Surrender of our belief that we can do it alone, by ourselves. We begin to realize that “We Rise” on the wings of Truth and the presence of Love. Not our will, but the very will of Life as it flows through our hearts and veins is moving us forward, carrying us through the illusion of control into the peace of faith. Faith is the complete surrender of absolute knowing into the uncertainty of living from our spiritual truth. Once again, we are shored up by being “together.” Together with others on the path, together with those that have gone before us and are showing the way, but most importantly, together with Spirit. We abandon our need for the form to be a certain way and trust in the innate will of Life and Love that it is always for our highest good. If we just walk together with Spirit, we will rise into a new expression of life, more aligned with who we believe ourselves to be. This “Together” is coupled with a deep realization that we as humans are, in fact, all together as one family because the one Life is living Itself through us. “We Rise” now includes all of us rising together. We realize that individual rising is only possible when we want this same good for everyone. “Together, We Rise!” becomes the vision of what’s possible. 

As we confront our fears and our wounds, over and over again, and surrender into trust and faith, over and over again, the alchemizing of identity begins. Our soul rises out of its identification with the human condition and remembers Its spiritual identity as an individualized expression of the One Life, precious and necessary to the whole, a perfect and powerful being of Love. “We Rise” out of the illusion of separation and experience the transformation of Being. As Spiritual Beings, we are released from the bondage and limitation of ignorance, fear, and pain. We sense our belonging – to life, to the world, to each other, to ourselves. Our “Together” expands and expands until it is truly an infinite embrace which is the Oneness of all Life.  Now “Together We Rise” is the reality of every breath, every thought, and every word, as we live as co-creators of a world that works for everyone and lives that truly work for each of us! 

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