Category: Mystical Life and Healing

One of the most important aspects of implementing a continual spiritual practice to further mystical transformation is the awareness of our emotional level of being. Because our consciousness has been conditioned in fear throughout our early development in the current human condition, our emotional life becomes wounded. When this happens, the emotions become enmeshed with our thinking mind. Emotions such as fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, and shame become so synonymous with negative thought patterns that we can lose conscious awareness of our emotions and thoughts.

I believe the life-long journey of personal transformation earnestly begins with the work of observing our emotions as distinct from our thoughts. As we develop this awareness, we will see the interdependence of emotions and thoughts. We will better understand how emotions trigger thoughts and how thoughts trigger emotions.

While I believe it is very important to observe our underlying thought patterns, the awareness of the emotions becomes primary. The emotions provide a link between body and mind, as well as the interaction with the heart. The awareness of emotions becomes our signal of whether we are living from the consciousness of fear or whether we are in the heart dimension of love and creativity.

Forgiveness makes us whole. It brings us out of negativity to reveal our true self of peace, love, joy, and creativity. Forgiveness is at the heart of the love of Jesus. In teaching us how to pray, he says, “And forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). As long as we are still conditioned in a world that has the negative consciousness of the knowledge of good and evil, love is inseparable from forgiveness.

Jesus’ message of forgiving love, as our way to open the heart through the Spirit, culminates in the mystery of his crucifixion. By remaining in love throughout the intensity of inertia that is fear and violence, he opens a way for humanity to definitively choose love over fear. The cycle of trauma as a never-ending loop is broken. We have a choice to not let wounds and traumas forever leave us in fear, anger, guilt, and shame.

With forgiveness, the true self in divine union as lived through self-giving relationships is restored. Relational bonding and connection is the core of our humanity. Forgiveness is necessary for the true self to heal and transform to union with God and others. We are truly one when our life of relationships, work, and creativity are expressions of the dynamic reciprocity of self-giving love between God, self, and other.