Power, Purpose and the Seed Within

More and more, as we journey through this world, we are reminded of the importance of being present — of being willing to stand in our own strength, in our own power. But somewhere through the years, this idea of standing in one’s own power seems to have got lost. And what has happened instead is that, more and more, we as human beings have given our power away. We have listened to others. We have allowed them to direct our lives. We have trusted them with our very selves. And this surrender has left us, in many respects, powerless.

In every aspect of our lives we are forced, in some way, to hand ourselves over. We hand our bodies over to the medical fraternity, to tell us why we are sick. We hand ourselves over to the legal fraternity, to prove our innocence, or to get the justice we deserve. We hand ourselves over to the education authorities, so they can determine what we need to learn — and what we need to learn is so often determined by what the society feels it needs, or by what certain persons within the society have decided the society needs. And we hand ourselves over to the religious institutions, so they can tell us what we need in order to become children of God. As if we were not that already. From the very inception of our souls.

So by the time we come to our spiritual life, we have grown so accustomed to handing everything over that we find ourselves devoid of any power.

The disciples were amazed at Yeshua. They were amazed at what he was able to do. And he tried to help them understand that they should not be — that they should not give their own power away by being so amazed at his. Instead, they should recognise that a time would come when they would do even greater things. Somewhere along the way, that idea has got lost. No one speaks to it. And perhaps it is buried because it does not serve the purpose of the institutions that seek to direct and govern us.

But perhaps the time is coming. Perhaps the time has come — for humanity to awaken, and to take back its power. The power of the individual.

When we hear that word, we so often confuse it with individualism. And individualism — me looking after myself and caring for no one else — is precisely the charge laid against anyone who dares to speak of self-development. That is what the term is pointed at; that is its intention: to shut down any thought of tending to the self. And yet, if you reflect critically on our world, you realise that individualism is the very thing that drives it. The masses are moved, are dictated to, told to think of the whole. But when they act as a mass, more often than not they are working to serve a few individuals. And those individuals are not many. And they rule the world.

So the journey, for each of us, is to reclaim our power. Not as power over — but as power in. Power in the self. Power in awakening to the fact that this is my journey, and my journey has a purpose. Not a purpose dictated by someone else, but a purpose designed by me — as my higher self, as the soul. And I must adhere to it. I must follow it. But before I can follow it, I must discern it.

So as I share with you this morning, as I take my morning stroll, I want to impress upon you the importance of simply finding you. Of understanding your purpose. Of coming back within, and seriously exploring this inner world.

The external world, that which is outside of us — it does a serious number on us. It keeps us busy. It keeps us distracted. It tells us, day after day, that life is hard — until, so focused on life being hard, we make it hard. We are tricked into seeing only the negative, and into letting the negative stand foremost. We even say to ourselves that the bad always outweighs the good — which is nonsense. It could never be so. Neither always outweighs the other. We live in a dualistic world, a world of opposites, and in that world we are always moving. The movement from one side to the other can happen in a moment, or across weeks, months, years. But what we do is take a snapshot in a hard moment — a moment that may last a few days, a few months — and from it we conclude that life is not worth living. That there is no point.

And we conclude this because we have been taught that if you do A, B, C and D, and you do them properly, there will be no challenges in life. We look at the few who rule the world, and see how well they appear to be doing, and we press on in the very methodology they have handed us — because if they can make it, so can we. And then there is all the violence in our world, born of the same belief: that it is my right to have whatever I want, to live the good life, and to do whatever it takes to get it. And there is a sense in which we all do it. We may not all go to the same extremes, but the good life has been sold in our hearts.

Yet what we need to sow in our hearts is nothing. Because the seed is already there. The seed is ourselves — our true selves. Our purpose is already growing, slowly, because we do not nourish it — but growing all the same. It was never planted, because it is who we are. No agency planted it but the Source — what I call the Centre, the Being. That is the only planting there was.

And so the work, for you and for me, is to return. To return to that knowledge. To return to that awareness. To nurture my own growth from within, and to follow the path that is mine.

I am an individual. And one of my attributes is that I am a social being. But I cannot be that social being unless I am first an individual. I must know myself — to know how I contribute, how I fit in. Not what others want from me, so that they may be okay. But what I am here for — so that we all may be okay. And I do not come to this knowing by myself. I come to it held — accompanied — as every soul that ever turned inward was accompanied.

So today, as you go about your work, be mindful of that seed. See yourself as having purpose. Not a purpose your little self invents from all the options down here — but a purpose drawn from your essence. From your very sense of self.

Blessings.
HIER Life · Holistic Integration for Embodied Renewal