by Marilyn Muir, LPMAFA
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Have you ever had one of those moments when a light bulb goes off in your brain and a conundrum becomes a realization? If you are on a spiritual path (and I think you must be if you’re reading this article), you will encounter these insights from time to time, sort of an “Oh, I got it” moment. While I truly believe that your overall spiritual journey will take you time, personal commitment and diligent application, I have also experienced moments of realization that arrived unexpectedly inside my head. Like the theory of light, which is both a particle and a wave, spiritual growth can be described both as a journey and a flash of insight.
Once we start to awaken to our personal potential and to the potential of humanity as a collective, it takes time, effort, determination, and commitment to climb what is literally a mountain of spiritual awareness. Sometimes we succeed at our efforts, sometimes not (or what appears to be “not”). It can feel like a two-step-forward, one-step-back process. But we persevere, learn from both our successes and failures, participate in what we know to be in the best interest of our spiritual progress and remove ourselves from that which is not in our best interest. At times that is hard to do because of the people involved, prior commitment or involvement, or all sorts of human conceptions that clamor for supremacy in our spiritually evolving consciousness.
In the Bible I Corinthians 13:11 the passage reads, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child, but when I became a man, [adult] I put away childish things.” I take that to mean that we first learn the simple way and it does help us. But there comes a time when it is just not enough. We have to put that simple thing away to learn more. It was not wrong, it was perfect for the moment we needed it, but now it is time to move on to deeper meaning. Our path is forward, onward, and upward in motion, not static, backward or devolving in nature. When we hit a moment of confusion, we just have to remind ourselves who we are and where we are going. The choices will then become easier to make.
Life is like a bunch of puzzle pieces. We do them one at a time even though they seem to be dissociated in nature. Soon we attach a piece that leads us to another grouping, and we realize all those prior moves served a real purpose, to get us to where we can make the connections. Our consciousness can be like that. We puzzle our way through many experiences that don’t seem to be related, but one day they connect together in a whole new way and we experience an insight. When we are new to the process, the insights tend to be quite small, little “ohs” but in substantial numbers. They keep us motivated. As we develop more, these little insights get less frequent (you are not doing anything wrong), but when you get one, it is a much bigger “OH!” More development, less frequency, and bigger insights until you arrive at the stage of “Ahas!”
Over the forty years I have taught all these levels of metaphysics, I watch the tiny flashes of light in my beginning students’ eyes as the “ohs” happen. I can actually see the tiny spark cross from one eye to the other. It is such a delight. In the intermediate students, fewer insights occur, but when “OHs” do happen, the realization jerks the student upright, almost like a snap into place. The most fun are the “AHAs”, because the huge realizations will cause advancing students to leap to their feet (I’ve done it myself). I get goose bumps thinking about the impact that has just occurred for them and I might not ever know the name of the insight itself. It is such a thrill to see a person’s consciousness develop. All you have to do is pay attention. If you are in any way instrumental in that happening, be very grateful that you participated in some small way to the advancement of another human being.
To my students who studied with me for years as their emerging consciousness did the necessary work, to those students who delighted me with visual clues for those moments of insight, I say a grateful thank you. I was and am honored to be a helper and a witness to your spiritual growth. Whether you doggedly pursue spirituality or you have a “Eureka moment”, you are advancing along your own spiritual path as long as your motivation, intention, attention and effort are on your spiritual goal. Keep on keepin’ on.
Published on EZine online March, 2010, republished with slight editing.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.