Spiritual teacher Miranda Macpherson, born and raised in Australia, now lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work focuses on helping individuals awaken spiritually by moving beyond the dualistic / material world view into a state of understanding Oneness. Here are some of her words in various topic areas:
Spiritual Awakening
Spiritual awakening is not about trying to be kinder, nicer, sweeter, better via repressing our darker urges. Why try to become something that your natural being already abundantly is? Authentic awakening is an invitation to look inside, open to whatever is present, with sincere interest to meet the truth of whatever that happens to be so that Grace can reveal more of Itself.
At certain junctures of evolution, death is required. However, what dies off are merely self-images which we have taken to be of the self. These images and identities run very deep and hold together our ego structure and known sense of reality, keeping us bound in experiences of fear, deficiency, and separation. Even seemingly positive self-images at some point block the way as often we are using them to compensate for our sense of separation. Most people go through life suppressing all of this, living on the surface of them-selves through keeping busy and distracted, yet this kind of suppression costs us contact with our soul. To live a meaningful life where we continue unfolding, we must learn to befriend the empty spaces where we are not controlling the course. This allows for shedding of old identities, structures and ways of being both internal and external that are no longer true. Ultimately , we are invited to surrender everything — that’s how grace, of the hand of divine mystery can spring forth abundantly from within us...Love as spacious allowing, supports our capacity to inquire what obscures the truth of our being. With real love, we can explore our attachments, defenses, and our habits of closure with truthfulness.
Moving Beyond Fear
Being the light of the world asks us to let the grace we open to and accept inwardly integrate though all the dimensions of our being, translating as deeper maturity, wisdom, and love in the way we walk through the world. This dimension of awakening requires deep dedication and persistence, so that our core centre of gravity – the consciousness from which we instinctively operate, shifts away from fear to a greater embodiment of love.
Actualizing the light asks us to be spiritual warriors. This begins by being profoundly honest with ourselves about the places we get caught, and then learning how to be with ourselves with non-judgment. From a ground of compassionate self-honesty, we are asked to courageously open through our fears, our sense of shame, our sense of lack, our pride, etc, whether we see that inside ourselves or projected onto another, and rest un-defended. In defenseless meeting of what we usually deny and project, the unreality of our fears begins to expose itself, and therefore the defensive structures around those fears naturally release. The result is more space within our psyche – less obstruction. We become clearer and more transparent. The light that is our true nature is freer to shine and radiate from the reality of God.
Trust and True Desire
Deep trust is the necessary foundation for the work of genuine spiritual awakening to occur. Without a sense of truth that we are held, it is very difficult to dive inwards through and beyond who you think you are, and your known sense of reality. Without trust that love is present, it is too terrifying to meet your fears and misidentifications and open into the void when all your instincts scream to run the other way. Without trust in something deeper and more encompassing than your ego, getting out the way is virtually impossible. Developing ever deeper trust is a major key in how to be the light.
In tandem with trust is true desire. In order to genuinely wake up spiritually, we must really want truth, value truth and love truth above all else. We must love and value it more than we value certain things, circumstances, or people. Yet to be human is to be attached to particular outcomes, so most of us hover between wanting truth and wanting our ego desires to be gratified. This just exposes how identified we are with our ego consciousness. We need not berate ourselves for this fact, but just be honest about it. From there we begin to explore what we truly want and value, and look closely toward what is capable of delivering on its promise. Learning to love and value what is timeless, changeless and always present supports our capacity to trust opening into unknown territory.
A truly beautiful soul… listen to her interview with Rick Archer on Buddha at the Gas Pump below:
~Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
