WHAT'S GOD GOT TO DO WITH IT
William Perry


Chapter One

Practical Spirituality



"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."

-Albert Einstein


This book is the product of a lifelong study in spirituality. Most of us are busy trying to live comfortably. Comfort and spirituality have a lot in common, yet spirituality leads us home. We are most uncomfortable when we aren't at home with ourselves. There are two kinds of selves that we must deal with during the course of a lifetime. The first self contains the definition that we have given to our own unique individuality. This includes credit given to all that we stand for and have accomplished. Yet there is another Self; it contains our spiritual essence and definitions that stretch far beyond our control or recognition. These definitions are not ours alone for they belong mainly to our Creator.

The most important person to be attuned to in any given moment is our essential Self. The Spirit wants only that we should awaken its assets. When we remember to listen to the inner voice, dysfunction subsides and we return to a place that lulls us into harmony. The most common mistake made pertains to the art of forgetting. We're groomed in this great persuasion from birth.

I have written this book because I am convinced of the importance of spiritual discipline. When I follow these simple, yet effective, principles, all life changes for me. "What can I do?" has always been the question I've heard myself ask. I have found many answers; I now choose to share the most important ones with you.

Focus on the awesome power of the mind, emotions and intuitive feelings is most important. This combination leads to the art of remembering. What we remember most is how the love for our powerful potential or soulfulness becomes the great quest. I know this human frustration because forgetting has created dilemmas shared by thousands of my clients over the years.

We must strive to remember what is important when we follow the spiritual disciplines. We are asked to come from a place of knowing what's inside of us. God is not involved in our path other than having condoned our right to have one. The spiritual path is a unique endeavor, a return to the awareness of the Creator's creation [our essence] while we are still in human form. We are here to create a life following the principles of free will, a special and unique gift bestowed upon us all. The most valid precept concerning free will is this: each of us has it and there are no exceptions to this fact.

There are basically two distinct approaches when it comes to following spiritual disciplines. The first centers on God as a force that demands allegiance. This precept encourages us to be fearful of the God Force. By the same token, we are encouraged to define God as love. A stranger to religion might find this first approach somewhat paradoxical and find the need to discipline himself or herself to appease a God who already loves us a waste of energy. I find the second approach to disciplining myself spiritually far more useful. When I do it, not for the sake of my God but for the sake of my sanity and health, the discipline becomes far more enlivening. We each know that encoded within us is the secret formula to ensure human success. Each of us is equipped with inner knowing, which promotes safety, compassion, and health in every situation of our lives. It is the latter approach to spirituality that we shall cover in this text.

In order to legitimize the spiritual path and have a valid reason to follow the spiritual disciplines, we must ask the question, "Where will this lead me?" The answer to this question is strikingly simple: toward self-realization.

We also come face to face with a universal truth. Nothing outside of us is responsible for our actions or us. This statement lies to rest any controversy surrounding victimization. The illusion of victimhood is predicated on the reality that humans are capable of being enslaved by their own beliefs.

Beliefs are established in three primary ways. First of all, we invent them in our fantasy world. It is important to realize we each came to planet Earth to uncover a flaw in our character by discovering truth. These flaws represent spaces of alienation between our Creator and us. Our higher universal nature would like to eliminate this separation or gap. Fantasizing separation from God is at the center of this way of formulating beliefs.

The second way that beliefs are created is by our exposure to the environment. We, under our misguided volition, alienate ourselves from the Source by creating limiting fearful thoughts about the world around us. Many of these thoughts are of a religious nature. I can remember, as a child in Sunday school, being reminded again and again that God would punish me for my sins; obviously the concept of original sin was being passed down one more time. The lack of nurturing and physical contact that went on in my family encouraged me to believe, even if on a subconscious level, that human closeness must not be right or ordinary. As a child I was exposed to a condemning view of the body, especially the erotic parts, because my parents told me that these places were untouchable and their exploration was "nasty." My religious instructors warned me that the flesh was nothing more than a temptation device and that very little had changed since the temptation in the Garden of Eden.

The third way that we operate from our beliefs is by failing to recognize that the subconscious ones primarily rule our lives. By default we let powerful beliefs in our subconscious reign over us. Default comes about when we fail to observe the patterns that establish the negative traditions of our lives. Once recognized we have the power to know what needs to be changed in us in order to live more effectively. In a flash, at any age, anyone is capable of establishing a new belief, which can remain throughout his or her life. The motivator for this quick change of mind is often fear. Fear can be effective, but this question must always be asked, "Does this fear-based decision create a more healthy, loving me?" Our personal responsibility at present is to reprogram what no longer serves us as useful.