Life is a series of learning opportunities: We’re faced with a challenge, and then we find a solution. Or an opportunity which results in success or failure, and so on. There appears to be the right way, and often times this awareness comes from exploring the bad or wrong way first. We learn the best way to address certain situations and as a result, become more successful.

If we look at scientific exploration, the bleeding edge of what is now known regularly challenges what we thought we understood. With new knowledge comes a new cosmology.

The emphasis is on knowing, because rational understanding creates a sense of comfort and predictability. Further, predictability is essential for additional scientific exploration. For example, a predictable understanding how to travel through space is essential if we are to engage human beings in an expedition to Mars.

This methodology for engaging in life is the foundation of civilized society. And it works . . . up to a point.

We encounter the limits of this approach in our developmental journey in consciousness at predictable transition points. The knowledge which once delivered comfort in an unpredictable and scary world must eventually be abandoned if we are to explore and more fully realize our potential. A simple decision to take responsibility for one’s role in interpreting and creating reality leads to a radical experiential expansion of what is actually real.

These once new rules for how to successfully engage in life eventually must be abandoned yet again—for following the last breath on one’s death bed, or by choice before, the absolute limits of personal power are eventually encountered. This transition is referenced in the final line of what is known as the Prayer of Saint Francis: it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

While for many this is a reference to the anticipated eternal life that follows physical death, I interpret this as a clear reference to something of which we have very little knowledge, yet we are able to experience. Not just in our physical death, but also in the death of an entire way of seeing and experiencing ourselves and the world.

This transition occurs when we shift from the rule of knowledge and its concurrent realization of personal power and potential, to an experiential encounter with Divine Presence, and the realization of divine potential which follows.

Even this idea poses several foundational challenges:

==> We think we know our divine potential, which in turn keeps us engaged in the process of trying to solve why life, health, and happiness, aren’t happening the way we imagine they should.

==> Once we realize that we don’t have a clue what is meant by divine potential, the path forward is instantly unpredictable, which once again inspires re-engaging in what is known, as a way of navigating forward. Faced with the opportunity to be liberated from the very limitations which have delivered us to the doorway of complete freedom, we re-engage with what is known, familiar, and limited.

Eventually the cycle of returning to the threshold, occasionally crossing but always backing away while re-engaging in what is familiar yet unresolvable ends, when the doorway into the unknown is permanently breached. And with this, what is unknowable is now experienced.

It’s like stepping into a different dimension of reality. Indeed, many have referred it in this way. But there’s a problem with this metaphor – as there is with any language that is deployed in an attempt to convey the experience of what is actually real: it communicates something that appears to be already known while attempting to describe something that is wholly unknowable.

How could you know the Peace of God? First from experience to be sure. But then, what would follow? Perhaps as this experience expands into more and more of your inner and outer life, more of it is embodied and eventually words can be spoken of it? Certainly this is true—but even these now embodied words are pointing towards something for which there are no words.

I could tell you that to step into this experience of what is actually real would open more time in your life. Yet to speak these words communicates something from the perspective of what appears to be real (but is not), whereas I am attempting to reference what is actually real, which has no causal relationship with what appears to be real, except that the illusion eventually delivers us to the truth.

Should you tell me that what I’m saying sounds absurd and dismiss me for speaking gibberish, all I could say is: “I understand.” I once lived my life primarily in accordance with the principles of what is known, rational, and real. From that perspective, I thought I understood and experienced Peace, but it did not sustain. I thought I understood Love, but it was dependent and intermittent. I thought I knew Joy, but it was fickle.

Peace, Love, and Joy at their rawest expression are not caused by knowledge but experienced with the Divine. They are dynamic, like the endless crescendo in Beethoven’s 5^th Piano Concerto (Emperor). Exquisite at their inception, with growing and expanding beauty, spontaneous and without cause, yet as ubiquitous as the air we breathe.

Join me for an experiential encounter with this symphony of Divine Expression which has been playing underneath everything else in your life since the moment you were born. Once you heard and experienced its beauty, for you lived it when you were young. That era was lost decades ago, yet it is once again available to you, now.

We’ll be gathering live later today (Wednesday April 29^th, 2020 at 5p Eastern – US – on Facebook and YouTube) for a virtual group session and community circle. We’ll sink into an encounter with your inner symphony, into an experience of what is actually real. Join in as we encounter the unknowable yet experienceable Divine Mystery within.

That’s it for this week … From My Heart

Always in God’s Love and Presence, Further Into the Mystery—All the More Extraordinary with You!

Ken

PS – These resources are available to support your spiritual work this week:

Monday’s Spiritual FAQ Video (responding to a question from Gerry about how to stay centered and aligned with all the noise on social media about the virus, and more): https://youtu.be/9MIeTsmlR8s

Click this link to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Then click to the bell once subscribed to be notified, and each time I post a new video or start a live broadcast, you’ll receive an email notification from YouTube.

Join an extraordinary group of people from around the world for next week’s Deep Dive: https://kenwstone.com/deep-dive/