Spiritual life help: the basics

If you’ve read my book Problems Aren’t Real then you’re familiar with my outlook about hardships and the solution to hardships, an outlook I refer to as spiritual life help. I’m going to write about spiritual life help here, in general terms, for those who haven’t read the book and also as something of an anchor for future postings that will elaborate further on the topic. It’s important to give credit to two works in particular when it comes to this spiritual life help outlook: A Course in Miracles and The Infinite Way. These are remarkable works in my view and they certainly inspired me when it comes to my thinking about life help.

The gist of spiritual life help is this — God is the only power and is a power of only good so hardships are not real, hardships are misperception or unreality. There you have it. Now that’s a fairly simple outlook but it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to accept as truth and so explaining it, including an explanation for how to put it into practice, requires a good amount of descriptive; and it also takes time for people to process it. A person can’t go from a perspective of, “I need to survive within the world,” to “These hardships aren’t real,” easily and that’s assuming they are inclined to change their perspective at all. Most people, I believe, couldn’t even begin to accept this outlook, they couldn’t even get to a place of genuinely considering it. They would filter it as ridiculous and go on their way. I don’t mean this as a criticism, rejecting this outlook is very reasonable. The ones who would be open to considering it are those who are spiritually curious and, in particular, those who are suffering. The more you suffer, the more open minded to solutions you are likely to become. This is why suffering is often a catalyst in spiritual enlightenment — the desperate sometimes turn to, and find, God.

Let’s take a pragmatic look at what spiritual life help means, difficult though it is to believe. Health problems? Misperception. Financial problems? Misperception. Relationship problems of whatever kind? Misperception. Depression and anxiety? Misperception. Addictions? Misperception. Death? Misperception. Perhaps all of this gives you a sense of optimism. “My problems aren’t actually real?? Great!” Very good. It’s proper to feel a sense of optimism. Then you come face to face with your problems and they seem nothing like misperception or unreality at all. And if you think that problems will simply disappear because you have some inclination that they may not be real then you should think again. Another word that is used to describe misperception is temptation. The temptation in this case is a temptation to accept that there is a power other than God, and this temptation appears so often that it can almost seem constant. Before I begin to sound pessimistic let me say that problems do get cleared through applying spiritual life help but a committed effort and determination are important. Spiritual life help is not some impossible thing but it’s not effortless either.

The way to put spiritual life help into practice is to recognize hardships as misperception and to recognize God — recognize God as one with us and always with us and also as the source of our sustenance and our well-being. This is a general descriptive and there are nuances involved that cannot be entirely explained in one posting or even a few postings. As I’ve said spiritual life help is a simple enough outlook but it’s so foreign to the human perspective that it requires a good amount of explanation and understanding. I wrote an entire book about it and I’m guessing that in the minds of some people, even after reading the book there would still be unanswered questions. Understanding does come but it’s a process.

Is practicing spiritual life help worth it? That’s the most important question, isn’t it? I say yes, it is worth it, absolutely. Is experiencing greater peace and well-being a worthwhile outcome? Spiritual life help is a way to get there. I don’t assume you’ll simply take my word for this. Why should you? So you’ll have to try it for yourself for a period of time, if it feels right to do so, and see what the results are. Then you won’t need to speculate about whether it works or not; you will know for yourself.