Why We Should Look to Them for Guidance
by Leatrice Evanne Asher
This earthly plane is where the lessons that need to be learned by its inhabitants come into being. If adversities were received as such, they would be approached differently, not as something undeserved, not as another irksome event that we have to try and get through. If we are always either recoiling from difficulties or suppressing them, how can we know their true nature? It’s our resistance that makes our lessons grow formidable. Yet, once we allow whatever is trying to reach us, the opportunities for growth and for experiencing deeper, more profound levels of enjoyment, appreciation, relationship, and self-knowledge can be limitless. We can penetrate deep and mysterious regions of our being—regions we may not otherwise consider investigating.
The way that we deal with events that throw us off-kilter is commonly related to our conditioning, how we are shaped throughout life by family and society. We can’t disregard that conditioning that so profoundly shapes us; we can only transform it through knowledge, knowledge of the self, and the higher-order of things. Religion and psychology are places often sought to ease our troubles, and in many instances, they do provide a welcome relief from feelings of disquietude as well as more disturbing emotional states. These forms of support also tend to exert influence through a kind of conditioning or a particular framework of thought, so alleviation of discomfort may be a welcome but temporary solution.
Beneath physical and emotional disturbances, there often lies another source of discomfort but is often difficult to name. Angst is a vague but deeper feeling of dread or foreboding usually related to philosophical or metaphysical uncertainties, such as questioning who and what we are, why we are here, and the purpose of it all. Although angst is experienced by many, it’s not easy to address because it’s a more generalized feeling of something being out of sync, but what is that something, and what is it out of sync with? Hopefully, wherever we might turn for that understanding and solace will be a turning to the broader vista of Eternal Truths.
Eternal Truths represent the inherent, immortal, and supreme system of justice that is absolute, objective, and unbounded by time or place. We can be in accord with these Truths. We can perceive things as they are. When we feel stuck in painful situations and can’t find a way to return to equilibrium, willingness to look beyond our usual operating system, to that which is perpetual and abiding, can bring to light the reason for (and thus the knowing of) those underlying feelings of uneasiness and apprehension.
This earthly dwelling place is a version of reality that is transitory. It is of time — the arising and falling away of nature matter. Whatever unsettles us will only find temporary relief if we continue to view what disturbs us from that transient reality. Through reasoned thinking and through direct experience, it’s possible to bright the Light of wisdom into our daily affairs, make them an integral part of our knowing. Once something is known, it can be accessed whenever correct information and guidance are needed because once something is known it can’t be unknown. In this way, we take our troubles to the wisest and most judicious place we can look to for Truth — the place of Eternal Truths.
We can come to Know Truths about the human condition, our true nature, the origin of our lessons, and how and why the same type of situations continue to show up in our lives. We can make sense of things. Making sense of things is essential because we can’t change our habitual response to difficulties without acknowledgment of another way to turn them around. As the reasons for our lessons become apparent, the resolution of them will be there as well because making sense of things is a Knowing that is transformative.
Karma, a Sanskrit word that refers to the universal principle of cause and effect, is one such Eternal Truth. When confusion, denial, and all the other ways that we try to avoid or deal with pain are unsuccessful, the understanding of Karma and other universal realities can reshape our response and ease our perturbations. If you feel stuck, you can unstick yourself. That’s saying a lot, that we can partake of information that will set us on a different path, one that we can trust because we will have directly experienced its trustworthiness. Through these universal and absolute truths, we can make comprehensible the lessons that are ours to learn. Lessons once learned can liberate us from pain, quell our disquietude, connect us to a higher degree of consciousness.
The system of absolute justice may have correspondence to mandates that are advocated by many religious sects. However, the practice of those religious precepts will be finite if they do not extend to the infinite — laws that function intrinsically through Conscious awareness. Anyone can align with and apply the wisdom of these immortal principles to their life circumstances. No go-between is required because these fundamental truths are constitutive to all existence. Until the purpose and functioning of these eternal truths are more widely known and applied, religions serve an important role in teaching ethics and morality to the earth’s inhabitants. Those moral edicts are needed to keep humanity on the right footing. Without codes of righteous behavior to follow, there would be chaos and mayhem.
The governmental laws of our land can also serve as a guide in earthly affairs but if they are reflective of those fundamental all-pervading truths, not just obedience to the rules of a society. Often, we are so immersed in the phenomena of the physical world that our perceptions don’t reach that which is in perfect accord with ultimate knowledge. If we want freedom from our conditioned responses so that we can begin to understand and resolve the many lessons that confront us in this, our schoolhouse, if we want greater joy and freedom in our lives, we can free ourselves. We can make fathomable that which may presently seem lofty, puzzling, or enigmatic. The ability to reason is a powerful conduit for accurate information to reach us. Once we come into the knowing and application of these supreme and immortal laws of Truth and justice, they will become enduring, the place we intentionally turn to for liberation from our heartaches. We will turn there because we will have learned that we can trust the interconnectedness between the circumstances of our existence and that which encompasses and sustains all of existence. When the right connections are made, the feeling of well-being that follows is palpable. This feeling is important to acknowledge and welcome because it informs us that we have arrived at Truth. There is joy in understanding how to see things as they are; joy also in becoming confident in our ability to self-govern.
At some point in a lifetime(s) pain and the desire to be pain-free will spur the urge to look beyond our usual field of inquiry. Until then, this perfectly functioning order of justice may not resonate. If you have not found relief from distress and despair, it may be helpful to ask if those earthly experiences that are usually sought after: love, fame, fortune ever really satisfy, ever ease your troubled heart, or are they more often the precursors of pain? Although those longed-for things may provide some pleasure or relief for a while, anything of nature-matter will be ephemeral because that’s what nature-matter, which includes the human body, is, a product of time. The system of laws and justice of a higher order where all is governed through rightness and reason. It’s where presence is throughout, and Eternal Truths prevail. It is where we can turn for clarity and certitude. Usually, we lodge in sensations of the conditioned body and psyche, crave their removal or continuance. The knowing of Eternal Truths can place us in the position of a conscious agent for change, not someone who is just acted upon. When the desire for correct information is stalwart and unwavering, an opening is created for those Truths to reach us anywhere, at any time, in any circumstance because illumination is a wellspring within the province of our being.
Published 11/2021 by The Edge Magazine, Community for Higher Consciousness
Leatrice Evanne Asher 