And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anaïs Nin
The surfer riding the crest of the wave knows it. The doctor in surgery and the soldier in battle trust it. The mountain climber and Olympic athlete tap into it. The opera singer in a once-in-a-lifetime performance and the artist who rides the wings of inspiration feel it. It is the moment when something within, something we may not have even known existed, awakens in us. It is the hidden potential coming to the surface to meet the challenge, bringing all our scattered forces together into one harmonious point of focus. Instinct and intuition wed with experience to meet the exquisite necessity that demands our attention and calls us to awaken the latent powers within.
It is often the “impossible” challenge that brings us to this state of heightened awareness. A mountain must be moved by a faith that is the size of a mustard seed. It does not matter how you came to this place. It is a date with destiny, the reason you were born. If you don’t pass the test this time, it will come around again in another form; or you will spend the rest of your life running, hiding, and avoiding it. It is the place where you consistently feel your heart tempted to fail within; the thing you think you cannot ever do. And it is the place where your heart, in a split second, leaps to meet the challenge. It is the place where the energies of resistance intersect with a release into a more powerful and benign flow. The greatness hidden within overcomes your weakness, not by force, but through a surrender to a Power that is greater than the sum of all your fears and doubts, all the challenges and problems that life may throw your way. Necessity becomes the mother of your invention, calling forth that within you that knows what to do and how to do it.
Athletes and artists hone their skills through practice, preparing for such a moment through years of study and growth. It takes years of discipline in meditation to learn the deep sense of stillness and awakened awareness that knows a higher truth. But awareness can also come upon you in an emergency or crisis, revealing that everything you have experienced up to now has been preparing you for this moment. And in this moment it is now no longer just you, the small self who whines and throws tantrums or whimpers and cowers and gives in to defeat, caving under the pressure and crawling away in shame. It is the higher Self in you, partnering with God, the Greater Integrity, to access powers you never knew existed. Yet when the moment of truth arrives, you realize this was what you were meant to be all along. It is an inner evolution coming to fruition in the next stage of your spiritual journey. It is your quantum leap into a greater reality.
I believe we are all in the midst of making this quantum leap. The problems we face may be of our own making, products of a vision too small and too limited for the larger lives we were meant to lead. We may have almost destroyed our own lives in the process, wasting the riches of an inheritance we never appreciated. We see this in the environmental crisis, economic chaos, and violence of our times. Now is the time for the greatness within to rise to meet the challenge.
Know that today there is that within you that is like an athlete ready to run the race, a courageous one who is willing to rise to the occasion. It is not you alone against the world any longer, it is you and God together discovering a deeper harmony, a more resonant truth at the core of your being, taking all disharmonies and tuning them to a higher harmonic.
Whatever challenges you face, whatever situation you are in, listen to that still small voice within, that sense of latent potential and possibility that is like a tiny flame in a dark cavern. That flame is so powerful it can light the darkness and show you the way out of your dilemma. Trust it. Believe in it. It is God within, the spark of creativity that has always been with you, even in the darkest times of your life.
The dire necessity, the crisis, the challenge, is an exquisitely formed instrument of God’s love. It is your unique challenge, offering you a choice. Take the next step of faith. Put aside your doubts and fears. Trust that something within is ready to rise to any occasion. A greater consciousness is being born in you, and the exquisite necessity is the birth pang that heralds the arrival of a new and better life. You are greater than you yet know. It is your moment to discover that truth.
Affirmative prayer
I live my life as a daring adventure. I follow my intuition and trust that God’s love leads me to a marvelous destiny. Like a toddler learning to walk, or a musician learning to play, I am willing to practice, to make mistakes and learn from them, and to celebrate my achievements. I forgive myself and forgive others, blessing all. We were all doing the best we could with what we knew at the time and now we are learning to know and do better. Love calls me and I must answer. In my willingness to risk and dare and dream, I heal not only myself, but the world. Thank you God that you are at the heart of the mystery I pursue.
In order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.
David Ben-Gurion
Every real creation of art is independent, more powerful than the artist himself, and returns to the divine through its manifestation. It is one with man only in this, that it bears testimony to the mediation of the divine within him.
Ludwig von Beethoven
There is a soul force in the universe which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.
Mahatma Gandhi
The whole thing boils down to giving ourselves in prayer a chance to realize that we have what we seek. We don’t have to rush after it. It is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.
Thomas Merton
Each time something difficult and challenging has happened to me it has marked the beginning of a new era in my life.
Kimberly Kirberger
The only way to be who you want to be is by being what you haven’t yet been.
Sally Edwards
I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso
Much of your pain is self chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within heals your sick self.
Kahlil Gibran
The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
Socrates
Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.
Rainer Maria Rilke
When danger approaches, sing to it.
Arab proverb
Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is dark.
Rabindranath Tagore
If not now, when?
Martin Buber
