Spiritual Guidance Blog

I have been asked to comment on the current global events regarding the Coronavirus and COVID-19. I have only a few things to say about the unfolding situation.

First, let us not try to make sense of this. ‘Sense’ cannot be made of that which is not reality. Reality is changeless. This pandemic, as it’s been labeled, is ever-changing. Therefore, it is not reality. We cannot know what this means now. We are far less likely to know what this will mean for the future. Take this as an opportunity to practice being in the ‘now’ and accepting the ‘is-ness’ of the now.

Second, this feels like a transformational portal we are going through; like the wormhole scene in the movie, ‘Contact,’ with Jodie Foster. In the wormhole scene, Jodie Foster’s character is being hurled through what scientists refer to as a wormhole. A wormhole is reported to be a speculative structure linking disparate points in spacetime. The experience is uncomfortable because it is new and different. As we relax into the transformation, we will experience calm and peace. For those interested, here is a link to that wormhole scene from the movie ‘Contact:’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8axMaBL4uo

Third, there are many messages coming at us, very quickly, during this time. These messages are being offered to us from many different sources. Some of these messages are fear-based. Some are calling out for love. Others are calling us to return to love. One message that I have noticed predominates throughout all the messaging is… ‘home.’ How many times have you heard someone say, amidst the unfolding situation, “Stay home!”? Or how about… “Go home.” Or… “If you are away, return home.” This messaging of ‘home’ is increasingly interesting to me. What interesting parallels may exist in this messaging of ‘home’ with the spiritual home. Are we being called ‘home’ in the spiritual sense? In Regiena Heringa’s ‘Notes from the Light” below, we are “being asked to return to this birthplace which does not dwell outside of the self.”

Lastly, many people around the world have been crying out for change on a global scale. Our requests have been answered. We are in the process of the very change we have asked for. Surrender to this change. Resistance will only lead to suffering. Please don’t confuse suffering with something that is happening to you. Suffering is a choice. Suffering is something we create. It is best portrayed in this beautiful, ancient parable.

The student runs to the spiritual teacher. “Teacher, teacher,” says the student. “I am experiencing suffering.” After listening to the student’s tales of woe, the teacher responds, “You are not experiencing suffering. You are suffering your experience.”

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.

There may be no greater gift than the transformation possible through the healing or therapeutic relationship. My one and only embodied therapist saved my life. Not in the sense that I was wanting to take my life or end my life. The healing relationship saved me from a life of egoic-based separation.

Working with my therapist served as the mirror on my perceptions. Another trusted soul was able to poke at my perception of reality and gently guide me to question that existence.

The journey with my therapist began tentatively. I was afraid. But I had grown less resistant to my fear of change than my fear of staying the same. The way I was living my life was no longer serving me. I was not at peace, yet I didn’t quite realize this was the core issue at the time.

As the relationship with my therapist grew and matured over time, I was granted the blessing of knowing my authentic self was being witnessed. I could show up and try and put on a façade and act like someone I was not. But I quickly grew to know my therapist could see right through me. At first this was unsettling. But it quickly became an immense relief. I could, perhaps for the first time in my life, be exactly who I was, without judgement.

After my therapeutic relationship came to a formal end, something quite poignant started to unfold. An inner guide started to emerge, and this inner guide was a graceful extension of the embodied therapist I had been working with. Through my working relationship with my embodied therapist, I was able to develop a stronger connection with my authentic being, what might be called ‘Higher Self’ in some milieu.

What was evident to me at the time was that this new, authentic teacher and inner guide was not a replacement for my embodied therapist but an extension of the therapeutic relationship—a sort of Therapist 2.0! This new therapeutic relationship was one based on opening myself to the wisdom of the heart. This new therapeutic relationship was training me to move away from my fears into the presence of God—to be ‘in’ love as a state of being.

The transformation from the outward therapist to inner guide was, in retrospect, a natural progression for me. Not a progression in terms of advancement or raising my level of consciousness. The progression was more about an expanding awareness of returning to my original state of being. I needed to grow in relationship with my inner guide to return to my original state of being. My outward therapist played a critical and fundamental role in ushering me toward this primordial awareness. My outward therapist was a stepping stone along the road of the healing relationship.

Some of you might be asking, “But what did the first therapist actually do to facilitate this transformation?” The therapist didn’t ‘do’ so much as ‘be.’ The therapist was a grounding presence that modelled the possibilities inherent in being in the present moment. The therapist did not offer any advice. The therapist merely witnessed me; and through a process of gentle inquiry, the therapist guided me to an awareness of my true, authentic and divine self.

As for the inner guide, the ‘how’ of the healing relationship is reminiscent of trust. For many people, opening yourself to an inner guide may be analogous to building your intuition. The relationship with this inner guide goes beyond intuition, however. The inner guide nurtures an enduring trust in life. When you develop a trust in the unfolding, problems melt away and all that remains is peace.

This message is for all of humanity.

I was recently complimented by a colleague on an achievement that had been reached. My colleague sent me an email saying… “YOU have done incredibly well.” My colleague was referring to a milestone that had been reached in marketing and promoting a collaborative initiative we had been working on for almost 10 years.

I was momentarily flattered by the compliment. It felt good to be acknowledged. It felt good that someone understood all the hard work that went in to reaching this milestone. It felt good to be noticed.

I then began to ponder what got us to this point of accomplishment. The milestone was not reached by me alone. The success was made possible because of the efforts of both myself and my colleague. It would be quite easy to enumerate what my colleague did and what I did. It would be quite easy to separate the tasks from one another. It would be easy to say “He did this…and I did that.”

But the truth lay in the realization that it was our working together that enabled us to reach the milestone. It was our working together that allowed us to realize the success we had realized. In fact, without each other none of it would have been possible. We each made our contribution to the effort. But the outcome was the synergy of our collective efforts.

I responded back to my colleague’s congratulatory email with the following:

“There is no ‘you’. There is no ‘me’. There is only ‘we’. Without each other, we have nothing.”

The isolated success story above is a mere microcosm of what is a growing need for humanity. There has never been a time when we, as a human society, need each other more. There are a lot of successes we can celebrate. But none of them are possible without each other. Our own success is dependent on others. We cannot be successful on our own. We cannot even survive on our own.

The reason is simple. We are not ‘me’ or ‘them’. We ARE one! Terms such as ‘me’, ‘you’, ‘they’, ‘them’…only serve to divide us. ‘We’ is indivisible. There is no separation in ‘we’.

There is no you. There is no me. There is only we. Without each other, we have nothing.

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.

A couple of months ago I got a new pair of eye glasses. What made this of significance for me was that it was my very first pair of eye glasses! Yes, at 53 years young, I was needing eye glasses to help me read. But the ophthalmologist said I also needed glasses for seeing far away. So I was prescribed ‘progressive lenses.’ Progressive glasses incorporate three different prescriptions in one lens—near for reading, middle distance for working at the computer, etcetera, and far for seeing off in the distance.

From the moment I put on my new glasses, I didn’t like them. I quickly became dizzy and nauseous. While my distant vision was better with the glasses, my middle distance was blurry, I could not read with ease (the vision kept wandering in and out of focus), and my peripheral vision was almost useless. Everything was blurry!

Over the next few days, I tried to use my glasses, but I kept thinking about why I didn’t like my glasses. I couldn’t imagine ever being able to see well with my new glasses. They were far more an annoyance than they helped me see better.

As my list of reasons for not liking my glasses grew, I considered taking them back to the ophthalmologist and having them test my eyes again. Surely, there must have been a mistake made in my prescription. Overall, my new glasses were making my vision worse, not better!

The next morning I woke and decided to try something different. Instead of focusing on why I didn’t like my glasses, I decided to think of one reason that I ‘did’ like my glasses. Well…it was clear to me (pun intended) that my distant vision was more clear with my glasses. Check! Okay, that was at least one reason I liked my glasses. Could I think of another reason I liked my glasses? I was aware that when I wore my glasses outside, the glasses blocked the cold wind. The glasses actually helped to keep my face warmer. Great! That was now two reasons I liked my glasses. In the days that followed, I started to get more comfortable reading with my new glasses. I began to like reading with my glasses because I could see what I was reading more clearly. Hey!...now I was up to three reasons I liked my new glasses.

While I was still concerned that my middle distance was blurry and my peripheral vision was poor, I now had ample reason to like my glasses. As I began to like my glasses more and more, my concerns about middle distance and peripheral vision faded away (pun intended). And when my concerns faded away, so to did my last remaining issues fade away.

Our minds are very powerful. We focus on whatever we allow our minds to focus on. When I began to look at why I didn’t like my glasses, I realized it had nothing to do with the glasses. It had to do with my sense of growing old and my body giving out on me. I was angry that I could no longer do the things I used to and I projected my anger onto the glasses.

As I began to focus on why I liked the glasses, something quite remarkable unfolded. I was able to shift my thoughts from fear and anger to one of joy and love. The transformation from fear to love eventually was completed, all with a simple, conscious decision to move from a focus of why I didn’t like my glasses to why I ‘did’ like my glasses, from a focus on the dark to the light—from a focus on fear to love.

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.

A couple of months ago I was cycling home from an evening coffee with a colleague I had not seen in many years. It was dark out by the time I started back home, so I had on my reflective vest and flashing lights on the front and back of my bicycle.

Less than 100 feet from my home, a cyclist coming in the other direction, suddenly cut across the street and abruptly veered toward me. To avoid a collision, I slammed on my breaks. I stopped too quickly, however. The momentum of my moving forward caused me to flip over my handlebars and crash to the pavement.

I remember at one moment I was aware that my feet were above my head. Time seemed to stop. I then felt myself hit the pavement and skid briefly. I remember hearing the bicycle crash and scrape the pavement. I remember hoping the bike was going to be okay.

As I lay on the pavement, I remember wondering if I was injured. So I decided to move slowly. I started with a leg. That one was okay. I moved my other leg. That was okay too. I moved an arm. That arm was okay. Then I moved the other arm. That arm was okay too. I slowly, very slowly made my way to my feet.

I remember looking down the street. I saw the cyclist carrying on their way. It did not appear that they had slowed down at all. They certainly had not stopped. They didn’t even look back.

At this moment, I remember feeling an intense rage well up inside of me. It felt like the other cyclist had intentionally veered across the street to hit me. My rage wanted me to yell some profanity at the cyclist. My rage wanted me to hop on my bicycle, chase down the cyclist, and confront them. Even worse, my rage wanted me to physically assault the cyclist for what, in my rage, I felt the cyclist had done to me.

As my rage was having a field day with what it wanted me to do, I became aware there was a part of me that had been watching the entire event unfold. Let’s call this part of me the ‘observer.’ This observer did nothing more than observe. It watched the other cyclist veer toward me. It watched me slam on my breaks. It watched me flip over my handlebars. It watched me crash to the pavement. It watched me pick myself up. It watched me fill with rage.

And through all the watching the observer simply observed. It did nothing more, and nothing less. It simply watched what unfolded. It did not judge. It accepted it all. Most significant, the observer was silent. The observer was at peace.

I quietly walked my bicycle home. Remember, I was less than 100 feet from my home. I remember feeling at peace. I also remember feeling rage. It was like there was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Except, the observer was watching both!

In the days that passed, I vacillated between rage and peace about the event. Eventually the experience melted away. But what has stayed with me is the memory of the observer. That observer is someone or something I intend to cultivate a relationship with.

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.