Jean Roberts

This chapter builds directly on Chapter 4 – with a continuing focus on:

• the connectedness between Spiritual Development and each of the seven categories of growth and development – and
• the connectedness between each of the seven categories of growth and development.

In my youth, I assumed that my spiritual experience was limited to church-related activities through the week and of course on Sundays. There was a definite line of separation between my spiritual experience and all other areas of my life – until the ‘Grappling with God’ moment in 1986, which I’ve shared in the introduction to this e-book:

“I felt weighed down with everyday things – which seemed to fill my thoughts and feelings. After my desperate talk with my God, which was an actual time and place, I expected my ‘load’ to be miraculously lifted and my feet to be planted on a different path. However, as the days and weeks passed by, I became slowly aware that ‘the everyday’ and ‘the mundane’ were how God intended to continue to talk to me. He had truly been talking, but I hadn’t recognised his voice. ‘My, how you’ve changed since I’ve changed’ is a favourite saying of mine since that time – because I changed to seeing everyday things as discourse with God. And of course this opened for me a 24 hour communication channel that had always existed. A patient God indeed!”

My stepping outside of the traditional and expected spiritual experience began with my knowing and understanding that it was possible to do so – which is always the first step in achieving behavioural or attitudinal change. The second step is acceptance of this new knowledge and understanding. Acceptance grew out of a willingness to change and be changed, to move from my perception of the separation, to an expectation of connectedness. You and I cannot move from, without moving to!

As displayed in the circle diagram above, connectedness exists between each of the seven areas of growth and development in our lives, as well as between each of these with our spiritual development. There can be just one life – within which we grow and develop as a human being with a continuing and all-embracing spiritual experience.

Now, I’m not going to say that it has all been easy – there are peaks and troughs in stepping outside of the traditional and expected spiritual experience! But with even limited spiritual enlightenment and connectedness comes the opportunity to view events in our daily lives from a spiritual – as well as human – perspective.

Dreams have always been important for me, and this is how I wrote about a 1997 dream at the time, with the message – and reminder – to let go:

I have just woken from a sleep but I woke earlier, I think around 2o’clock or so from a dream. I was sobbing in this dream, to the extent that my sobbing woke me. Although I had no tears in my eyes when I woke in my dream, I was breaking my heart. My dream was that I owned a cat which was for some reason making life very difficult for me; unbearable! I was taking it everywhere and having to hold it and restrain it and control it: it was doing everything it possibly could to leap out of my hand, to run away. It was a constant problem.

Then I was taking it to some place where I was going to leave it with a person who would confine it to one room – the room I would soon leave as I recognized a new door into a new room.

I was breaking my heart because I felt so bad about giving this cat into this confined space from which it would never be free again. It had known such freedom, which in turn had caused me so much anguish. I was walking away from it breaking my heart because I knew this cat was never going to be free again. I was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, and I was so sad and upset – walking away into a new-found freedom, and sobbing about the reason for my harassment being at last controlled.

On reflection, I saw that this cat, which was so much trouble to me, represented the definite line of separation between my spiritual experience and all other areas of my life. And the freedom ahead of me would be the opportunity for spiritual growth and development, unfettered by that self-imposed line of separation.
It is a scary prospect indeed, walking away into a new-found freedom, with the reason for my harassment being at last controlled!

As I later reflected on this dream, I recalled a much earlier dream about a large old cat and a tiny kitten, in which the old cat (my earthly nature) was trying to destroy the tiny kitten (my newly discovered spiritual development) – seen as a threatening presence by the large old cat.

I had been reading about consciousness and creativeness: how my mind needs to be open, without any intellectual debate – simply to be open through my consciousness to the creative energy of the Creator and the Universe. I could sum this process up with the well-known dictum, “Let go and let God”. However, I know very well that it is so easy, that it is so hard. In other words – it is so easy to say, but so hard to put into practice: and so difficult to practice regularly.

Yet – with practice comes conscious improvement, and with conscious improvement comes the confidence that it will work… which leads us back to Deliberate Practice, as introduced in Chapter 4:

In the introduction to his book Genius Explained, Michael J. A. Howe reviews the early life of Mozart to draw out seven relevant factors that seem to comprise Deliberate Practice:

1. motivation,
2. preparation,
3. commitment/focus,
4. mentor,
5. skill development,
6. memory – remembering new facts that can be linked to whatever the individual already knows, and
7. enthusiasm.

Constantly practicing the connectedness between Spiritual Development and each of the seven categories of growth and development – and the connectedness between each of the seven categories of growth and development – requires:

Motivation:

My Grappling with God experience at an actual time and place (as shared in the Introduction to this e-book). After my desperate talk with him, which was an actual time and place, I expected my ‘load’ to be miraculously lifted and my feet to be planted on a different path. However, as the days and weeks passed by, I became slowly aware that ‘the everyday’ and ‘the mundane’ were how God intended to continue to talk to me. He had truly been talking, but I hadn’t recognised his voice. ‘My, how you’ve changed since I’ve changed’ is a favourite saying of mine since that time – because I changed to seeing everyday things as discourse with God. And of course this opened for me a 24 hour communication channel that had always existed. A patient God indeed!

Preparation:

As a self-employed and independent consultant since 1985, I have been responsible for all aspects of my business – ranging from the innovative through to the mundane. Setting priorities, deciding which services to offer and how to offer them, keeping up to date with trends and opportunities, enjoying the good times, and most importantly, supporting myself through the rough and tough times which can be quite a challenge.

It has been necessary to build a strong bond with my ‘inner-self’ – as my confidante, to challenge my assumptions, to check my values and to determine my direction. And often, these have all been necessary at the same time!

During these years, I have kept a personal journal – not so much about my activities, but of my thoughts, feelings, questions and answers – as a means of knowing, understanding and appreciating myself and others. It is in fact a spiritual journal – a record of my spiritual journey.

Commitment and Focus:

My experience has clearly proved the benefit of breaking the process of my spiritual growth down to one step at a time, one layer at a time, and one day at a time. This makes the process more comfortable, easier to monitor, and definitely allows me to control the pace of my journey.

Mentor:

I began to consider the collective mind, the collective consciousness, which speaks with one voice because it is truly collective. I accepted that I was a full and active member and therefore a contributor to and benefactor of the collective consciousness. I decided to call this collective consciousness ‘the Council of Minds’.

By taking energy directly from the collective consciousness, my productivity was to rise markedly – because of my continuing experimentation with the way that I attracted, allocated and monitored that energy.

Skill Development:

Enlightenment is the art of knowing – it is the knowledge and information into which one expands as a spiritual being:

• enlightenment is the movement of knowledge and information through expansion and exploration into conscious, subconscious and unconscious awareness, acceptance and confidence.

Communication is the science of enlightenment – it is the understanding of enlightenment:

• communication is the method, the technique, the action of understanding.

The difference and relationship between enlightenment and communication requires an acceptance that they are each of equal value and importance in the spiritual journey. They have the potential to be two sides of the one coin.

Memory – remembering new facts that can be linked to whatever the individual already knows

Retrospective planning is the ability to direct your attention back over a series of actions taken over a period of time after the impact of those actions has become tangible and real in order to recognise and appreciate:
1. Purpose,
2. Form,
3. Structure,
4. Rhyme,
5. Rhythm, and
6. Reasons.

Retrospective planning also allows objective observation, where the emotional component can be suspended during silent and unaccompanied reflection. For myself as a long-term small business owner/manager, this has enabled my acknowledgment of the fact of my survival as such. At least I can recognize that I’ve come through my years of self-employment, surviving and withstanding the substantial factors and reasons for small business failure in years 1, 2, 5 and 10 of operation that are the subject of continual and extensive research, study and publication throughout the world.

The process of retrospective planning requires a cluster of return journeys, a sequence of mind-travel to look over previous activity and non-activity. And the act and benefit of ‘looking’ is always advanced if we are using the relevant magnifying lens.

Enthusiasm:

Each person brings to the collective consciousness their individual experience and memory. Together, the collectivity of our minds becomes a collective consciousness – as a collective mind.

Time is unimportant in the collective mind. Time and distance and space do not exist. So when a thought that conveys any pressure related to time or distance or space presents itself, you can discount it. Communication and conversation with the collective mind equips one for any challenge, for any joy, for any opportunity, for any expression, for any presentation, for any group.

This realisation is an example of enlightenment.

Information comes to different people in different ways. To some it comes as a revelation, to some it comes as a result of digging and searching, and to others it comes by just listening or watching and observing their own behaviour or the behaviour of others.

And yet others seem to absorb knowledge through their skin. They learn through the hunger to learn, and their hunger to learn is an openness, an attitude.

What am I learning by stepping outside of the traditional and expected spiritual experience?

In reflecting on Howe’s seven relevant factors in Deliberate Practice, it’s valuable to consider my continuing learning and development – even after my 25-year journey to date:

• to value my time – and to invest it wisely,
• to read the mind of the Universe – and learn more about Universal love,
• to be confident that I am ‘in place’ – with wonderful events and experiences moving toward me,
• that learning by observation is as valuable as learning by experience, and
• that life is just one continuous journey – with peaks and troughs, with laughter and tears… in constant one-ness with the collective consciousness, which is the manifestation of our patient Creator.