Create the Life You Imagine ~ October 2019
The Third Triangle: Connecting with Spirit
"God is not just with us, not just beside us, not just under us, not just over us, but within us, at the deepest level, and, in our inmost being, a step beyond the true Self." ~ Rev. Thomas Keating
We started this journey into our spiritual operating system with the quote from Thielhard De Chardin reminding us that we are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but rather, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Let’s review our model of the spiritual operating system that we have explored so far. We started with the lower triangle and discovered that this is the home of our personality and it is generally living at the mercy of our small self. We have learned that left to its own devices, the small self of the lower triangle lives inside the belief that we are all separate physical beings and that life is a struggle for safety, acceptance, status and survival in a world of scarcity and limitations. The small self focuses on the external world and spends its precious life energy scanning the environment for threats and challenges to its sense of security. The small self is the keeper of our history and it stores and records all the challenges, struggles, difficulties, trials and traumas we have experienced during our life. It evaluates every life experience as pleasant or painful and its job is to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. It is the source of our fears, anxieties, disappointments and struggles. It lives in feelings of regret for the past and worry about the future. While the small self may experience moments of temporary pleasure, satisfaction and happiness, the ever-changing nature of life makes everything feel fragile and fleeting, making it difficult for the small self to stabilize any true and lasting sense of peace or presence.
Our upper triangle is the home of our Soul, our True Self. Our Soul knows that we are all connected and that life is an opportunity to deepen our awareness of this Divine Truth and to Remember Who We Are. Our Soul remembers our connection to the Divine Source of All That Is and trusts that every experience of our life, the pleasant and the painful and everything in between, will be used in service to our own unfolding. Our Soul knows that we are participants in a Divine spiritual dance where spirit meets matter, and life is an opportunity to experience that Mystery in human form. Our Soul knows that we are here in this physical form as a unique and inimitable expression of the light and love of the Divine energy, and nothing that happens to us in this lifetime can ever separate us from the eternal energy of Spirit. Our Soul knows that life is about learning and growing into the fullness of our Divine potential and possibilities. Our Soul is always leading us—it is quietly present and watching while whispering to the small self to surrender its delusion of separation and struggle. It uses our life experiences to loosen the grip of the small self until we allow the flow of Divine energy to move from our Soul through our personality and out into the world without fear, struggle or resistance. Our Soul is like a funnel of Divine Light and Love and our job in this lifetime is to give full expression to the stream of Divine energy that moves through us, making full use of the unique gifts, talents and life opportunities that we all bring to the dance.
We now are familiar with our lower triangle personality and our upper triangle Soul, but let’s add the third triangle to our model of the spiritual operating system, the triangle of Spirit. If you imagine this third triangle situated right on top of the upper triangle it makes it obvious that what the Soul is funneling is the Divine energy of Spirit. At the top of this triangle is the energy of pure consciousness or pure awareness from which everything in existence is born. In the image above I have labeled it as OM. In meditation practice, OM stands for the original vibration or the original sound or the original movement from where all things are created. This is what might be called the Godhead in western religious traditions or the point of stillness, or emptiness in eastern spiritual traditions. It has been described as the point of darkness from which all light and all things in creation emerged. It is the source of All That Is. As the creative force of all life and energy moved out from this source, it split into two. The bottom two corners of the triangle represent these opposing creative forces of energy. You might think of them as the active masculine energy of light and the receptive feminine energy of love. Nothing can come into being that does not flow from this triangle and that does not contain these streams of energy. From this triangle emerges the field of infinite and limitless possibilities from which all things flow. Everything you need to power your life and to tap into the eternal energy of Divine potential emerges from here. The triangle of Spirit is the infinite source of all intelligence, creativity and joy.
You might imagine this triangle situated above the seventh chakra center at the crown of your head and imagine the stream of energy from this triangle flowing steadily and effortlessly into your being. It is difficult to put the energy of this triangle into words because the energy of Spirit is beyond words and beyond our ordinary awareness. Some might call the energy that flows from this triangle God, and others might call it Divine, Spirit, Universe, Intelligence, Consciousness, Awareness, Diving Mother, Divine Father or Source. Whatever name we give it, its quality is subtle, luminous and etheric. The light of this triangle is depicted by great spiritual artists as the halo of light above the heads of saints and holy men and women in their paintings and sculptures. It is felt in the experience of deep peace and presence that radiates through your being during times of deep meditation or deep connection. It’s the light that seems to sparkle or shimmer around children or nature when we are feeling fully connected and fully awake and alive. It is the energy of pure joy that we experience when we create something that is an authentic expression of our deepest and truest Self.
As we move through the coming weeks, we will allow this triangle of Spirit to add to the depth and fullness of our understanding of our spiritual nature and our true identity. For now, just remember that each and every one of us is a stream of light and love moving through our Soul and into our human form as an expression of the Divine. When this truth really penetrates our awareness, we will throw off the chains of the small self and really begin to live from the light, love and power of our Soul. When that shift happens, we begin to experience life as a gift and enter into each day with a sense of our infinite possibilities.
Wishing you the blessings and light of the Soul, as you create the life you imagine.
Tracy
Stepping Stones:
This week practice with a simple meditation practice to first open the channel between your Soul and your Personality, and to then open the channel to Spirit. Read through this meditation a couple of times letting your mind feel and create the images I describe, and then find a peaceful place where you can sit uninterrupted for ten minutes or so. If you like, play some quiet meditative music, light a candle or burn some incense to create the conditions for your mind to grow still and quiet. Begin by simply noticing your breath. Take three deep breaths and as you breathe in and as you breathe out, let your mind grow still, remembering that its only job for the next few moments is to follow your breath with awareness and attention. As other thoughts move in, simply return your attention to your breath, and with each breath in, and each breath out, let every part of your body relax just a little more deeply. After a few minutes, as your mind and your breathing steadies and slows, imagine the Spirit Triangle glimmering just above your head with a luminous light that glows with a light pink or purple hue. Draw your attention up to this triangle and feel the energy of light and love radiating from this triangle and flowing down and through every cell in your body. Imagine a channel of light moving from this triangle and down through the three chakras of your upper triangle, through your heart center, down through the three chakras of your lower triangle, and out into the earth. Feel the channel of connection from the heavens, through your body, and down into the earth. Continue breathing through this channel, noticing the energy flowing effortlessly from the crown down. After ten or fifteen minutes, slowly return your awareness to your body and to the room in which you are sitting, and bless the universe for providing all the resources you need for your life experience. Place your hands over your heart and let yourself smile as you receive this powerful stream of energy into your body. Do this meditation exercise several times this week to open this channel and notice what you feel in your body, mind and spirit. See the image below to open your imagination for the meditation.
