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I hear these words a lot, not just said to me, but said about some others too: You are blessed. They’re blessed. Here’s what I say: I’m lucky. It’s not a perfect word or description, but I like it better than blessed.

Blessed sounds very spiritual and usually someone thinks they are acknowledging spirit or God at work. They mean it as a kind thing, and I take it as such. Nevertheless, to say someone is blessed is saying what? Someone else is not? Aren’t we all blessed?

So here’s my rant: we are all blessed; some of us just don’t know it. Some of us haven’t awakened to that knowledge, haven’t acknowledged Spirit in our lives and as our true identity.

Is it because I am blessed that I recognize the Beloved within and all around? After all, I had to be knocked over the head with an experience of Light (SAL) to get my attention, and then I had to read incessantly and learn through experience as we all do. Certainly things conspired to put me in the right place at the right time with the right thoughts, but it was spontaneous, unplanned. I was a novice on the whole subject. Am I more blessed than you, then anyone else? Why does lightening strike a particular person in a football arena where she is surrounded by hundreds of people? Why her?

It’s not that I don’t think Spirit is at work in most of these situations or that like attracts like or that intention matters, because once you awake to knowing we are all blessed, a lot of healing occurs that allow intentions and the like to work more smoothly. But if you’re standing in line for an ice cream cone, are you more blessed to be the second in line than the fifteenth or are you just lucky? (Sure maybe you planned it so you would get there just when they opened and ahead of the crowd, but maybe someone else planned that too and got caught in traffic.) Aren’t we all in line for consciousness? Aren’t we all blessed to be in that line? Maybe it is karma and past life dues and the like that make someone further ahead in the line; I really don’t know. But I do know that it’s not because they are blessed and you aren’t. What do you think?

In response to a friend’s request that I smudge her to “seal any auric openings,” I responded thusly: I would be glad to, however it is my belief and experience that any such clearing by another may only be temporary.

We “take things in” to learn about ourselves and ultimately to come to a profound acceptance of self. Only with that profound acceptance of self does the “sealing” take place permanently. And it isn’t really a “sealing” of the field, rather our acceptance allows the full measure of the Transcendent’s Loving Light to move through us and dispel any shadow in our wake. At this point we cease learning through struggle; we learn through awareness.

Why? Because any opening in the auric field is an unconscious gap, a shadow, that attracts that which will bring it to light. If we choose to become conscious of this gap and embrace it with the loving kindness of our acceptance (often an “aha” moment), its struggle for acknowledgment ceases.

We cannot reach the tipping point of a sage-like change in our consciousness until enough of our unconscious is brought to light and lovingly accepted.*

When you hear of gurus and the like awakening kundalini (light) in someone, certainly major changes take place, yet that person may or may not be at the tipping point of their consciousness; it depends on the personal work they did before the awakening. In my own case, when I had a spontaneous awakening of light (SAL), I hadn’t ignored my unconscious and profound change occurred; nevertheless neither was I at the point where I fully accepted myself with loving kindness. So the work was there for me. For each of us, there is no escaping personal responsibility.

* Acceptance means we accept the reality of what is in any given moment. It doesn’t mean we don’t intend to change something if that’s our desire.

Empathy:sensing another’s suffering with compassion
Compassion:loving concern for another’s suffering without identifying with it

(Misguided Empathy: feeling and joining in on the suffering of another by identifying with or attaching to it)

Cultivate compassion. You can see the suffering in the world and yet stand in the Light, stand as a silent witness to the love, peace, joy and beauty that exists within each of us, within all life and all nature. In this way you acknowledge that your identity is rooted in that Light. It defines you. This is what it means for your life to become the prayer.

For instance, I may say, “Yes, I see the suffering in the world; I am aware of it. I support causes that attempt to end it, but I don’t identify with it. It does not define my experience of life.”

Bringing this to the level of one individual who is in pain, you could think/intend/pray, “I honor you by acknowledging your experience; I don’t feel or join in your suffering because it doesn’t define you. Rather, in the face of this suffering, I stand as a silent witness to the Light rooted within you and all life — the Light of love, peace, joy and beauty.” In so doing, I serve as a continual conduit for that Light to express itself in the world; my life becomes a healing prayer.

Barbara Atkinson 12/2008

Let go. There is a difference between feeling responsible for others and being a guiding light.

Too often some of us take the idea of being of service and turn it into being responsible for. We have a responsibility for our small children, for caring for a pet we acquire and for the welfare of aging parents that become disabled. Most everything else is about being responsible for ourselves, living in integrity so that our lives become a guiding light.

Each person is responsible for their choices. We cannot save someone from themselves or those choices. We can merely show the way. Nor are you responsible for what others think of you. Each of us, though connected as one, is on an individual journey. No two awakenings are alike. Though the markers and destination are the same, we are individuated, and Spirit works through our particular nature.

When you are responsible for yourself, for living in integrity, you aspire to live in harmony with the universe, with flora and fauna and others around you. You choose to love and value yourself and to do unto others as you would have done to you. Only if our advice is sought out do we give it.

Even if we choose to work for the betterment of others, i.e., offering medical assistance or new farming techniques to a deprived population or spiritual teachings, we do so as a guide and helper, not because we are responsible for others. Each person is responsible for themselves and to the Divine.

So check in with yourself and your relationships with family, friends and others in general. Are you letting a feeling of responsibility creep in? Free yourself from the tyranny of misplaced responsibility and shine your light.