From My Will to Thy Will
Growing Up on the Spiritual Journey
After a severe, chronic illness, I first became very interested in yoga and meditation at twenty years old. I dedicated my life to transcending my own suffering and seeking spiritual enlightenment.
Spiritual sages like Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi, and J. Krishnamurti opened up incredible vistas inside me in my twenties.
This eventually led me to a deep immersion into the work of spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, and others in my thirties.
Books like the Tao Te Ching, The Way of Zen, The Power of Now, I Am That, Be Here Now, and The Way of Chuang Tzu were instrumental to me intuiting more clearly the nature of reality, who we really are, and why we’re here.
I also studied Tantric and Buddhist teachings, many developmental models of consciousness, and was greatly inspired by Sufi poets such as Rumi and Hafiz etc.
I worked with all the great nondual teachings,popular self-help, and law of attraction teachings, from every corner of the globe and eventually taught what I had realized to others.
This catalyzed a whole series of ecstatic spiritual experiences, gave me a great sense of inner peace and freedom, and dramatically transformed my consciousness, unlocking deeper patterns of wisdom.
Whatever I was experiencing in the moment felt like a fun, temporary illusion that could be laughed off like a momentary dream.
My consciousness became much more light, and present to the here and now. I became supremely skilled at knowing how to manifest situations and circumstances that gave me pleasure.
My presence became more magnetic and charismatic. I felt like I could manifest whatever I wanted and usually did.
I started dating the most beautiful women, visiting the most amazing exotic locations, all while being fully self-employed generating my income creating a business I absolutely loved. I was teaching and coaching others what I had learned. I led retreats and workshops all over the world, and had well over one-hundred thousand people following me across social media.
And yet something was missing.
Looking back, with a lot of introspection, I decoded three important patterns in this stage of my spiritual journey and the spiritual communities I was connected to.
Spiritual nihilism
Spiritual narcissism
Spiritual hedonism
From this worldview the purpose of life is to create your own reality. You can manifest whatever makes you feel good, and you can learn how to create more and more pleasurable experiences for yourself as you go.
I became outstanding at doing this yet I now felt called to something higher, truer, and deeper.
I was being called from:
From hedonism to service
From narcissism to sacrifice
From nihilism to eternal love
It wasn’t until my mid-forties that I was ready to meet my greatest teacher. (More on that another time.)
I had become free.
But I hadn’t yet become love.
I had become a spiritual being
But I hadn’t yet learned to become a fully human being.
The same presence that once laughed off the world as nothing but an illusion now began to learn how to weep, to sacrifice, to suffer, to sweat, to serve, and to truly love, for the good of the whole.
My inner prayers and intentions were no longer, “My will be done,” but, “Thy will be done… on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
I used to ask all my clients, students, and retreat attendees:
If anything is possible what do you want to create?
I now ask all my clients, students, and retreat attendees:
If anything is possible what are you called to create?
A subtle yet profound change in how one orients their inner attention and thus their life.
What are YOU called to create?
The more we follow the life God is calling us toward, the more we become an active participant in the eternal dance of love that forms all that is true, good, and beautiful.
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