You Are Not Your Experiences
Life is filled with experiences, unfolding at each and every moment. Like a film, frame-by-frame, each moment is captured, as it’s own independent experience. Your next one depends on what you just experienced. Be thankful to every person that has come into your life even for a brief moment. They had a message for you … and a lesson.
In the same way as we cannot reach 11 o’clock without first having a 10 o’clock … we move forward from where we just were. Step-by-step. The wheel of life spins across every peg before it comes to a stop. Clicking its way from the one, to the next … and before that, and before that, and so on. This is karma, cause and effect, in an eternal cycle. Evolution, devolution, involution, and revolution, physically and spiritually.
You are not the experience; you are the one who is experiencing. You are not what’s taking place, you are the witness. Just as you are not the car, you are the driver. But that YOU, is based upon a certain duality. Spirit, versus ego. Spirit knows what is right for everything and everyone and acts accordingly, knowing the effects. Ego is led by it’s own selfish desires and acts accordingly ignorant of it’s effects. When we make the right decision, everyone experiences benefits. When we make an error in our decision, everyone experiences consequences.
So each experience is a lesson. We either learn from it, grow, and move on … or we repeat it, remain in ignorance, and get stuck. It is important to remember each and every thing we witness through our experience, is not what we are … it is what we are to learn from. It is our teacher. We are here in earth school to evolve our Spirit and Species. The body decays and returns to the elements from which it came, but the spirit/energy returns also from which it came. We cannot create or destroy energy. This is Law. What is really you, always was and always will be.
When you make an improper judgment that your experience is who you are, it is a huge mistake. When in school, you are not your books, your tests, or your lessons; you are the one who is having that particular experience. When you begin to take ownership of your “mistakes” or poor ignorant judgment, you will get stuck in a track of guilt and “sin”. Your “sin” is nothing more than missing the mark … missing the bull’s-eye of Truth and Right Thinking and Acting. You are not punished FOR your sin as is commonly taught, but you are punished BY your sin … that is to say, you reap the effects of what it was you thought said or did to cause the negative results.
As I said earlier, every person, and every thing that comes and goes in your life is your teacher, and is there for a reason and a purpose. Thank these experiences and be grateful you have them because they are your teachers, and you are the student.
The only “mistakes” that we make in life are repeating in ignorance the lessons we have not learned. These events are no longer a “mistake”, they are now a choice. We are to learn by wrong thinking, and not repeat the same thought, act, or cause if it does not lead to good and right benefit to not only ourselves, but to others.
Live your life with no regrets. Take no ownership of your experiences, only responsibility for the decisions you made that led to them. Learn all you can learn … as above, so below. You are the Witness to it all … the Watcher.
I will end with the Test of Three, sometimes credited to Socrates:
The first filter is TRUTH. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to say or do is true?
The second filter is the filter of GOODNESS. Is what you are about to say or do, something that good?
The third is the filter of USEFULNESS or BENEFIT. Is what you want to say or do going to be useful or beneficial?"
Take the time to respond, rather than react. Remember … in school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test, then you’re taught a lesson.
Just a thought …
~Justin Taylor, ORDM., OCP., DM.
