spiritual reality – Spirituality & Healing

by Janet Hegarty

When you travel through western Kansas in August, near the town of Goodland, you’ll see huge fields of sunflowers in full bloom. The sudden burst of bright yellow against the green landscape is stunning, but the behavior of the sunflowers is even more impressive. All of the flowers face toward the sun and move together in unity as they follow the sun throughout the day.

Against the backdrop of the current contentious political landscape, the thought of these sunflowers moving together in unity is refreshing. It stimulates hope that there might be a way to move beyond antagonistic, divisive political differences. Granted, the life of a flower is simple compared with the complexities of human existence, but I believe there’s much to learn about how we might establish harmony by considering the sunflower’s activity.

The flowers move in harmony because they are all seeking and finding the good they need from the same source. This is what unifies their actions. Their need for the sun is intrinsic. They naturally follow the sun, and their needs are supplied in the process.

Much political discord today comes from disparate points of view as to how the social and economic life in the United States should be managed. These conflicting ideas have polarized the country. This polarization has been so extreme at times that it has severely slowed the normal effective action of the government. Thinking of the sunflowers has made me wonder if there isn’t a higher source of good we could focus on that might unite us all in progressive activity.

This morning I was praying and awakening to a spiritual sense of unity.
Unity is the natural state to all of us. We are united by the very Source of our being.
So any sense, or temptation, of discord and division is an illusion.
These temptations or divisiveness can only scratch the surface. It can never touch the depth of being or change the spiritual reality of who we all are. I find great comfort in this and it helps me see clearly through these illusions.

Christ Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”¹

I thought this Beatitude meant to avoid conflict; we’ve all known or been one of those people who avoid conflict, or are more passive. But actually this Beatitude now means to me that even in the face of conflict we are seeing the real depth of being, the true spiritual reality or substance that comes from our Source, is not conflicted and is totally at peace. This change in consciousness is powerful. It reminds me of the story in the Bible where Jesus is attacked by an angry mob. Their intention is to push him over a cliff. The Bible says:

“All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”²

Isn’t this true peace? Seeing anything that presents a lie of discord, anger, hatred is not true, is not from Deity and therefore has no power? Jesus didn’t react, and he didn’t allow this incident to corrupt his view of God’s spiritual image and likeness. He recognized it for what it was: the “carnal mind”.

“The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.”³

So today I am praying about the deep unity of being; the unity of all of us. And recognizing that there is no power which can divide or separate us from one another.

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¹NIV The Bible, Matthew 5:9
² NIV The Bible, Luke 4:28-30
³ NIV The Bible, Romans 8:7

Tag: spiritual reality

Repost: Lessons from sunflowers

Sunflowers’ promise of hope and unity

Unity is our natural state of being