Rites of Passage – Encountering Spiritual “Initiations” On the Path

Contributing writer for Wake Up World

There will be key times on the path where you’re presented with vital opportunities for accelerated evolutionary growth. They are windows of possibility where your soul is wanting to grow and expand into a new level of conscious existence. So the Universe conspires to present a cauldron of alchemical change, where you’re tested emotionally, physically and mentally to your threshold and beyond. It’s a bit like a new flower, working to breakthrough tough surface layers. By those pathfinders who’ve endured them, they’ve become known as ‘initiations’. They are the most earth-shattering, bone-shaking you will encounter. So it pays to know something of what they are about. It can help you make sense of what’s going on…

Surrendering to the Soul

Your inner configuration of consciousness creates the exact outer circumstances of your life. Based on the degree of soul infusion, determines how aligned that reality will be. If there’s still a lot of identity, ego or karmic filters, then you’ll create varying degrees of disharmony, frustration and lack of fulfillment. And so as a result of these feelings, there’s then encouragement and motivation to reconfigure your existence by going within and unfolding new aspects of being — it’s the only way to truly change the outer.

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There’s still a huge amount of talk in the spiritual mainstream and motivational circles about ‘manifesting the reality you want’. The approach is to envision, then intentionally bring into being, that which you desire. It is an approach that is fatally flawed. The soul will ultimately find a way through with an entirely different agenda: that of evolutionary growth and self-actualisation through unbounded self expression. Here is the real secret, the profound joy…

Intentional manifestation may work for a while, but ultimately, as the bubble bursts, there’s a surrendering once more to the soul’s rightful journey. And initially, as you work to infuse soul, making that your aim, it’s going feel pretty expansive and at times blissful — because of the letting go, the surrender. But that’s far from the end of the story, because the inner reality needs to then infuse into the outer, so as to create a congruent reflection. And this is where initiations take place.

In the Corridor of Change

There comes the point of Realignment on the path. I’ve spoken of it in the 5GATEWAYS Documentary. It where there’s realisation that only surrender to the soul’s calling can lead to fulfillment in life. It’s not an intellectual shift; rather a kind of ‘breaking down sobbing of surrender’. “I will not do another thing until I can feel it coming from my soul!” It’s at this point that you open the doorway to the superhighway of spiritual growth, and with that, accelerating initiations.

The soul will work to merge your consciousness through your being and into the outer reality. But in so doing, it’s going to hit not only your blockages and distortions of the old bodymind consciousness, but then also the imbalances and disharmony in the outer world you’ve created. Thus begins a near constant confrontation with the old reality. This is the point where many seekers on the path turn back. I’ve witnessed it countless times: it becomes too intense to persist. There’s a losing of trust, and as the inner density gets churned up, it becomes exceptionally hard to hear your divine guidance mechanism. It becomes all too easy to slip into denial and accept a lesser existence.

But this is not the time to stop! It’s the perfect time to remember exactly why you’re doing it. If you don’t persist, that window of opportunity will close, and it can take time to reconfigure and re-open. One fundamental truth can help you to persist:

There is absolutely nothing going on but self-realisation. And so if you hit inner density and it wants to break you down internally, let it happen. You’re breaking the inner ties into the old consciousness. It’s not going to be easy: it may mean the ending of a relationship where you’ve spent many years together, where ties have to be unbound; it may mean leaving a career or general living situation with no certainty of what is to come next. The path is definitely not all love and light!

Abandoned and Cast Adrift in Confusion: Key Signs of an Initiation

An initiation often feels like you’ve been abandoned, cast adrift in confusion, as if the Universe is having some great cosmic joke at your expense. It will make it easier to know the key signs you’re actually undertaking one…

Key Signs of an Initiation:

You’re beset with near constant patterns of outer confrontation in your life
Things don’t want to work in the ways they used to — everything seems to be breaking down
Where previously your internal guidance mechanism worked well for you, now it’s hard to figure out even the simplest of choices
Emotionally you’re pushed to the limit; physically your body aches; intellectually the mind struggles to make sense
It becomes exceptionally hard to trust what you know in the heart to be true – the outer world keeps reflecting the old consciousness
Relationships, careers and general living circumstances are all challenged.

When I’ve encountered these myself on the path, it kind of feels like the metamorphosis of a butterfly: you enter into a ‘crysalis phase’, where everything internal feels like it’s turning to mush — prior to the resplendent new form coming through.

(Here’s a video on what it feels like to Unleash Your Cosmic Self)

Facilitating the Process

So crucially, if you find yourself encountering a phase in your life like something I’ve described, you could well be engaged in an initiation. It is not about making it easier! It is not about immediately dropping the pain like proverbial hot coals and turning away! It’s about walking courageously right into the jaws of it. But you can make the process more manageable. Here’s how…

Making Initiations Manageable:

Turn completely into it. Don’t reject or push the hardship away.
Don’t try to fix the outer world with some quick or expediently comfortable solution.
Don’t back away. Instead, go right into the very heart of it. Let it churn you up and break you down.
Keep looking for the internal tightness, whether it be physical, emotional, mental or karmic — express into it, let the pain and anguish come through you.
Then, when you’ve normalised in this internal tsunami of uncertainty — when the ‘boat’ has righted itself — look for a new aspect of beingness that wants to come through and light the path forwards.
Commit wholeheartedly to the new pathway.
Watch and celebrate as the new reality takes shape.

(Here’s a video on how to Breakthrough Subconscious Tightness)

In This Fierce Embrace, Even the Gods Speak of God

So, there will come times on the path where you enter such a cauldron of profound alchemical change. If my sharing has helped you recognise that happening, then I encourage you to persist, to head right into the jaws of uncertainty. Because in so doing, you’ll experience the most extraordinary expansion possible and your new life will literally take off! It’s certainly not for everyone, but if you’re drawn to this text, and got this far, I’m certain you have what it takes to break through. So go for it!…

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace,
even the gods speak of God.

— David Whyte

Not Alone

Above all, remember, that even if you feel alone, you are not. There is constant support from higher evolved consciousness in the ether all around you, those who will know exactly what you’re going through. But they’re not here to take the pain away, they’re not here to find the solution for you. They’re here to hold the space and help you grow through it, by illuminating that which you now need to work with in yourself.

Everybody hurts sometimes. And you are not alone.

(Join the Openhand Community... Engage with Starsouls just like you.)

Namaste

Open
(on behalf of Openhand)

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About the author:

Openhand is a unique approach to spiritual evolution: integrating enlightened wisdom of spiritual masters through the ages, it is a way of tapping into the Benevolent Guiding Consciousness of the Universe and aligning with it in your life. It helps you unveil your True Self, remove karmic blockages and unfold your Divine Destiny. It leads to authentic, resilient and truly successful living.

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