If asked on a job application about your level of spirituality, how would you define yourself? Would you use a label of Catholic, Muslim, Christian, Jehovah’s Witness or other, or would you note things like love, truth, your connection to nature, helping others, meditation, peace and joy? I often think of words from Shirley MacLaine; ‘religions teach religion, not spirituality.’
Your heart is always there to guide you in the direction of spirituality. It’s when you make friends with your soul that you become who you truly are. Your authentic personality is your soul’s message - your life purpose. When your personality is your soul and your soul is your personality, you become ‘one’ with yourself and with the universe.
Our guide on a recent trip to Egypt was always calling us together to ‘be as one’. Depending on our location or his tone of voice, I would hear the message differently. Sometimes it was about bringing our group together physically, but other times it was about being one with ourselves, being fully present in the moment, being one with our surroundings or being one with the history of the temple or pyramid we were visiting. However it feels for you, the saying ‘be as one’ is a useful guide to focus on as you pull together all of your own unique pieces of oneness on your journey of self-discovery.
To ‘be as one’ can take on many meanings. I live on a small Island on the west coast of Canada. When our country was opening its arms of welcome to thousands of refugees our community got together to raise funds and to find a home on our island for one of the families. They were a lovely family and tried their hardest to be part of our community but it was so different and they were lonely for their own culture. They chose to move to a larger city where some of their friends and family had been accepted. They needed to be one with their own community.
Next, we welcomed two related families from another country and they also eventually chose to leave for a bigger city with people of like backgrounds. All of them are still connected with people from our community but we found oneness for them was different than it was for us. Our hearts were open but our cultures were different and that is all okay. It wasn’t up to us to change these people into thinking, our way is the only way.
We had wanted to be of help in the refugee crisis and we achieved that in a different way than we anticipated. Even though there was a shift in our original perception, the fact that we helped to make a difference does have an impact on changing the world. We learned it is time for everyone to broaden their personal views to include the collective and to ‘be as one’ through loving each other, not changing each other.