What is Your FUNCTION?

To each his special function is designed to be perceived as possible, and more and more desired as it proves to him that it is an alternative he really wants.

(A Course in Miracles)

Being able to perceive ONENESS is a vision. A spiritual traveler has the eye of an artist. We are not holy though, we just see upside in a situation that others fail to see. We also experience conflict; we remember old battle wounds; we become aware of the desire to strike back at those who supposedly cause us harm; but then we mumble to ourself, "I will be damned if this movie repeats itself". It is then when the WAY opens up. We recognize the path that transcends the tensions and makes everyone better off, not just ourself. The WAY always exists, but you have to patiently look out for it.

I hear often in our spiritual community how we are supposedly more enlightened than others; there is arrogance in that view. The brothers and sisters who play with us just mirror back our own tensions, conflicts and aspirations. Sure, there are times when we need to turn our back to an aspect of ourself that we have effectively outgrown. But more often than not, the annoying situation we are in is in fact an opportunity to heal old wounds, and to discover resistance and dark spots within ourself. This annoying brother just wants to give us another chance to come clean with our SELF.

The search for spirituality often starts with the frustration that hits us in a dysfunctional situation, when we drop everything and state, "there must be another way!" The above quoted "A Course in Miracles" started that way. When the boss of a psychology department  complained that all colleagues where at each other's throats, Helen Schucman was part of a team that volunteered to look into possible solutions. It was then when she heard voices that became a 700 page volume full of spiritual nuggets. So please respect the interferences along the WAY; they too have their spiritual meaning.

It was an incredible wake-up call for me when I realized what my FUNCTION at work; I do not need to do a thing. All I need to do is just to be there and assist everyone with my positive vibration. I perform this FUNCTION everywhere, at work, at home, or in my spiritual community. I am simply  one with the environment I am in. But I am not the holy one in this, everyone is. The healing exercise is a two-way street. I have inner conflicts and tensions just like everyone else. And while I know nothing about my subconscious interferences, my brother brings them out in the open for me and we heal together. We don't need to do a thing, we just need to be willing to hang out with each other - GOD does the rest. 

So what is your FUNCTION?

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ has come again (Revised)

When I was in graduate school many years ago I had a strange dream. Jesus Christ was actually living among us, but he turned into a drug addict - thousands of years of reincarnation took a heavy toll on him and his spirit finally gave in. I then saw myself marrying my wife and we both ascended to Heaven together. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up! Intuitively I understood what this dream was all about. It could only mean that I had to venture out in the "real" world and put my spiritual mission on hold. As it turned out for me personally, real world and spirituality don't have to be in conflict.  Today I have both feet in the real world while I am still able to share my spiritual journey with you!

A few years ago I came across A Course in Miracles. In it, the voice of Jesus is channeled through a psychologist, Helen Schucman, who provides a breath-taking reinterpretation of Jesus' teachings in today's psychological language. When I googled her life story, I realized that Helen Schucman might have been quite conflicted about these insights as she spent years in depression afterwards  - in apparent contradiction to everything this book is about. Yet A Course in Miracle and Jesus's teachings are very real and very relevant. At least speaking for myself, A Course in Miracles has transformed my life.

The spirit of Christ is with us always. You can discover it in A Course in Miracles or you can meet Him in every loving interaction that comes your way today. The spirit of Christ is wherever loving people are. Jesus the man did his work to discover the universal power of love for us; now we have to do our part. Re-live it, re-discover it but find your own unique way of expressing it. We already had the Christ and the Buddha and are consequently blessed to do our work on the shoulder of spiritual giants. So what's in store for us? For me personally, I discovered the Way - the Tao - in my daily work as a financial analyst. What spiritual insight will you pass on?

How it all Came About

Some of you may know the book "A Course in Miracles", a 700 page channeling exercise of Jesus' spirit. Whether you believe in channeling or not, the work is a philosophical and spiritual classic. I obviously don't know who Jesus truly was and what he really said, but if I had to project what he would say to us today, it would be the Course in Miracles indeed.

It all started in a psychology department with lots of frictions and tensions among the colleagues. One day the boss couldn't take it anymore and demanded "there must be another way!" A group was formed to improve relations and Helen Schucman volunteered to help out. This was the period when she started hearing voices; the first one said, " This is a Course in Miracles, please take notes."

Our spiritual community always claims that we can manifest Heaven on earth and they are of course right; this is indeed what you should aspire to do. Yet, please let it up to life - the Tao - to lead you there. There is still so much psychological baggage that you carry around, let life wash it away for you. So if life throws challenges at you, don't despair. Embrace them to the best of your abilities instead. Your problems are here to make a Moses out of you. Raise your staff, part the sea and let your soul siblings lead you to the land of honey and milk. You could never do that without them, so thank every problem and trouble-maker who comes your way for jump-starting you on your holy mission.

Perhaps you can take travel notes just like Helen Schucman did and as we do. When everything is said and done you will marvel at the apparent impossibility of your holy mission. Let your miracle inspire others to perform theirs so that we can all snowball into freedom together.