Your Sacred Self
Living Your Real Life
our real work
We all have work to do beyond our job and career – it is to become conscious. As we awaken from the child’s dream of despair, we begin enlightened living. As we heal the crippling offenses of the past, we are free to develop our gifts, without fear of inner censorship. Living and working authentically, we discover life’s meaning and make an original contribution to the world through our daily existence and labor. We help others see the way, and creation evolves into enlightenment. This is our true work. Our primary purpose is to become conscious, and we must work to know our story and its implications. We must toil in the fields of past feelings and trauma. For Gay men, our past is troubled, filled with brambles, weeds and disappointment. When we struggle to weed out the secrets of our painful past, we free our vitality and our garden grows. Our dreams of artful, purposeful living become a reality. With enlightened living, our work shifts from survival and drudgery to vocation. We develop our talents and gifts from the point of view of a life’s mission. We sing, we dance, we write -- we become scientists, healers, visionaries. We no longer beg sustenance from life as an indigent child; we strive to contribute to life from the surplus of an awakened adult. Famine is over -- the harvest is abundant. Conscious at last, we view the unconsciousness of others with compassion. It was only yesterday that we were lost in our own dream of despair and our work seemed only to keep the wolf from the door and our pain at bay. When we approach life awakened, our daily labor, even a routine chore, transcends its specific form. Now every task expands the consciousness of God for we are conscious. The example of a conscious worker affects all who come near. The Fruits of our Labor as an enlightened being brings humanity closer to its consonance with Divinity.
Work vs. work
Work is prayer
Labor of love
Can't work?
Our life's vocation -- to become conscious
Our life's vocation -- to become conscious
Affirm: My real work -- my vocation -- is to become conscious.
Work vs. work
Our real work on earth is to become enlightened -- but even the enlightened must go to work. The conscious student of life must toil for his daily bread, rubbing shoulders with others, sharing the burdens and joys of our common humanity.
Our real work on earth, of course, is to become conscious, to bring light to all the parts of our psyche, even the darkest corners, where our deepest shame would hide. Then we can shine forth, a beacon of honesty for others. This is our most important labor and its fruits are enlightened living. Our illuminated psyche -- with no parts hidden in repression, or locked in the knots of childhood trauma, or homophobic self-hatred if we are gay -- is a light to the world. Our life-force, freed to fulfill the destiny planted in us at birth, is the greatest gift we can give to this evolving planet and to our fellows.
But enlightened, conscious living doesn’t mean the world will endow us financially, or pick up the tab for our existence, or excuse us from paying our bills. We must labor not only in the fields of the soul, but also in the fields of daily labor, with our fellows.
As we toil in humanity’s workplace, we brush up against the rough edges in others and in ourselves. These tests strengthen the durability of our enlightenment. It’s easy to be holy on a mountain top with no one pushing our buttons. When we encounter conflicts back on earth, it’s a golden opportunity to recognize where we still have work to do, where our enlightenment can be deeper and fuller.
A conscious being is an asset in the workplace. As he/she does a job, no matter how simple or complex, he/she reveals the nature of life’s true work, which is to become conscious. Just by being, the enlightened person is not only a joy to the universe, but a pleasure to work with, whether he/she is a garbage collector or, perhaps one day, the president.
Work is prayer
The quiet dignity of our daily labor is prayer. In doing our job, we speak to God through our diligent efforts, and God speaks to us through our productivity and the satisfaction of a job well done. Whether our work is simple or complex, routine or highly creative, all work is honorable. As we interact with others in work doing a job well done, we feel the satisfaction of a life well-lived. Labor of love We may not always love our labor, but we can always labor with love. Sometimes work is difficult. It doesn’t reflect our deepest interests, it is not our calling, nor is it an expression of our true gifts. Yet, even if we don’t love our job, we can labor with love, for our true boss is God.
Affirm: Being conscious doesn’t excuse me from daily work.
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As we work, our anxiety about life’s meaning and our place in the world is quieted. In work, we recognize that we belong on the earth and that we contribute to the productivity of the unfolding universe. Uncertainty about our right to exist, even about our right to exist as outsiders who seek truth in a lying world, can be quieted as we put our shoulder to the wheel of daily labor and the knowledge that we are doing our part.
In prayer, we commune with God. As we quiet our minds during work and its routine and structure, we can feel the message of well-being come in to us. We are doing our part in life’s unfolding process and we are assured of our place in life under God’s care. Work clears our heads of unnamed fears and we feel our unity with all that is. As we labor, we participate in life -- we are not sitting at home full of fear and depressing lethargy. We are part of the healing river of life and its productivity and fruition. Work is a wonderful anti-depressant. Work is prayer.
Our deepest work is to become conscious, but sometimes the abstract nature of self-knowing is illusive. The gift of simple physical and mental participation in life through work can speak volumes to us about who we are and our inner value. In fact, one of the true Fruits of our Labor, and benefits of working for a living, is a sense that we’re doing our part to make the world go around, evolving into its purpose.
Affirm: My deepest work is self-knowing -- my participation in daily labor is a prayer that shows the way.
Artists, prophets and visionaries may not always be able to make their living doing what they do best -- questing for truth. They may need to do other work to support their calling. Their outer work in the world may be routine and adaptive, while their inner work is profound and life transforming.
In fact, it may be necessary for our daily work to be very simple so that it does not distract us from our true calling of self-awakening and spiritual evolution. A simple job may be just the ticket to give us a simple structure that supports our physical needs, as we are being transformed emotionally, mentally and spiritually into enlightenment.
If a job is too awful and the atmosphere is so toxic that it undermines our inner work – quit! We don’t have to love a job that is abusive, that would be a lie and self-destructive. Ideally, we can go to work with simple dignity, do our tasks responsibly, and leave unfettered. That way, our inner work is not compromised.
No matter what our work, whether it is simple and routine -- or highly creative -- we can always labor with love. We can’t always choose the ideal job but we can choose the ideal attitude at work. Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much what we do, but how we do it, for those who labor for God -- do not labor in vain.
Affirm: I imbue simple tasks or creative undertakings with life-affirming energy and a good work attitude.
What if we can’t work? What if we lose our job, or quit because our job violates our values -- or we simply have out grown our job and it has become a rut? What if we need to find more meaningful work? What if our emotional growth is so intense that it prevents us from working for a while as we heal from traumas so deep we are incapacitated? What do we do when we can’t work? When we can’t work, we have a job to do. We must listen to the lesson being taught during this out-of-work period. When we have integrated the lesson of this time of transition, we will resume employment in a more meaningful way.
First of all, we are not our job or our career. No matter how talented we are at work, or how meaningful our job or career is, who we “are” is always more meaningful and primary than what we “do”. And our main job in life is always to go deeper into the true self. If we are not working, chances are life is not only asking us to find another job, but also, it is asking us to find a deeper purpose.
Once we have found a deeper sense of our selves, not only will work and jobs flow from the reservoir of new meaning released in us, we may even find a calling, a mission, a vocation more profound than simply working for a pay check to get by and pay bills.
Being out of work may be stressful and worrisome, but it is also a great opportunity – and there is work to do. We now have time to think, to be, to explore a deeper sense of who we truly are. Knowing ourselves more fully, we can transition to deeper sense of work, more consonant with our true self. We may be out of work -- but we still have a job to do -- to find out what life is trying to tell us about a deeper mission in our daily labor.
Affirm: My time unemployed is my time to find my mission.
To contact me or to comment on this web site, mail to: Ftimm@verizon.net