“If you really do wish to alter your life, if you really do wish to change yourself – to become a different person altogether in the sight of God and man – if you really do want health and peace of mind, and spiritual development the task is not an easy one, but we know that it can be accomplished, because there are those who have done it, but the price must be paid, and the price is the actual carrying out of these principles in every corner of your life, and in every daily transaction, whether you wish to or not, and more particularly where you would much rather not” – Emmet Fox
I have both experienced and witnessed what Emmet Fox is describing here. A rapid process of personal transformation through the rigorous and faithful commitment of trying to practice spiritual (consciousness expanding) principles in all or one’s affairs. This is, in fact, the final act of the twelve-step process that has been a wildly successful modality of transformation and healing that has been used in the treatment of hundreds of “dis-eases”.
But there is a hidden truth that must be understood for there to be success. The truth is that the whole of our life’s experience is but the outer expression of inner thoughts. So, the “carrying out of these principles in every corner of our lives” means our inner lives. We must have “right” thought if we are to have “right” lives. This is the essence of what Jesus and many other spiritual teachers throughout the ages taught. It is what quantum physics concludes. It is what I have come to know to be true.
I learned the truth of this through my own experience. When my transformational journey started, I was agnostic with little time for spiritual platitudes. They were of little use to me as I had “successfully” arranged my outer world just as I had thought I wanted it. Or more to the point the way I thought others wanted to see it. I held an attitude of self-assuredness that masked the truth of my inner world. In truth, I was driven by a hundred forms of fear and a deep-seeded and unconscious limiting beliefs of not being enough and not being worthy of love. Time just stretched the distance between inner and outer until it broke - the reconciliation was swift. The price was paid.
The wreckage of my outer world was so vast, and so enormous, that it was inconceivable to me that it could ever be repaired. My best thinking, self-will, and efforts to control the world around me had got me to this place, and it was not going to get me out. The gift of desperation had been delivered and I surrendered, out of necessity, to a new design for living. I let go of all desire to control my outer world and I turned my attention inwards and began to clean my inner house. I had ignored, repressed, and suppressed my inner world my entire life so it was an enormous task. But the price was paid.
It is no exaggeration to say that I don’t believe in miracles anymore because I count on them every day. By abandoning the blame-victim game and taking radical responsibility for my thinking I became the curator and co-creator of my own inner world. At first, my experience was akin to tying to find serenity in a burning building, but time and consistency delivered me an outer world that matched the inner. Love everyone and tell the truth and I promise you the rest will follow. It is simple but unbelievably hard and I will walk hand and hand with you every step of the way if that is the journey you want to take.
“There is neither good or bad but thinking makes it so” – William Shakespeare
The Way
