The Test

Most of the old religions, and almost all of the newer ones, all speak of the life we know and live as being a test; a test of faith, a test of spirit, in my case certainly a test of patience. W are tested, supposedly, so that we can experience all sides of creation and existence. I suppose it's true. How can you know peace if you've never known war? Known love if you've never felt it? How can you truly know what you would do until you actually have to do it?

Life is not one big test, more a series of small ones. We all know tests. We probably had to sit a few throughout our academic lives. We may be prosperous for a time, then fall to what we believe is the bottom of the barrel (believe me, no matter how low you fall, the bottom is a lot lower). We may be poor, then win the lottery. It happens. Sometimes we call it fate, or karma, but really, to different degrees for every situation, it's just life, the experience of it and the living of all the levels.

One group I worked with a long time ago worked on the idea that we are all surrounded by a sphere of tiny dots: millions and billions of them. This sphere roughly equated to Leonardo Da Vinci's portrait of Man. Imagine, if you will, those millions of dots surrounding you. If you look closely at them, you can see tiny little pathways that interconnect them. Expand that particular piece of the universe and see that each dot is a junction, a nexus. Imagine now that each nexus is an experience, each experience creating a new YOU in a  new Universe. In one you are male, another female. Another you live a long life, the next you are stillborn. The you in the middle of the sphere is the WHOLE YOU, experiencing everything there is to experience, all at once.

As an aside, think about those times you have met someone for the first time, only to be sure that it's not the first time, of remember doing something that you would swear blind you'd\have never done before. Synchronicity, deja vu. Back to our sphere, imagine some of that energy leaking from one pathway to another, memories of one life mixing for a moment with another, or more than one, more likely. In this life, that person you're sure you've never met, turns out you have, in another life. Crazy stuff, right? But maybe...

Today, my trials are hard, by my own standards. I am being tested in my strength to survive, my will to win, my need for safety. My faith, my security, and  - I'm sure - my sanity is being tested. I know this. By many standards, what I call a test is probably living the life or Riley. There are so many out there that have nothing, so little that I look like a millionaire, but that is their test, not mine. This - in my experience - is a trial. My world is breaking down, and the stress is more sometimes than I think I can handle.

And this is the true test.

If I Fail, If I falter at all, if I let my faith, my sense of self, my sense of humour leave me then I have failed. I KNOW that things will get better, internally and externally. Through all this I have grown stronger in the love for my family and my friends. This alone makes me richer than kings. I have found strength to recover from hardships, from negativity, from falsehoods and backstabbers.

in short, I'M STILL HERE!!!

That's faith in the self, the best faith you can have.

So, no matter what life, or lives throw at you, no matter how downtrodden you might feel, once you accept the fact that you can change it, that you can persevere and win

You Will.

Keep your mind wide open.