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By Root 1076 0

that came out of the bad choices and one bad thing that came out of the good choices. This is an exercise in breaking down labels, getting more in touch with how flexible reality really is. If you pay attention, you may be able to see that not one but many good things came from your bad decisions while many bad ones are tangled up in your good decisions. For example, you might have a wonderful job but wound up in a terrible relationship at work or crashed your car while commuting. You might love being a mother but know that it has drastically curtailed your personal freedom. You may be single and very happy at how much you’ve grown on your own, yet you have also missed the growth that comes from being married to someone you deeply love.

No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections. Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads. So break out of the mindset that your life consists of good and bad choices that set your destiny on an unswerving course. Your life is the product of your awareness. Every choice follows from that, and so does every step of growth.

Secret #7

EVERY LIFE IS SPIRITUAL

ONE OF THE PECULIARITIES of modern life is that people violently disagree over religious beliefs and then go on to lead similar lives. Nietzsche’s famous remark that God is dead should be changed to God is optional. If the government kept round-the-clock surveillance on those who felt that they were abiding by divine law and those who never gave a thought about God’s rule book, I imagine the sum total of virtue and vice, love and hate, peace and violence, would look exactly the same. If anything, the balance of intolerance and lovelessness would probably tilt toward the most loudly religious people in any society.

I’m not mentioning this to be contentious. Rather, it’s as if the universe has a sense of humor, since at a deep level it’s impossible not to lead a spiritual life. You and I are as deeply engaged in making a world as a saint. You can’t be fired from the job of creating a world, which is the essence of spirituality. And you can’t resign from the job even when you refuse to show up. The universe is living through you at this moment. With or without belief in God, the chain of events leading from silent awareness to physical reality remains intact. The operating system of the universe applies to everyone alike, and it works along principles that do not require your cooperation.

However, if you decide to lead a consciously spiritual life, a change occurs. The principles of the operating system, which means the rules of creation, become personal. We’ve already touched upon many of the rules of creation; let’s take a look at how we can line up the universal with the personal.

UNIVERSAL

1. The universe is a mirror of consciousness.

PERSONAL

1. The events in your life reflect who you are.

Nothing in these statements smacks of religion; there isn’t any spiritual vocabulary involved. Yet this first principle is the whole basis for saying that religion (whose root words in Latin mean “to tie back”) unites the Creator with his creation. The physical world mirrors a mind; it carries intention and intelligence in every atom.

UNIVERSAL

2. Awareness is collective. We all draw it from a common source.

PERSONAL

2. The people in your life reflect aspects of yourself.

In this principle, we see the beginnings of all myth and archetypes, all heroes and quests. The collective psyche shares a level of awareness that goes beyond individuals. When you see other people as aspects of yourself, you are actually seeing faces of mythical types. We are one human being wearing countless masks. When all the masks are stripped off, what remains is essence, the soul, the divine spark.

UNIVERSAL

3. Awareness expands within itself.

PERSONAL

3. Whatever you pay attention to will grow.

In the one reality, consciousness