Waiting as a Spiritual Practice
Julie Redstone
The capacity to wait, despite its very ordinariness, can be a profound spiritual tool with which to dismantle the needs and pressures of both ego and will. Important in this is the kind of waiting that takes place, for there are many kinds, and not all of them are capable of releasing the ego in a way that is beneficial to spiritual growth. The kind of waiting that is transformative is based on the capacity for surrendering the desire to have things be the way our smaller self wants them to be, if they are not in alignment with what God and our higher Self wishes. This kind of surrender which overrules personal interests in favor of something higher is the opposite of what is currently popular today as a path of spiritual development, namely, the intention to create reality through the Law of Attraction, based on our everyday thoughts and intentions. The question here is: who is it that we wish to create our lives -- our familiar self that is conscious of having needs, longings, and desires, or God's self that is individualized within our higher being that is not the same as our conscious mind-self? The answer to this question defines the difference between a life built on a certain kind of mastery -- one that uses thought to create desired effects - and a life in which the power of thought is turned over to God so that God's thoughts may direct life and not our own. This distinction is profound, for in the second instance it is the individualized aspect of the Divine that dwells within that is what we surrender to. This individualized Spirit, by whatever name it is called, exists in a state of oneness with the Divine and belongs to each and every child of God. From this place of holiness, the 'I' that creates is no longer an 'I' that is separate, but rather an 'I' that exists in union within a greater Whole. Waiting, therefore, when life-circumstances require it, asks us to make a choice with regard to which 'I' we wish to direct our lives. We can be impatient. We can feel that life is treating us unfairly. We can feel optimistic or pessimistic. Or, we can accept the postponement of what our human embodied self would wish to have happen and allow our smaller self to rest in the embrace of the larger. If we choose the latter way, we incorporate the experience of waiting into our consciousness as a spiritual practice, one that leads to greater devotion and to transformation through surrender. This path is not an easy one to follow, for the history of the ego being in charge has been a long one, and efforts to move in a different direction are likely to arouse complaint. However, the rewards of this 'narrow way' can be described in one essential and central word -- Love. For along this path there becomes only one Thinker and one Intender, and that Thinker is the One who is the Source of life. The relationship achieved through devotion is founded in Love. It lives and breathes in an atmosphere of God's love. It is a relationship that can begin at any time, at any place, and in any circumstance. It's fundamental prayer is: "Show me the way. Lead me and guide me in Thy light." This prayer does not disempower the self as some fear in relation to the word 'surrender'. Rather, it redefines who the self is, and seeks to unite the lower self with the higher. This is what makes the practice of waiting transformative. Such a practice does not have to apply to every area of life, but it can. And it does not have to be pursued deliberately, for there are many circumstances in life that find us in the normal course of events, making it unnecessary for us to go looking for them. What the sacred practice of waiting involves is a willingness to use these circumstances of life as steps along a spiritual path. Such a path has been carved out by many holy men and women of the past and remains equally valid today as a path of ascendance. It is a matter of having the courage to embrace what is difficult, knowing that in the embracing, one is not sacrificing one's real self. One is releasing the aspects of self that are less real in favor of those that are more real, in keeping with the lines of the poem that say:
Lord, lead me from the less real to the more real,
From the finite to the infinite,
From death to immortality.
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