A Time To Change

It is said that, “humans are a prisoner of their conditioning.” Examining the wisdom of this
phrase we come to understand that the conditioning of our past, the conditioning born of our
fears, the conditioning from our family, our upbringing and from society ingrain within us
patterns of rigidity and inflexibility. We become attached to, and thus a prisoner of, what we’ve
done before. For many, safety is what we know and fear is what we don’t know. Even if what
we know doesn’t work for us, we tend to stay with it instead of venturing into the unknown to
seek a better alternative, a better choice. In short, humanity or at least a good portion of
humanity tends to be afraid of change.

Viewed, however, from a universal perspective change is a given in life. The universe grows and
changes, it is never the same one moment to the next. Our bodies and the cells comprising our
bodies grow and change; they give birth, they grow, they evolve and ultimately they die in
order to give rise to new birth. You, I and everything in creation are changing every moment
because the whole universe is a process. Life is a process. To live life, to grow and to evolve
mandates that we too must change.

And finally when viewed from a spiritual perspective, inherent within the sacred energy and
God-consciousness we call divine love lies this same growth and change. In one of her many
direct conversations with God the late mystic, author and activist Saint Catherine of Siena
(1347-1380) wrote how God once told her, “Who would understand if I said that I cannot bear
to confine a single wing and not let it learn from the course it chooses.” Here God was telling
Saint Catherine that free will; our ability to choose, learn, grow and choose again is part of the
heart of God. Change lies at the very essence of Unconditional, Divine Love.

Thus, when we examine our lives it is spiritually prudent to no longer be a prisoner of our past,
to not be confined to just what we know, or have known or even what we “think” we know.
You, I and everything in creation is God in little form growing into God in big form. The little self
growing into the All That Is. To do this we need to be open to change, to see within our self
more than what we saw yesterday. As the great mystic and God-Realized yogi Paramahansa
Yogananda once said, “…God's omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need
to do is improve your knowing.”

By Rev. Kerry C.