Near the end of September 2018, I moved from the Southeast United States, Florida, to the Northeast, Maine. The trek was over 1300 miles. I had never been to the area and knew no one there. I did not understand why I was making the move and did not feel a need to know.
"Why" arose more like a playful inquisitiveness than a serious question. Succinctly, I simply moved to Maine. Yet, for many weeks prior a felt-rightness, attested to by a subtle, quietful enthusiasm, confirmed this relocation was meant to be. That does not mean I had to make the move, as though a higher being said so, but it was inwardly validated as a positive choice.
This relocation recalls Scripture from my earlier years when I was challenged by and inspired by how Jesus approached some of his followers. An example is in the Christian Bible, Gospel of Matthew 4.18-22 (CEV).
While Jesus was walking along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw two brothers. One was Simon, also known as Peter, and the other was Andrew. They were fishermen, and they were casting their net into the lake. Jesus said to them, "Come with me! I will teach you how to bring in people instead of fish." Right then the two brothers dropped their nets and went with him.
Jesus walked on until he saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in a boat with their father, mending their nets. Jesus asked them to come with him too. Right away they left the boat and their father and went with Jesus.
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So, in Unity, spontaneous action occurs, such as a major change in life without a known why, and this does not negate that reason will arise, confirming the transition. While a change may occur as needed or beneficial, even without knowing a why, possibly many whys are present. Though felt prior, the rightness is known by the mind in reason later. Feelings, persons, events ... afterward can confirm the reasonableness of a way taken.
One could read the above as only referring to geographical relocations. The wisdom applies to any transition, including belief, spiritual practice, relationships, and career. Of course, the most noteworthy move we may ever face, at least since moving from the womb, awaits us.
Yet, death is not a move from life. The opposite of death is not life but birth. Death, like birth, is a relocation within life. Life continues. Life is movement. Geography refers to something happening, not merely a static condition or location.
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A few mornings after the move to the Northeast, during spiritual readings, a confirmation arose. This assurance, as often happens, shows how words can provide a frame to understand or intuit why. Again, the why does not mean some agency outside ourselves demanded we transition, nor need we assume we need to know why.
In The Ease of Being, a group participant asks the late Jeane Kline about Kline having gone to India to seek Truth. In Klein's words, I recognized likeness in my move from my natural habitat to a place and people unknown. The participant inquires, "So you were not especially looking for a teacher?" "No, I was not looking for anything specific but, arriving in India, in a completely new environment, I was left with no reference to anything in my previous experience. In this suspension of evaluation I was catapulted into an openness, a receptivity to everything. And I was astonished to meet so soon the man who later became my teacher."
Often, where we are, which we have become acclimated well to, is where we cannot remain and follow our path. Relocating in physical environment may be the change needed for spiritual relocation. I, like Klein, experienced how moving out of the familiar into the strange created a powerful openness to life.
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I believe in and have experienced often inner guidance not of my little self. Yet, I have learned, too, sometimes we make decisions, like changes, without assurance we are doing the so-called right thing. The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön was giving a talk. A mother told of her daughter being stuck on a big decision and not seeming able to know what to do. Chödrön said the daughter just needed to make a decision, one way or the other. Often, that is true. Sometimes, fidelity to Truth is acting while not being certain of one right way to go, but we go, and going is the act of faithfulness.
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I encourage this consideration... that your maturation spiritually, living more deeply in the Truth, is more important than whom you live among, where you live, and where or how you procure an income. That we walk with Spirit is more important than where or how we walk. And, thankfully, in times of resisting "Yes" to either outer or inner relocation, we are loved and led even there and then. Our path includes "No" and "Yes," unwillingness and willingness equally arise and are included in one Presence. In fact, Presence is the potential for "No" and "Yes."
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
