Recently, I was interviewed about my new book Humanity’s Spiritual Rebirth: Wisdom to Transform Struggles into Strength. What follows are the profoundly rich and perennial spiritual questions that Linda Mackenzie (host of the Linda Mackenzie Show) asked me and the responses I wrote the evening before calling into her radio show.
I wish to share this transcript with you, with Linda’s permission, because I humbly believe there may be some nuggets of inspiration tucked within that may help you on your own journey of awakening.
Peace and love,
Forrest
On suffering
Linda Mackenzie (Host): As it pertains to suffering, what do you mean when you write in your book that we must “Rewrite the Narrative”?
Forrest Rivers: By “rewrite the narrative,” I mean to say that suffering doesn’t have to be looked at as something inherently negative, as most of us in Western culture are conditioned to believe. Rather, from a spiritual perspective, suffering can become the sandpaper for our own awakening. Our experience with suffering can strengthen our inner resolve, humble us, build greater courage and help open our hearts to the very possibility of growing in our wisdom and compassion.
I think many of us have endured excruciatingly difficult experiences in our lives that at the time seemed like the worst things imaginable to bear. But then through the passage of time and after much inner reflection, maybe we came to gain a deeper understanding of how those periods of suffering served to expedite our own spiritual growth in the ways outlined above.
Looking back at my own life, I can say with absolute certainty that enduring suffering strengthened my inner resolve, grew my humility and courage, and hopefully made me a wiser and more compassionate person. This is what I mean by rewriting the narrative: shifting our own perspective of our relationship to suffering from one that is wrapped up in our ego’s reactions to the very real feelings of fear, despair, pain, sadness and shame that we feel when we suffer; to that which soulfully acknowledges how our struggles are transformed into wisdom and strength.
On death
Linda: How do we transcend our fear of death?
Forrest: One way that we can transcend our fear of death is through embracing the impermanence of all things in this physical world. Everything in our universe is always in flux, is always changing. Yet, there is this eternal seed embedded within us that we may call our spirit, our soul or our deathless self. And it’s unchanging and infinite in its essence.
So if we look at death in this way, what is there really to fear? Our souls take birth in these bodies. And after a certain amount of time, our bodies die, but our spirit/soul/deathless self lives on. Then we take birth in another body to continue our work. It’s not altogether different from the cycle of the seasons.
Through embracing this sense of impermanence, we learn to relate to death as not only a very natural process, but as a profound transition of form merging back into the formless spirit—our original nature.
On gratitude
Linda: What is the Light of Gratitude that you allude to in your book?
Forrest: The light of gratitude is an expression of divine grace that is bestowed upon each one of us. And this grace allows us to live in humble appreciation for the daily miracles in our lives. Of course, the fact that we’re here in the first place as conscious souls in these bodies, sharing in this universal experience—this cosmic dance—is the ultimate of all miracles!
The light of gratitude also means for us to wake up every day thankful for all the good that exists in our lives, such as good health, access to shelter/clean food/water, and loyal family members and friends.
On dreams
Linda: How and why should you find the courage to chase your dreams?
Forrest: One way that you can find the courage to chase your dreams is by quieting your mind through practices like meditation. One of the (many) benefits of the practice is that it helps us move beyond the self-limiting thoughts and feelings of unworthiness that stand in the way of chasing our dreams.
We should all chase our dreams because God/The One/your higher power (or whatever name you wish to call that sublime spiritual intelligence that lives inside of us) wants us to be happy and fulfilled. But we can’t find the courage to chase our dreams if we can’t first learn how to overcome our self-limiting thoughts and feelings of unworthiness.
On prayer
Linda: Explain what it means to survive through faith and heal through prayer?
Forrest: Faith becomes our inner tool to transcend the very difficult moments that life often presents to us, like the death of a loved one, a chronic or terminal illness, personal addictions, homelessness, divorce or physical and emotional abuse. Our experience of these kind of struggles can feel overwhelming and especially hopeless if we don’t personally find an inner refuge in our higher power, our guru or guides.
Faith not only helps us navigate the challenges and hardships of life, but it helps us find both meaning and purpose in our suffering, which is often instrumental for our spiritual growth. As my own guru Ram Dass (who himself suffered a devastating stroke and was in a wheelchair for the final quarter of his life) was fond of saying, “Suffering is grace.”
He didn’t mean to say we should invite suffering into our lives or turn a blind eye to another’s suffering. Not at all. Rather, we should lean into the profoundly rich lessons that our suffering offers us in the way of opening our hearts to the deeper truths of our being.
Faith is the bridge that takes us beyond fearful fragmentation to fearless fullness as part of the changeless whole. And from that deep reservoir of faith that we discover in the very depths of our suffering, prayer emerges as a powerful expression of our complete trust in and peaceful surrender to the will of the One, God, Universe, Spirit and its inherent wisdom (which is also inside each one of us).
Put in other words, through surrendering our own ego’s will through prayer, we give up our judgments of our own suffering and begin to open to the possibility that it might indeed serve a greater purpose in the awakening of the soul. The fact that faith and prayer allow us to positively relate to our own suffering in this way (an open, expansive and non-attached way, as opposed to one that’s tight and reactive) goes a long way towards the healing of our souls.
On Mother Earth
Linda: What is Earth Communion and why should we commune with the Earth?
Forrest: Earth communion means to forge a blissful union with Mother Earth. The meaning of Earth communion is akin to a sacred covenant by which we honour, serve, protect and worship the spirit of divinity that is inherent in the Earth. We should commune with her because we’re a part of her. We aren’t separate from her. We depend on the Earth for our sustenance, and we derive great meaning from her.
It’s not a surprise that modern-day ills like anxiety, depression, violence and alienation continue to worsen, as one of the fundamental sources of each of these ills is our detachment from nature and the natural rhythms of the Earth. Our world’s worship of technology has put us in a very awkward and unfortunate predicament: We no longer know who and what we are because we have severed ourselves (in our minds) from the guiding wisdom of nature.
So why should we commune with the Earth? To reclaim our spirit. To remember who and what we truly are: children of the Earth.
On self-mastery
Linda: Why is self-sufficiency the road to self-mastery, as you write in your book?
Forrest: By becoming self-sufficient, independent actors in the manifestations of our intentions, thoughts and actions, we become free-thinking and conscious beings. If we don’t become independent and self-sufficient in these ways, we’re nothing more than mechanical robots at the whims of societal programming. “Think this!” “Do That.” Chase after this even if it doesn’t bring you a sense of purpose, happiness or joy.”
How can we possibly achieve any semblance of self-mastery (the ability to control our own impulses, emotions and behaviours and live a more focused and spiritually oriented life) if we aren’t able to express our own inner freedom? Self-mastery can only be realized through the long and difficult process of understanding yourself so deeply to the point at which you’re able to align your inner world with desired outward actions.
To do this, we must free ourselves of our conditioning. We must become, as the Zen Buddhists say, “empty.” That is, without conditioned thoughts, opinions and judgments of the world around us. Easier said than done, to be sure!
On love
Linda: What’s Love got to do with it all?
Forrest: EVERYTHING. Love and connection is everything. Love is us. Love is the connecting root of all things and the glue that binds us as spiritual beings in these bodily forms and beyond all forms. As the Great Indian Saint Neem Karoli Baba used to say, “Sub Ek,” which translates to “all is one” in English. Love is that All in one.
Before anything, before even our external identities that we gradually assume through our conditioning as children and young adults, we’re seeds of loving awareness. At our roots, that is who and what we are. That is what God is. That is what lives inside each of us … loving awareness.
When we see the endless horrors and injustices carried out by world leaders against our own brothers and sisters, what we’re really bearing witness to is a great forgetting of who and what we all fundamentally are. And who and what we are is loving awareness. Through this Great Forgetting, the shadow of darkness reigns and the devastating results are there for us all to see: The desecration of the Earth, brutal wars, the immense exploitation of the poor and downtrodden throughout our world, starvation and disease.
But not all hope is lost. If we could all just turn inside ourselves and turn towards love, the heaven on Earth that so many people seem to believe will never be possible would become a reality overnight. I truly have faith in that statement. If we all turned inside ourselves and turned towards love, towards God, towards the One, heaven on Earth would become a reality overnight.
In the end, we’ll find that love always prevails. And that love is destined to transcend all the darkness of hate, fear and separation. Always remember, the light of love shines bright within you, just like Christ’s love: inextinguishable and ever-present.
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