Personally experiencing spirituality as a child of divine love is an adventure in progress and growth which began for you when you were conceived by your human parents.
You began this life with:
- No understanding that life has a spiritual goal.
- No knowledge of the techniques of spiritual discovery.
- No concept of what success would be.
Early life is filled with an enormous amount of maturing physically and intellectually. However, there is more to life. At some point, you begin to sense something beyond the material and intellectual. When this occurs, you are at the threshold of discovering spirituality.
Discovering Your Spiritual Parent.
Spirituality is an adventure of exploring and discovering values, meanings, and purpose. Whether recognized or not, it is a search for the source of love. Realizing this source of love is a divine person whom you can know as an adoring parent and a loving friend brings new depths of meaning. If your family was loving and supportive, relating to a spiritual friend and parent can feel like finding your spiritual home.
If, however, your childhood family was a poor example of a nurturing family, feeling loved by a perfect spiritual parent can be life changing. “Spiritual reparenting” is the way one of my friends describes this spiritual experience which is usually gradual, but sometimes sudden.
Every human being needs and deserves a loving, supportive parent. Your divine parent is the best possible father and the most loving mother imaginable, in one always-available parent! This spiritual parent relates to you personally, as your friend who is steadfast, utterly dependable, and loyal…as well as affectionate, patient, and caring.
Finding spiritual childhood.
Take a look at the Spiritual Growth Adventure described at the end of this article. These suggestions for imagining can help you to open yourself to experience more of the love available to you from your spiritual parent—your divine mom and dad in one loving presence.
Enjoy this activity as often as you want. Repeated imagining enriches your relationship with your divine parent. You are a beloved spiritual child in a happy family. Whether this realization is sudden or gradual, such an experience fills your need for care and reassurance.
Being Supported Continuously.
The feeling of being loved is an affirmation of the reality of eternal love. Divine parental love will assure you that you are never alone. You are watched after and cared for in every moment of this life. You are continuously supported spiritually.
Recognizing and appreciating the nature of your spiritual family leads you to desire for yourself the values, principles, and purposes that are characteristic of your spiritual parent.
Living a Spiritual Life.
Your spiritual parent works to be in loving relationship with you as an individual and as a child with sisters and brothers. The ultimate ideal is for you to be connected with everyone and everything in loving relationship.
Your experience of life right now may seem so very opposite of this goal! But…imagine for a moment what it might be like actually to live in circumstances where everyone is your loving and supportive friend.
This is the divine vision: all people freely choosing to live a spiritual life.
Making progress.
The universe is gigantic and spiritual life is very long indeed and full of adventure. No matter your human age, right now you are only a newborn spirit baby at the beginning of an extraordinary and unimaginable universe career.
As you mature your spiritual parent becomes real to you. You make progress as you spend time with your spiritual parent,
- sharing the events of your everyday life—joys, problems, and questions.
- asking for help to see life more spiritually.
- following the subtle nudges you will receive.
Progressively adopting your spiritual parent’s loving nature and commitment to relationships changes your behavior. Divine values such as courage, integrity, sincerity, fairness, and compassion begin to emerge progressively in the way you treat others.
Seeing yourself in a new way.
Seeing yourself as a spiritual child gives you a new perspective on yourself. Your human body may be temporary and limited, but your real self is enduring spirit reality. You may see yourself as a physical being searching for material fulfillment. However, you are also a growing spiritual being experiencing a spiritually meaningful life.
Seeing yourself as a spiritual being helps you move beyond material and intellectual concerns, into the exploration of spiritual goals and values, such as kindness and integrity. And you recognize the spirituality of your life as being genuine and lasting reality.
Imagining your future.
The decisions you make throughout this material life contribute to your maturing as a person. Once you leave this material life behind, it is the person you have become as the result of your choices in this life who continues to live and learn and grow throughout eternity.
Life stretches before you into a never-ending future filled with new experiences and new ways to learn, progress, and help others. As a child of divine love, you move toward connection with everyone and everything in loving relationship.
Spiritual Growth Adventure
Spirituality as a Child of Divine Love
Spiritual Growth Adventures are activities you can try for yourself to energize your experience of spiritual reality and foster your spiritual growth. Read it over before you start so you know what is coming.
Decide on a place where you can focus on some part of nature. Sit or walk in a park, field, meadow, a grassy yard, or under a tree. Look closely at a flower or a house plant. Watch clouds, stars, animals, sunsets, or sunrises—whatever you like.
If you do not have access to nature, imagine such a place vividly. See, hear, smell, and touch. Once your mind and body are relaxed, follow this imagining:
- Allow your appreciation for natural beauty to slowly fill you.
- Open your heart to experience the place you have chosen. Sense the spiritual here. It is a gift to you. Enjoy it.
- Now imagine yourself here as a small child, safe with your spiritual parent—divine mama and papa in one loving presence.
- Allow them to gather you up in a deeply affectionate hug. Take a few minutes to feel the flow of love in this family.
- When you are ready to move on with life, give thanks for what you have experienced. Take contentment with you as you return to your usual life.
Note: If this type of imagining is new to you, it may take persistence to be able to succeed. If imagining is not easy for you, be patient with yourself and with your efforts. You may develop a feeling of the spiritual later rather than at the time of your imagining. Be willing. Be patient.
Each person is unique in the way they experience spiritual presence. Be thankful for whatever you gain. Imagining can be very useful to your spiritual progress, so continue to experiment with developing this ability.
