Dr. Connie and I have traveled this world together as spiritual seekers for more than forty years. The lessons we’ve learned have tremendous relevance for our practice as naturopathic healers.
What is the spiritual path? Where did it come from? Are all paths essentially the same?
The spiritual teachers of all times and all cultures have asked the most simple question of all: “What do people want?”
By observing the human scene with scientific objectivity, they realized: “What all people are seeking, behind the vast diversity of their stated motives, is to find greater happiness and freedom from suffering.”
A true spiritual path is like a divine apothecary – filled with priceless methods that can help us experience happiness in every aspect of our lives.
In our seeking, Connie have come to think of the state of inner happiness as “the Rose State of Mind.”
We’ve had wonderful opportunities to sample the teachings of many paths, testing their unique nectars and quite literally meeting some of the greatest souls living on this planet.
All along, we’ve sought ways to prolong the Rose State of Mind. Here are some of our discoveries.
- *The Rose State of Mind is the result of an inner journey of discovery – of Self-realization. It cannot be found outwardly, not even in the most exquisite pleasures and goods of this world.
- Self-realization means discovering who we really are – that we are all equally the beloved children of God. Thus we are designed to serve as channels for God’s love and joy. A great woman saint of India, Sri Anandamoyi Ma, said: “There is no love but God’s love.” We are the children through whom the Divine Mother experiences Her creation. When we learn to live in Her light – by prayer and meditation, loving service, and kindness and compassion toward others – we find Her expressing Her love through us, in a wonderfully relaxed, healing and heart-expanding way.
- Many paths can take us to the Rose State of Mind. Each path is like a spoke on a wheel with many spokes, all leading to the same divine Hub.
- Friends and guides on the path can help us find the Rose State of Mind. Speaking from my own experience, it took me a long time to realize that I could not find true happiness and freedom alone, without serving and sharing with others, and seeking the help of a Self-realized teacher.
- Although the scent of a rose is equally transformative for all, each of us will have a unique experience of the rose. The Rose State of Mind is personal yet communal. The spiritual path is highly individual, yet it can strengthen us tremendously to join with others in our search.
The following easy exercise will give you a taste of the Rose State of Mind:
Take a deep, slow breath and let it out just as slowly. Continue this breathing pattern for three breaths. Place your attention very gently but with deep relaxed concentration at the point between the eyebrows – the “spiritual eye,” where the mystics tells us that we can commune with the Divine.
Now, use your imagination to create a perfect rose. Savor the color of the rose. Breathe in and out once more, slowly and deeply. Now lean forward mentally and smell the rose. Enlist your sense memory: recall the scent of a lovely rose. Keep breathing slowly.
The great Persian mystic poet Rumi wrote: “That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.”
Here’s a question:
If everyone on the planet were given a perfect rose and asked to inhale its fragrance in the same moment, would it uplift the consciousness of the world? I would hope so.
In the Rose State of Mind, the outside world loses much of its power to attract us. We travel to a place in our consciousness where perfect satisfaction exists – a place of eternal happiness.
Our very molecules align their vibration with Spirit. We are changed by diving even a little distance toward the divine source within our being.
The moment passes, and we return to our normal life. The question then becomes: How can I recreate the Rose State of Mind?
This is the question that the world’s great spiritual teachers have come on earth to answer. They have given us the spiritual practices that allow us to savor the divine joy of our soul.
In our spiritual travels, Connie and I have met people who lived in an unbroken state of oneness with the cosmic source of the Rose State of Mind. They radiated a bliss so overwhelming in its pungency that we knew, without the slightest whisper of a doubt, that it would be worth any effort to get that state for ourselves.
As the great master Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Where the Divine Mother is, no disease can exist.” In that perfect state of bliss and freedom, our very cells become filled with God’s radiant healing Light.
This is our destiny: no more mental static, no bodily ailments, just perfect transcendence in a realm of unmitigated healing joy.
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