Manifesting Light with Hope

Hope is being able to see there is light despite all of the darkness.

Desmond Tutu

The Lure of Hope

Hmm!  I have gotten to the point of  my learning where I seriously began to question the value and the unwholesome lure of hope in "my" little version of  life.  I have spent my life, until the point where I began to awaken,  addicted to hope.  I spent my moments in my head dreaming and fantasizing about what life would be like for me once I got this or that thing, achieved this or that status or state, was loved by this or that person.  I was so pulled into the visualization, positive affirmation and the manifesting culture.  It was like I was surviving the now by telling myself, "Okay I am not that happy now but I will be, I will be once I....".  

I had "hope" for some something better up there.  It filled me with a certain energy...a certain positive lift. Still, I was caught in one big thought stream about the future. And we know that the future is nothing more than an "idea" right?  The future never comes.  When tomorrow comes it is today! 

Hope is Not a Spiritual Thing 

I heard the great teachers speak about this as an unwholesome  way of "thinking" ...keeping us from experiencing the only Life there truly is....the "now" and it finally sunk in.  I put away my vision boards and my positive thinking sticky notes. I started settling in to...appreciating and honoring "what is" and not asking it to be any more or any different than what it is.  

This is good right?  This is a healthy way to approach Life as a yogi right? 

But...

It did bring peace, for sure. But it, this "accepting what is",  also brought me down into the negative focus  of what was actually happening and unfolding  around me. Life circumstance was challenging.  I mean, I more than accepted it and all the challenges but what was, was dark and heavy, it seemed , with so little light. My energy levels went down with this focus on this challenging "now".  There seems to be, without hope, no end to this challenge and dark time. So, as I accept and find peace with what is...my energy levels are low.  This "me" that is still around experiencing this...is lacking in the energy, enthusiasm, light, fun, bliss that hope once brought.  The thoughts are negative. This "now",  as necessary and beautiful as it is in its challenges and difficulties,  is not "fun".  I am not "enjoying" it.

 Hope , though it was actually more of  an ego mind game, an escape from this moment and what was, taking me to some future fantasy that never truly existed...did put a little "zip" into my day to day experience. It lifted me from low energy into a light that was "up there somewhere". It took my thoughts from the negative to the positive.  Focusing on the things I mistakenly thought would be responsible for my happiness, allowed me to experience happiness even if it was only fantasy based.  I mean, I know the cause for happiness and unhappiness is internal not external!  That it is all about whether I am opening or closing  but for some reason when I looked at the house with glass windows on the ocean shore that I pasted on a vision board...I opened. It was easier to open.  I felt happy!  It is not the house that I wanted or needed.  It is the happiness...that sense of being okay where I was...of being fulfilled, at ease...the opening up experience ...that I want and need. Hope about being able to manifest happiness into my life, regardless of what  is truly opening or keeping my heart open, allows for an opening to more positive energy. When I continuously stare at what is...which is for me right now...mostly dark and challenging ( that is the reality  of my life situation),  my focus is negative, my energy is downcast and negative. I need to raise that focus, lift my eyes to a light that I can't quite see right now.  That is where hope comes in. For the longest time, I felt there was something wrong with me for feeling the way I felt without hope.  Wanting to be a true yogi, I repressed and suppressed my desire for hope in my life! 

So can hope serve a purpose for the yogi who realizes that the only Life is happening right here, right now? 

Michael A. Singer in the below linked podcast tells us it does.  He mentions that hope , at a certain beginning level of our awakening, can lift us from negative focus to positive focus. A positive focus is always more wholesome than a negative focus. ...hopes and dreams are not spiritual but they are better than negative thinking. So we can use hope and our dreams of manifesting something better in difficult times to lift the energetic focus and rise above the negativity.  Once we are established there, we won't need hope any more.  We simply learn to accept, appreciate and relax into what is. 

The Cautious Use of Hope

The point to remember though, is not to get so attached to hope and a future focus that we are following the ego away from "what is" or from Self again.  Yes,  hope serves a purpose in the unevolved mind of bringing us from negativity to a certain energetic positivity.  It allows consciousness to focus upward instead of downward. It can help to open us a bit...but it is only a temporary remedy. Like the pain medication one takes  so they can find enough relief to get back to the business of living, we can use hope to get back to the business of awakening. One doesn't want to get addicted to that pain medication, though,  and start living for it! One doesn't want to become addicted to hope.  It is a temporary fix only!

Hmm! I feel this tremendous relief knowing that I do not have to stay focused on this darkness of my present situation.  I see it, I accept it, I embrace it for all that it gives me but it is okay if I look ahead a bit to where there might be a bit more light.  I will every now and again think about  that house on the ocean....or see myself doing a book signing for a recent publication...or standing on a stage sharing all this learning with others, for teh feeling it gives me, knowing full well that the actual thing I want may never materialize.  That is okay...if it is ego derived I don't want it to happen. What will materialize with my awakening...is that feeling of peace, joy, enthusiasm, love and wholeness I get when I see myself there.  That open heart and being is what I truly hope to manifest!  That is where the light comes from. 

All is well.

Michael. A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 16, 2023) Giving Great Meaning to Every Event. https://tou.org/talks/