Those of you who have visited my YouTube Channel recently may have seen the 3 videos about seeing life differently by developing a simple spiritual perspective.

The videos can be seen here

How might looking at the world differently help us reduce the fear, anxiety and pain that our current circumstance is causing? There’s no doubt we are living in times of great change. Most of us hate change because we don’t feel in control. That causes stress which has all sorts of physiological impacts and in turn creates more stress and anxiety.

The only thing we can truly be in control of is the way in which we react to events in our lives. Think how you might feel if you started making more of your choices living from a spiritual or philosophical perspective using these three ideas:

• the world is not what it seems
• you are not what you seem
• there is no difference between these two aspects

Let me just be clear: I am not saying that the world is not real, I am NOT saying there is not OBJECTIVE reality as well as the subjective within us, I am asking you to shift your perspective  on how you see the world around you so that you can use a new perspective to feel a greater sense of calm and of being in control, of being supported, in the situations you find yourself. I am asking you to shift your perspective on everything for a few minutes in order to utilise your ability to consider life from a different perspective.

Then there is the idea that, “Unless we change something, nothing will change”. This applies as much to the way we think as to anything else. It’s usually only when something forces us to stop and change that we open up new opportunities. This is what people are finding now: their current situation is enabling them to re-evaluate aspects of their life and they are discovering their priorities are changing. So many of us are being forced out of our habitual ways.

“The world Is not what it seems.” These are the words my spirit guide repeated to me day after day for years. We see the world as being separate to us. As human beings we are intrinsically attached to the concept of the self. We see ourselves when we look in the mirror. We function in separation to those around us. And this is all quite natural as in that way we are perceiving the world from the human perspective. But who are you? You are not your body that you see in the mirror. If you were your body you would have disappeared a long time ago. Not a single cell in your body is the same as it was several decades ago. So you are the thing inside your body.

Consider now this thought as an experiment to see what it reveals for you: what if the illusion of separation is also renewed constantly? What if at every moment the illusion is renewed and new possibilities are presented to us at each moment. We perceive these opportunities as time passing in which things change. But in terms of our experience we can only ever experience this one single point in time. This point of where we are NOW and we can only ever experience the moment of “Now”.

Given that your awareness of NOW is the only thing that you can truly say is “you”, when your body ceases to exist the “youness” doesn’t fade, it simply has a different selection of NOWS available to be experienced. In this point of view we are shifting the thing that is constant from being the physical world around us to being the thing inside us, our awareness. We become the infinite.

In this sense we can see both that the world is not what it seems and that we are not what we seem. We are changing something in order to make something change. We are changing the way we think about our lives and who we are, which then puts the issues that we face into a different perspective. 

Faith trust and choices

One of the fundamental links between religion and any form of spirituality is the three-stage progression of belief, trust and faith. These three words, belief, trust and faith form the foundation of a spiritual perspective on life and enable us to step forward as co-creators of this experience of reality.

In order to even embark upon a spiritual perspective we have to have a belief in some form of non-physical powerful presence of some kind. It doesn’t matter how we perceive that non-physical presence, it can be a personality, “the universe” or it can be nature itself. It is our belief that allows a whole set of aspects of possibility into our awareness. Without the belief the doorway onto what we might call spiritual experiences remains closed. It’s not even “visible”. Without belief we are not even open to the possibility of these aspects of reality.

Once we believe something is possible then we can start to confirm that belief. That’s where trust comes in. Belief and trust are inextricably linked. Trust helps us build and grow our belief into something more tangible. Then one day we discover we have moved into a state of having faith. We have largely left our doubts behind.

Just to repeat, trust is the tool that helps us build our faith. Then the more we see evidence of change in our lives for example, the more we see how our choices affect both our internal and our external world around us, then the more faith we have in our belief. The more we feel able to rely upon it and have faith that it is a path for us to walk along.

We can change our experience of reality by changing the way we react to things that happen to us and the way we interact with everything around us. This is more than just positive thinking. This is an integral way of living life intentionally in awareness of the self as a part of everything around us and as a part of something far greater than us. To adopt an intentional way of living is to be mindful and aware of the internal choices we make. In being mindfully aware we give ourselves a brief moment of “Now” in which to consider our action and our part in that point of existence across all dimensions. The more aware we are, then the more we can make a difference to our experience of being alive in this world. We can move from a state of fear by consciously choosing to take subtle steps towards a greater peace and fulfilment. We are not talking about making large earth-shattering changes with each choice. The path of any sustainable change is made up of almost insignificant small steps that eventually lead to the greater change.

NOW is the time to evaluate what we believe. I urge you to see the world differently, have faith in your beliefs and trust your choices.