Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation

I’ll begin with a poem from Rumi.

I have lived on the lip of insanity
looking for answers
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I have been knocking from the inside.

Have you ever had the experience that life seems insane, out of control? That is a message you are sending to yourself. You have created a door. On one side of the door is the experience you’re having now—sometimes good, sometimes not so good. On the other side of the door is a new experience, a COMPLETELY different experience. It’s the experience of knowing more of the truth of YOU. You can’t have the experience without going through the door. Knocking is not enough. Seeing an open door is not enough. Life’s invitation to you—YOUR invitation to you—is to go all the way through the door, into a new experience.

You don’t know what the experience is in advance. That causes people to hesitate, maybe even run away. It can be scary. But if you don’t go through the door, you don’t experience more of the truth of you. You’re stuck with what you have now. How’s it working for you now? I hope it’s working well. But don’t you have the feeling that there’s a lot more—a lot more possible for you, a lot more possible for this world? Don’t we each pray for that in some way? You can do more than pray. You can do something about having a new world: walk through that door.

The journey without a map is a series of doors, and it’s God’s mercy that it’s not just one great door. It might be too much to experience all at once. We get, step-by-step, more of the truth of ourselves—unless we don’t go through the door.

At the door, we get a glimpse or a feeling of the “more.” If we don’t go through the door, at some point it closes. It disappears, and that opportunity is lost. That can be painful, to get a glimpse of more of the wonderful truth of yourself, and then have it disappear. It’s sad. But whether we know it or not, we are choosing it.

One difficulty for people who are standing at the door that has opened is that they understand that to go through the door they must lose something. We must release the experience of what it was like on the familiar side of the door. We don’t know what the experience will be like on the other side of the door. It’s not familiar. What we do at that moment is very important. Don’t stop!

There are some people who know. Perhaps they’ve been through a few more doors and they can offer assurance that you will lose nothing that is true of you. Only that which no longer serves you, and you no longer need, passes away. So the choice is: remain as you are and allow the door to be forgotten, or find the courage to walk through the door. It’s not always easy, but on the other side of the door is more of the truth of yourself.

What is that? More life, more love, more power, more peace, more understanding, more victory, and more glory. Because we were made in the image and likeness of God. That does not mean a resemblance of God. It means a son or daughter of God—same family, same genetic makeup, spiritually speaking; same unlimited possibility. It’s a big deal.

That’s why there is a series of doors. The truth of your nature is infinitely powerful and loving, and infinitely much more. To step into all of that in a moment would be too much. In our limited consciousness, with the beliefs about ourselves that we have now, we might fall apart. We might be consumed by the vibration that is new to us. So it’s God’s mercy that we get one door at a time. Some doors are bigger than others. Some doors seem less significant. Some doors feel like we will lose everything if we go through them. Some doors are an easy, graceful entrance.

There’s always a door in front of you. The disturbance and the difficulties we have in our lives are the sound of you knocking on the door in front of you. Any difficulties you might have, things we call problems, are really opportunities—opportunities for transformation, opportunities to leave behind the way we’ve been. Yes, we lose something, but it’s nothing needed anymore. The opportunity is to move step-by-courageous-step into union with the spirit of God. I have committed my life to this.

If I step outside of this body and mind, and look from a little distance, I am barely recognizable to myself as I was just a year ago. I know I am much more of the truth of myself now than I was a year ago. And I know there are plenty of doors in front of me. I must not stop now. In fact, I CANNOT stop now. It’s no longer a matter of what I want, or even of being compelled by a sense of service and destiny that has been with me for a long time. It’s my own nature compelling me to continue to know and express more of myself.

Since early childhood I’ve had a feeling of a great destiny. I’ve forgotten it many times, but it remains with me. Something about the destiny is to be of service to others and to this planet. Being of service is not about being a nice person, or being kind and compassionate. It’s about being courageous, to go through door after door, letting go of what’s no longer needed, and stepping into the glory of the truth of who I am.

I speak of this now about myself. I know also it’s true of you. There’s an experience that the world needs of the presence of true beings, God-beings. That’s your destiny as well as mine. The only way to get there is to pass through the door that’s right in front of you now. No need to judge the door, no need to guess what someone else’s door might be. Go through the door. No matter what it looks like, no matter what it feels like, there’s the door. Walk through it. Our most difficult circumstances are the door to our greatest transformation.

When we have difficulty, we can be sincerely grateful, not because we like to suffer but because we recognize an opportunity to fulfill our destiny. So please walk through the door that is in front of you. Your life is full of doors. And they can either be barriers or portals into more light. And you choose. We all do.