We are made to carry a vibration that resonates from someplace deep within us; to let it resonate all the way through and reach our world intact, so that the spirit of it remains true to its origin. That is the challenge of a human life—to take what is deep within you and to let it out, and let it out intact. To let the people in your world feel it; to let the power and the intelligence of it be at work in your world and fill it up. That requires that we don’t shut down someplace along the way, that we don’t become preoccupied and, in our preoccupation, dam the flow. But rather that we do the job that is ours to do with this mind and heart, which is to open inward and receive from within what is looking to flow out.

There is the radiant core within each of us that is active all the time, bringing a flow of intelligence and love. That is available within all people, so that is not really the issue. We can tune into it anytime our consciousness turns in that direction. The issue is human thinking and feeling, and where it is turned. Practical spirituality is all about that turning.

For that turning to really happen, a person has to let go of any thinking that cuts across the intelligence that wants to flow from within. To put it in very simple terms, you have to let go of ignorance to embrace your intelligence. A person has to let go of unenlightened thinking to accept enlightened thinking.

One of the unenlightened beliefs that is so prevalent in Western culture that it is not even questioned is ownership. When Europeans arrived in America, it was a shock to the Native Americans who lived here to realize that Europeans believed they could own land without reference to a larger reality. Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag people who assisted the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock, said this:

What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?

We each have the opportunity to have a deep awareness of the universal power and intelligence that truly is the creator and owner of all people and all things. As we do, we are empowered to bring the vibration of that through our words, our thoughts and our feelings.

I don’t think we have to give away all our possessions to embrace the truth of who is the ultimate owner of all things. We can possess what rightly comes to us with the understanding that we are stewards for the larger reality of Being. A personal inventory can assist in a deeper understanding of who the owner of our world really is.

Where I live, at Sunrise Ranch, it is springtime. The blossoms on the apple trees are out. The elk are in the valley. And many of the trees are showing tiny yellow-green leaves. Whose valley is this? The property deed says “Emissaries of Divine Light,” and from a legal standpoint this human organization owns the property. While the organization has the role of possessing and stewarding the property, this land was not created by a human organization. It was created by the power of the universe, manifesting on Planet Earth in this corner of the galaxy. And I don’t believe that a property deed takes the ownership of this valley away from the power and intelligence that created it.

Thinking of the organization, Emissaries of Divine Light, whose is that? The organization was created by Lloyd Arthur Meeker, beginning in 1932. As I think of it, this organization is his—not really belonging to him as man, because he died in 1954. But it still belongs to the wisdom and power of the universe that came through him, and that he embodied in his life. I am a leader of this organization today. But I acknowledge that it still belongs to the power and intelligence that created it.

And how about the people in my life? One of the most beautiful passages in all of sacred literature is Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17. It includes these words:

Thine they were, and thou gavest them me….

All mine are thine, and thine are mine.

How about the people in my life, including the ones closest to me? Are they mine? Do I try to possess them? Acknowledging that the people in my life are part of a larger reality that I, as a human being, certainly didn’t create and which I do not own, I can see that they were given to me. I can give them an honored place in my life, filled with gratitude for the gift they are to me.

So why not take a personal inventory of what you may have thought belonged to you—your property and the people around you? Your relationship with the people and things in your life might change through a deep meditation on who they really belong to. And your gratitude that they have been given to you might grow.

Through such a process, a person eliminates a source of unhealthy stress in their life that comes from unenlightened thoughts and feelings. They align with the universal power and intelligence that created all things. See if that kind of alignment doesn’t give you a newfound gift to bring to the world.