The Trigger

Isn’t it amazing how little it takes to transform our mood, even to transform our lives? A certain piece of music, for instance, can transport us back to an event or a person in our lives that we have not thought about for years. A particular scent or aroma can do the same. There is no doubt that at critical points in our lives all our senses become sharpened and even though we may not realise it at the time, they register everything that is going on around us. It is as if that part of us that does things automatically, like breathing and moving the blood around our bodies, realises the importance of the occasion and determines that everything connected with it will be recorded on our inner CD.

All it takes is something that activates the trigger and there we are! We are lost in the memory of the event or the person that made such a deep impression at the time. It does not always happen. Sometimes the aroma is smelled or the music is heard but the memory remains buried. I wonder why? Presumably our state of mind is important. Certainly if we are passing through a troubling period of our life and are beginning to wonder which way to turn, we can be transported in this way. The reason in that case is obvious; the inner self realises the need to lift the gloom or depression into which our troubles are forcing us. It guides us where the trigger will appear and sharpens our senses so that we immediately recognise it and are transported to that happy time. The result? A transformation! The happy memory brings pleasant, happy thoughts and the depression and worry are lifted.

So! It would appear that there is a part of us that not only knows what we need and when but actually can retrieve information from our minds that will change the way we are thinking and feeling at the moment: A part of us that links our deeper, inner feelings with what is happening in the outer world. It really is wonderful if you think about it but of course most of us go through life without giving it a thought. We think that such moments of vivid recall are mere accidents, pleasant but pure chance. My friends, nothing but nothing happens by chance. There is purpose and design in every little thing that happens to us, in every experience we undergo. Sometimes that design is the working out of a consequence that our actions or thoughts brought into being in the past. It is the operation of the Law of Cause and Effect. At other times and far more frequently I believe than we realise, we are being guided back to the life plan we drew up before we came to the Earth, a plan from which we have diverged. You see, our inner self drew up the plan with the help of dear Guides in spirit, and it carefully monitors our progress as we move through our earthly life.

The plan we chose before we were born, we chose for important and very personal reasons. Physical life presents us with opportunities to strengthen our character and thus our spirit through having to contend with the conflict that is inherent on Earth. Conflict involving human greed, avarice and megalomania; conflict in family relationships; conflict in the growth of love and its loss, although one can never really lose the love we have experienced. We lose the opportunity to move it forward in the future but the love that was shared in the past is always with us and can never be lost, as the trigger proves to us if we would but listen. Why do we need to strengthen our character and spirit? In order that we may better serve the Great Spirit in the expanding Spiritual Universe: It is important to understand in this regard that strengthening the character is not a matter of making ourselves more assertive, indeed it is rather the reverse. Self-assertion is a sure sign that the physical ego has too much influence over us. Many people believe that strong, assertive people are happy because they appear to know exactly what they want and where they are going. On the contrary, it is frequently the case that such characters are camouflaging a deep uncertainty and fear under their assertiveness.

As many great teachers have shown, from Buddha, through Jesus of Nazareth to Ghandhi and Mother Theresa, the greatest strength is what many consider to be weakness. It takes much greater strength of character and much greater fearlessness to ‘turn the other cheek’ than to fight fire with fire; to respond to hate and fear with love; to, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you”. How much safer and better a place our world would be were more of us willing to try harder to follow this dictum. Difficult though it is and though many times we will fall short, it is the only way to order a Spiritual Universe, of which our Earth is an integral part. To ‘live and let live’ takes more courage and love than to insist upon conformity in all things. An ounce of tolerance is worth a ton of prejudice and bigotry.