The Ten Most Important Things I've Learned on My Spiritual Journey This Year

My spiritual awakening began in the year 2000. The spiritual floodgates suddenly opened. Divine knowledge began to pour in.

Since then, I have learned incredible things every year. This year has been no exception.

Here are the ten most important things I’ve learned on my spiritual journey in 2010....

1.  We create every experience that occurs in our lives.

We do this with our thoughts and beliefs. The more we dwell on what we don’t want, the more of it we attract into our lives, whether it be stress, poverty, sickness, relationship problems, or whatever have you. We can use positive affirmations and other spiritual tools to create the kind of happy, healthy, abundant life we want.

2.  As spiritual beings, we pre-plan each of our physical lives before we are born.

I have often wondered what we do during our inter-lives between physical incarnations. One of the most important things we do is pre-plan our upcoming lives.


Prior to birth, we meet with our spirit guides who will accompany us during our upcoming life. We also meet with those souls who will incarnate with us and who will meet up with us during our life. We reach agreements with them about what we will do to and for each other while here on earth.

3.  When we are born, we draw the veil of illusion (or forgetfulness) over us.

We do this so that the physical “reality” we have created seems real to us. We want to focus our attention here and accomplish our purpose in coming here, without constantly longing to return to the spiritual realms.

As a result of this veil, we appear to be separated from, or even exiled from, the spiritual realms beyond the veil. “Piercing the veil” allows us to remember what lies beyond it. We do not have to physically die to pierce the veil. We can do it through a spiritual process known variously as awakening, enlightenment, or a shift in consciousness. Spiritual practices such as meditation accelerate this process.

4.  Most of us go through life without ever learning our life purpose.

This is like going someplace you’ve never been, with no road map and no idea what you’re going to do when you get there.

We have a collective purpose in coming here. That collective purpose is the spiritual growth of humanity.

We also have individual life purposes. I think it was in the year 2005 or so that I discovered my life purpose. My life purpose actually consists of two parts. First, I came here to learn things and overcome specific traits and habits -- such as impatience and judgmentalism -- which block my spiritual growth. Second, I came here to share with others what I’ve learned along the way and contribute to the global awakening.

To begin to discover your life purpose, ask yourself two simple questions: Who, or what, am I really? And why am I really here? The answers you discover to those two questions will change your life forever.

5.  We incarnate over and over for the purpose of spiritual evolution.

Many of us have already incarnated hundreds, if not thousands, of times. As a result, we seem to be on a never-ending journey through the cosmos. We intentionally draw the veil of forgetfulness over us when we are born, so that we are not distracted by confusing thoughts of other lives we have lived. That’s why we are not able to remember our other lives for the most part.

Unconsciously, however, we retain memories of our other lifetimes. Often we can access these memories through a process known as past-life recall during hypnosis, meditation, or remembering spontaneously.

My own past-life recall experiences have helped me come to understand what I am and why I am the way I am in this lifetime. When we cannot find the cause of some chronic physical affliction or emotional problem in this life, chances are its origin lies in a previous lifetime. And that’s where we need to go to solve it. We can solve problems originating in other lifetimes and accelerate our spiritual growth in this lifetime by using past-life recall.

6.  We are not physical bodies. That’s not what we are.

Most of us continue to believe that we are physical bodies. The belief that we are physical bodies is what makes us feel limited, vulnerable, threatened, and separate from God and each other.

To reinforce its stranglehold on us, the ego uses every tool at its disposal to convince us that we are physical bodies. It uses fear, sickness, pain and death to convince us. As a result, we spend virtually all of our life taking care of our physical body and attending to its needs. With our attention thus diverted, we never discover what we really are.

Our physical bodies are simply vehicles that enable us to live and function in this physical world. They are like cars. We get in them and they take us where we want to go. But we do not become our cars when we get in them. And when we are done with them, we simply get out of them.

7.  Everything I see and experience is simply a projection of my mind.

I have been deceiving myself all along. I thought what I saw with my physical eyes was real. I thought that events occurred outside of me and then affected me. It turns out, much to my surprise, that I have created the world I see with my own mind. The kind of world I see is simply a reflection of my own thoughts and beliefs about the world.

Thus, physical “reality” is an illusion, and collectively we have created this illusion. Even our physical bodies are an illusion, and therefore death of the physical body must be an illusion, too. Knowing this frees me from fear. It takes away my justification for experiencing loss, pain, grief, sickness, or suffering and misery of any kind.

8.  We are divine spiritual beings.

Every single one of us is a divine son or daughter of God, perfect as God created us and without limitations. As divine spiritual beings, we cannot be harmed in any way, nor do we ever die. We are divine beings who have disguised ourselves as human beings.

9.  We are not, and never have been, separate from God or each other.

We created this physical universe in order to separate ourselves from God. We created these physical bodies in order to separate ourselves from each other. The illusion that we are separate from God and each other is the source of all human ills.

The term “salvation” can be defined as the end of the illusion that we are separate from God and each other. Salvation releases us from the illusions of this physical world. It releases us from the need to blame others or feel victimized. It releases us from the need to judge and condemn the things of this world.

This physical world and everything in it is temporary, including our physical bodies. By definition, anything that is temporary is an illusion that passes away.

10.  I am asleep in Heaven, dreaming that I am having this physical experience.

I never really left Heaven. I’ve been dreaming all along and didn’t know it. Just as we awaken each morning and discover that our nighttime dreams aren’t real, so too we can awaken from this daytime dream we find ourselves in. This awakening can occur at the time of our physical death. I would prefer, however, to  awaken while still here in the physical world. I would rather awaken now than continue to wallow in misery and ignorance throughout my entire lifetime. I would prefer to know the truth.

I can experience “Heaven on earth” right now. I don’t have to reincarnate thousands of times more for this to happen Nor do I have to wait until I have achieved some mystical level spiritual growth or enlightenment. I don’t need to change the world. I just need to change my mind.

Somehow I think I’ve always known the things I’ve learned in 2010. But I forgot them along the way. It’s now time to remember them. Remembering is what “the second coming” really means. It’s what 2012 really refers to. A Course in Miracles has certainly helped me to remember.

But my spiritual awakening has only just begun. And the ego doesn’t want me to remember these things. So I still have a long way to go and much spiritual work to do.