Obstacles to Grace Part 3
This is part 3 of a series of posts called Obstacles to Grace. If you haven’t already done so, first check out Obstacles to Grace Parts 1 and 2, either in written format or on the video page.
The content in the Obstacles to Grace series of posts builds on the content presented in previous posts. To garner the most benefit from the “Obstacles to Grace” series of posts, you may want to first view Practical Mysticism posts 5 through 7 about the Understanding, Acceptance, & Application of mystical principles, and Practical Mysticism posts 8-10 which address the topics of Dominion and Grace through the application of these principles. These posts can be found in written format here on my website, in video format on the video page, or on the Practical Mysticism YouTube Channel at the link on the sidebar.
The way I define living from Grace is that it is the effect of living as and from your True Nature or True Spiritual Identity. Living from Grace gives rise to effortless, harmonious, inspiring experience. In a state of Grace the mind is still, and Joy, Gratitude, and Generosity shine forth from within. All bodily needs are met, the crooked places are made straight, and Life is a flowing, ever-present-moment experience. (For a deeper presentation and detailed content about living from Grace, see Practical Mysticism video or blog posts numbers 8-10).
In part 1 of this series, I presented the main obstacle to Grace as the lack of application of metaphysical and mystical principles. I then categorized the lack of application into roughly ten categories which I have listed below:
Obstacles to Grace = Lack of application:
Lack of understanding of metaphysics and principles
Lack of acceptance, doubt
Falling asleep in conditioning of material consciousness/dualistic mind
Lack of awareness
Lack of zeal and/or commitment
Complacency, coasting, suffering/dissatisfaction not intense enough to foster motivation, laziness
Close-mindedness
Lack of inner listening and/or trusting
Fear, especially of the “Unknown”
Pride, “I know,” sense of threat to identity
In Part 1 we looked in a bit more detail at numbers 1 through 4, and in Part 2 we looked at numbers 5 through 7. Today we’ll conclude with numbers 8 through 10.
8. Lack of inner listening and/or trusting
The experience of Grace is predicated on listening to the still small voice within. This is the voice of our True Self, the voice of “inner yeses” and “inner nos”, the voice of inspiration, or the voice of what feels “right” (or not “right”). In this case I’m not referring to the concepts of right and wrong in a moral sense but that inner sense where we say to ourselves “it just feels right” or “it just doesn’t feel right.”
There are several reasons why people do not listen to the still small voice within. Some aren’t aware that there is a voice of guidance within them that has a wisdom and an orchestrating intelligence beyond human comprehension. Many are accustomed to getting their messages from “outside” through their “authority figures” such as culture, parents, teachers, ancestry, clergy, “bosses,” government, statistics, trends, and media. Some do receive messages from a voice within but these messages are from the false, dualistic mind; the mind of human conditioning, sometimes referred to as the voice of the ego. Learning discernment between these voices is obviously necessary and lack of discernment is itself an obstacle to Grace. Further, the universal dualistic mind is filled with erroneous ideas, beliefs and concepts which act as blocks to the awareness of a higher voice. The True Self simply is, and it’s communication is ever available, but the human mind—when given credence and power by the world— is like a dark cloud blocking the radiant sun of the True Self.
All of us have experienced inspiration, intuition, or a sense of inner knowing to some degree. But do we trust it? In observing and working with others, and through self reflection on my own journey, I have been a witness to how frightening it sometimes seems to be to trust in that still small voice. So even if one is aware of inner guidance, one may feel quite apprehensive at trusting in, and following through on, the messages received. This apprehensiveness relates directly to number 9:
9. Fear, especially of the “Unknown”
It’s quite common for a spiritual aspirant to be exposed to metaphysical or mystical principles, and even to understand them, but then to be too fearful to actually apply them. True metaphysical and mystical principles are a very radical departure from the conditioning taught by the world, a conditioning that had been relied on in most cases for years or decades. The ways and means of the mystic are often 180 degrees apart from the ways of the world. These “unknown” ways, these radical ways, can be so very fearful for someone to actually live and to apply, that the application may be delayed for years, or even for a lifetime. Due to ignorance, Truth principles and the True Nature of our Creator, our Self, and the Spiritual Universe, become the “Unknown.” In this scenario, we’re actually afraid of the Truth because the Truth is the Unknown. We’ve only known and relied upon falsehood, so even though the Truth would set us free, living the Truth can feel terrifying. It is so that in mysticism, all you thought you knew about yourself, the world, and the Creator, as well as the past, the future, and all erroneous beliefs must be dropped. Metaphorically, it’s somewhat like jumping off a cliff. But we’re not asked by Spirit to drop it all at once—we’re not asked to jump off the cliff in one fell swoop—precisely because the fear is so great. However, the delay caused by this fear is a delay to the full mystical experience of Grace.
This fear of the “Unknown” can also take the specific form of fearing to follow through on inner guidance, as mentioned above. The conditioned voice of “reason,” based on external past learning, sometimes conflicts with the inner voice of guidance, and fear of this new way of operating from within causes us to follow through instead on the voice of past conditioning. This is obviously an obstacle to applying the mystical principle of living by inner guidance, which effectively keeps us operating according to the systems of the world, rather than from Grace.
10. Pride, “I know,” sense of threat to identity
A common block to the application of Truth principles is a sense of pride which blocks the open-mindedness which would allow the questioning of what one thinks they know about themselves and about this world. The conviction that “I know” is obviously a barrier to the consideration of fresh ideas as well as a hindrance to dropping outdated ones, especially when that knowledge is accompanied by pride. The knowledge one has accumulated is commonly viewed as an actual aspect of one’s identity. When one isn’t aware of their True Nature, when one identifies as a limited body of matter, all sorts of strategies are used to create and bolster a false sense of worthiness and substantially, and the accumulation of knowledge is one of those strategies. Pride in that knowledge is a further attempt at feeling substantial because the true nothingness of the false self concept requires constant attempts at validity and aggrandizement. So in this scenario, the questioning of one’s knowledge or the consideration of new ideas are both perceived as actual threats to one’s identity, and in many cases this false identity is protected by the judgment, ridicule, and attack of more expanded ideas.
This knowledge that is behind the conviction that “I know” is nearly always knowledge garnered in response to the evidence of the five senses. Human beings look out, perceive a limited five-sense picture of reality, draw conclusions based on this five-sense picture, and acquire knowledge in an attempt to “fix” this picture. This is the conditioning of the world, and many beings have built their false self image as being “fixers” of these limited five-sense images, whether in their personal lives, or at the broadest levels of influence. This conditioning and modus operandi of looking out, drawing conclusions, and fixing is so compelling and so insidious that it is indeed a barrier to the Truth that would allow Grace to be thy sufficiency.
If you’ve read or watched my earlier posts, you will by now have been exposed to the idea that the limited five-sense picture is not the Truth of the reality of our Self, our Creator, or the Spiritual Universe, and furthermore, that this five-sense picture is all mind and only mind, and is effect. In the mystical approach, we operate from Cause. For a deeper look into the mystical approach, I refer you to previous posts, especially Practical Mysticism posts 5-7 about the Understanding, Acceptance, and Application of metaphysical and mystical principles, and Practical Mysticism posts 8-10 about Dominion and Grace.
This is the end of the three part series called Obstacles to Grace.
Obstacles to Grace = Lack of application:
Lack of understanding of metaphysics and principles
Lack of acceptance, doubt
Falling asleep in conditioning of material consciousness/dualistic mind
Lack of awareness
Lack of zeal and/or commitment
Complacency, coasting, suffering/dissatisfaction not intense enough to foster motivation, laziness
Close-mindedness
Lack of inner listening and/or trusting
Fear, especially of the “Unknown”
Pride, “I know,” sense of threat to identity
Have you identified any of the obstacles to application in your own process? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Thank you and may Freedom and Grace be your ever-present experience.
