Meditation on Doubt - Why People Don't Want Us To Be Joyful

This morning I was meditating and led my thoughts and studies randomly to the book Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch. I am a proponent that all works, whether claimed to be a direct line from God (Divine Source, Universe, Fill-In-The-Blank) are truly the experience of the writer. We are ALL here to have our OWN experiences. Therefore, in my meditation and reading I have found that I had a basic question I had of my Divine Creator this morning: Why do people want to rob us of our joy?

The answer is simple yet profound: Once we have the concept, enlightenment and revelation that all our experience is allowed and our life is Divine, those that do not have what we have become jealous and become our mirror catalyst to show us doubt. Here is what I read:

"...the ultimate outcome is assured. And this is the second great illusion of man: that the outcome of life is in doubt. It is this doubt about the ultimate outcome that has created your greatest enemy, which is fear. For if you doubt outcome, then you must doubt Creator--you must doubt God. And if you doubt God, you must live in fear and guilt all your life. If you doubt God's intentions--and God's ability to produce the ultimate result--then how can you ever relax? How can you ever truly find peace?"

This quest for peace therefore is fueled by the question of whether our path is consistent of allowing our Divine self to set intentions, to MAKE our own world, to connect with the Universe to choose to find happiness daily. When you wake up in the morning, what do you do? Do you first make coffee like I do? Do you lucid dream and write down your intentions of the day? Do you struggle to get up and several hours later you finally allow your brain to engage in the daily regime? Or do you arise and thank the Source for your life?

When you go through your day, do you have a sense of peace?

Once you ask yourself that question, then what is your next step? Who do you engage in to find community in your day? Your spouse or partner, your children, your coworkers, the attendant at the gas station or at Starbucks? Who do you first speak with during the day? And my question to you is this: how do you feel about those with whom you encounter?

The reason I ask this is because they are a mirror--do they give you grief, apathy, patience, anger, fear, resentment, affection, or love? What emotion do you see in those you encounter? Write them down. Go through a list of who you have seen today and write down what responses you have received during the day with them. Are you receiving more positive-based responses or negative ones? This is a crucial question because if there is an imbalance in what you are seeing in other people, then do you have doubt about your own joy???

The next part of Walsch's writing states that if you choose to live your life as the Buddha did or as Jesus did or "as did every saint you have ever idolized", those around you will respond accordingly. Here's what he wrote:

"Yet, as with most of those saints, people would not understand you. And when you tried to explain your sense of peace, your joy in life, your inner ecstasy, they would listen to your words, but not hear them. They would try to repeat your words, but would add to them. They would wonder how you could have what they cannot find. And then they would grow jealous. Soon jealousy would turn to rage, and in their anger they would try to convince you that it is you who do not understand God."

This is where the doubt comes in. When you encounter others, when you listen to your own inner voice, do you doubt your importance? Do you doubt why you are here? Do you feel disconnected or disjointed or lonely? Or have you made the choice daily to seek the Divine in your life and thus you encounter others who do not understand you? Do you find yourself attracting those who criticize your motives when you only want to be living a godly life?

Walsch continues: "And if they were unsuccessful at tearing you from your joy, they would seek to harm you, so enormous would be their rage. And when you told them it does not matter, that even death cannot interrupt your joy, nor change your truth, they would surely kill you. Then, when they saw the peace with which you accepted death, they would call you saint and love you again. For it is the nature of people to love, then destroy, then love again that which they value most."

When you went through puberty (assuming you have already gone through it), remember those feelings of doubt about yourself? Did I hit a nerve? I sure remember feeling insecure. I had no idea how to live and be a part of the community of other puberty-experiences classmates and still survive life with my parents who couldn't possibly understand how I was feeling and my siblings who teased me relentlessly (their job). I was constantly in a state of self-doubt. But in that living, I found solace in my spirituality. I discovered that I had a reprieve from my lack of self-esteem by placing my faith in a Divine Source. When we are young, we truly believe only the Divine has peace and joy and we will have to live here to suffer and to struggle. In our quest to mature, we eventually come to one of two conclusions: We are disappointed in life and we are unhappy when others find peace or we realize that we are here to be on a quest to change the doubt we are riddled with during the formative years.

So ask yourself today: which side of the fence are you on? Are you the one seeking joy or are you so unhappy or fearful that you seek to destroy the joy in another? Is someone in your life making you so miserable that you cannot be happy? Or are you working toward that peace in your life and another is trying to rob you of that peace? If that is the case, think about this--maybe you are on the right track and you just don't see that those who attempt to steal your serenity as a mirror in which you can find an area in your own life to repair your own balance.

This challenge appeared recently because we had a roommate who spent every waking moment attempting to steal the joy from each other member of our household. If my partner and I expressed love and affection, she would take us aside individually and badmouth our partner to us. I began to doubt my partner, my joy, my peace and my life path. So did he. So did our other housemate, who was led to believe she too was not on the right path. This person who worked so hard to steal our serenity was finally asked to leave. Her response for an entire week was violent outrage, anger, passive aggressive theft and actions that attempted to "push our buttons" and regain the control she doesn't have within herself. She even resorted to lying, claiming we were aggressive, using substances (which she told all the neighbors), and we were preventing her from getting her belongings (which was just the opposite: we were trying to get them out as fast as possible.)

This lesson has brought me back to meditation and to center. I am grateful for the mirror of her doubt and unhappiness because it has given me the realization that I am on the right path! Here is what I have discovered:

1. We are connected to a Divine that wants us to be connected with the Collective Conscious.

2. We are meant to be here to have a peaceful, joyful, thriving experience.

3. We are meant to commune with those around us who also have a connection with the Divine.

4. At some point on our journey, we may have a revelation that leads us to internal peace and thus we are less and less affected by the doubt of those around us as we once were. Trust me, if you have not yet experienced that revelation, we definitely need to talk.

5. The connection we have with our Divine becomes internalized. We thus realize the Source is not apart from us, but is within us!

6. We recognize that those that have never quite found their connection to the Source to be internal will continue to try to take that Source from those that have internalized it. We face others around us that want to hurt us to get at the Source they cannot believe is attainable within. We call these people psychic vampires. Many of them are within our own community and most often they are found in positions of power because they believe power over others will relieve their doubt and their lack of connection to the Divine.

7. Our role on this planet is therefore to learn to connect with the Divine, connect with others who thrive on the same path, and be as honest and open to oneself and others in order to show our Divine by example. We only have to be aware of it, be conscious of our choice, and then be content with our path. It's not an easy task, nor is it insurmountable. All we have to do is take our path one step at a time.

So do you still doubt why you are here? Did I answer the question well? I truly believe others rob us of our joy so that they can continue to live in a belief system, in an illusion, that allows us to keep the "status quo." The oppressors want to stay oppressive rather than be oppressed. Those with affluence want to remain affluent. The lifestyles of the rich and famous teach us that we will only be happy with recognition and material possessions. And those who use their beliefs to control others do so because truly they feel out of control in some way. This is a given.

Challenges are hard and learning from growing is most often painful. We don't want to feel pain. So we run from it or try to give it to someone else. It is easier to doubt our perfect creation rather than to allow the Creator to work through us. It is also a pattern that those that are enlightened (above referenced Buddha and Jesus being examples) are historically persecuted. So of course we don't want to experience this kind of destruction.

So I implore you to allow yourself to take in what has been given to you in this lifetime. Be aware of everything around you and how you feel when you are with each person. Take your own inventory of how you treat other people. And create a plan. And finally, ACT upon it. Don't just talk about your connection with the Source, seek it.

Remember that when someone tries to rob you of your joy, you are already whole and they need to find their own path. They won't need your serenity because they have it within themselves. So remember to focus on your own guaranteed outcome. And be willing to share what you learn with others. And if you continue to doubt yourself in any way, there are many of us who will remind you what you are meant to be and do.

"The beginning is God. The end is action. Action is God creating--or God experienced." - Neale Donald Walsch. Thank you again for writing what we already know.