By Winnifred Donnelly

I used to ask myself questions like: Where am I going? Why am I here? If God is so kind and loving, why did God put me here? Why can’t I just live in Heaven right now? What did I do to deserve this?

When disaster strikes, I have heard people exclaim, “How can a loving God allow things like this to happen?” Hurricanes and other natural disasters are called acts of God. On the other hand, we are told to trust in God, or that God is on our side. Terrorists think that killing innocent people is doing God’s work. As a whole, we humans have a mixed perception of what God is like. We are supposed to trust God, but not too much.

This conundrum does have an answer of sorts for those who seek to find it. Both the Course in Miracles and the readings of Edgar Cayce have a few things to say about the whole dilemma of why we are here and each of them gives us glimpses of what God is like.

The Association for Research and Enlightenment is an organization that is dedicated to studying the life work of Edgar Cayce, who was called the sleeping prophet. Cayce would simply lie down on a couch, go into a trance and information would be relayed through his speech. These sessions were called readings. He would give two types of readings. Most readings were about issues of health: how to heal people who were sick. Many people who followed the advice that was given would be healed. Another type of reading was called a life reading. This type of reading would take situations that people were in and the information given in the reading would explain why they were in the situations they were in and the way out. Included in these life readings were some insights into universal questions.

The readings said that we are spiritual beings who got trapped in matter by playing with our minds. We were so taken with this earth that we began to play with the life forms here and we even entered in to some of them. By doing this, we began to believe we were flesh and eventually identified with the body, forgetting who we really are.

The Course tells us that this world is not our real home. We have fallen asleep and we are dreaming that we are bodies. Our true place is with God. We are really still with God, but asleep and dreaming. For most of us, it tends to be an unpleasant dream. God is trying to wake us up, but gently so we won’t be startled awake.

In my mind, the Course tells us what happened. The readings tell us how. Both tell us how powerful our minds really are. Cayce constantly told us that mind is the builder and that thoughts are things. The Course tells us that we need to change our minds in order to change our lives and make them into happy dreams.

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? However, changing a mind, or a particular way of thinking, is a very difficult thing to do. Have you ever tried to look with love upon someone who has hurt you, or tried to change your perception about a situation? The main culprit that hinders the process of changing our minds is fear. We fear change, whether for good or ill.

In my own case, my ego tells me that to return hurt with more hurt is the only way to react if I am injured. After all, it slyly hints, hurting in return lessens the chance that another will hurt me back. However, not attacking back, either physically or with our thoughts, is the only way to stop the vicious cycle of being hurt and hurting back. Resentment only hurts the person holding the resentment. Resentment can color perception and make us miserable. It can fester inside and make us physically sick.

Some people protest the power of our minds. They will say they are always positive, and it is God who sends problems their way to foster growth. They are adamant that they are victims and helpless to change their lives. By not believing in the power of their own minds, they put the blame on God and hence we get the hurricane that is called an act of God.

This perception is a dangerous thing. It is dangerous to not take responsibility for our thinking. There is a danger of fearfully avoiding what lies beneath the surface and acknowledging what is really on our minds.

Cayce continually warned about fear being a roadblock to change. The Course says fear is the source of our troubles. It only stands to reason that if we are fearful of change, then change can’t happen. In fact, any changes that occur will probably be negative.

If our mind is full of fear, then our thoughts are negative. Given the fact that our minds are powerful, our minds will take this negativity and create negative situations from it. Our mind will only respond to our thought processes.

The Course tells us that we have a helper. We can call on the Holy Spirit to help us through this task of changing our minds. Knowledge comes from the Holy Spirit. It is there for us. Our role is to pay attention and use it in our day-to-day lives. The Holy Spirit, however, can only help us as far as we let the Spirit in. If we are fearful of losing control, then we block any guidance that is available.

The first step, then, is to take responsibility for our life situation. By taking responsibility for our part in this dream, we change our perception about the situations we are in. We begin to realize that we have had a hand in all that is around us. Not only that, but our perception about any situation is bound to be different than any one else’s.

The Holy Spirit knows us. The Spirit knows that deep part of ourselves that we only glimpse briefly, or not at all. The Spirit also knows the ego self and all our little quirks and foibles. The truth is that we get ourselves into trouble by our limited thinking and the Holy Spirit uses seemingly negative situations that we have created to help us see another way: the way that leads home.

We are all on our way back home to God. The Course says “You and your brother are coming home together, after a long and meaningless journey that you undertook apart, and that led nowhere. “ (T chp. 18, III, 8.p. 380.)

The readings say something similar. “All souls were created in the beginning and are finding their way from whence they came.” (Frejer, Ernest. The Edgar Cayce Companion. p. 165.)

By taking responsibility for the situations we create and relying on the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we can find our way home. We may decide to make it a rough ride, but the destination awaits no matter what road we choose to use.

Winifred Donnelly is a certified Yoga teacher, technical writer and spiritual seeker. She is the mother of five and a grandmother to thirteen children.