Books | THE CONTENTMENT DIVIDEND | Excerpts

Author’s Note

You have the power within you to liberate your soul from the mind’s dominance and achieve reunion with God. The forty-nine intuited meditations take you on this journey of discovery of realizing your true spiritual self, understanding the immortal truths of existence, and how to focus your mind and life to achieve daily—and ultimately consummate—contentment. 

    Some of the names of the meditations may sound obscure, cryptic, even fanciful. Let them pique your curiosity. May the discussion enable you to open to and comprehend the teachings of realized Masters and true Saints. These are the fully God-realized humans who come to awaken us to our unlimited spiritual potential. By engaging with the meditations, you will undergo a revolution in how you navigate life’s challenges, accessing the wisdom of your higher mind and your soul’s yearning to further your spiritual evolution. 

    This is your opportunity to embrace and engage in a New Reckoning. When you find yourself in a sweet, quiet moment, ask yourself: 

    What has my life meant to me thus far?

    Am I interested in evolving spiritually and can I embrace that?

    To what extent am I open to experiencing a revolution in the way I understand and relate to my mind, soul, and journey through existence?

    Return to these questions when the spirit moves you. This is your chance to see and enjoy life and spirituality in a new light—or rather, a light that has been within you all the time. 

    Honor your curiosity and turn the page to engage with the thrilling meaning of life—yours in particular—and your call to inner adventure.

1    The Inescapable Unknown

The inescapable unknown—we all face it. Regardless of how unaware we are of it. In those unexpected moments when we come face-to-face with it—waking in the middle of the night; realizing we are going to die; not knowing what is coming—we may feel gripped by fear. We may feel anxious, apprehensive, leery of life. Rather than embrace our fear of the unknown and get to the nub of it, our mind will seek avoidance. At any hint of a confrontation with the unknown, we likely turn away to fill ourselves with what we know—people, work, familiar sensations (why are the re-welcoming allurements of drinking, smoking, and getting high so comforting?), food, sex, music, games, shows, sleep. It is much nicer to sleep and sleepwalk through life than to face the unknown.

    It is more gratifying, at least superficially, to stuff ourselves with what feels familiar, even if it’s traveling to three new unknown places each year. The planning for the trip, the travel, the new place to see, and the reliving of the trip conceals the unknown we keep at bay.

    To begin to accept the unknown is to embrace life as it is now, being present in the now, the raw present. No buffers. No boundaries. We may harbor ideas of what’s coming and these may provide anticipation or anxiety, but these too remove us from being in the unknown. The unknown is inescapable, but we do our best to escape it.

    News masquerades as the unknown becoming known. But if you’ve ever studied the home page of a major newspaper, you’ll realize that most of the articles are conjecture. They are opinions about what can happen. There is a certain gratification and, for some, a feeling of safety and familiarity in keeping up with and taking in “what’s happening.” This provides a sense of control, of grounding, of purported reality, of knowing—all of which banish the true unknown. For those, especially older people, who might allow themselves to dwell for a moment or longer on death, they may realize that they really don’t know what will lead up to it. Will you be immobilized by a stroke? Will dementia inexorably make you lose your grip? Will you waste away in a nursing home?

    Those who believe in a continuing consciousness after the cessation of this physical life may be attached to particular ideas about it: seeing a great Saint, being reunited with family, seeing and being with other loved ones who have passed on, floating in a sanctified sea of bliss, having fantasy after fantasy fulfilled. But the truth is, the experiences that await you after your passing are still unknown. 

    The unknown is the inescapable fact of existence—unless you are omniscient. 

    To detach mentally and strip away everything from your life is to begin to commune with the true self. Not the self that is defined by work or family, achievements or failures, or favored recreations. But the self that can expand into ineffable knowing. We each have a self that is typically buried under the onrush of the day’s demands and the lure of the night’s escapes. This self of ours can be cultivated and can become known, experience by experience. We are so habitually dominated by our demanding thoughts and urges that it remains elusive. But our true self is always waiting for us. 

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© 2010-2021 MICHAEL GODDART

EMAIL: MGODDART@GODDART.COM

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