Receiving All That We’re Able
People don’t realize that Spirit wants to give us All of Itself. The problem is that we’re often unable to receive it. It’s our sense of “self” that gets in the way and limits our capacity.
Paramhansa Yogananda once said, “The ocean cannot be received in a cup unless the cup is made as large as the ocean. Likewise, the cup of human concentration and human faculties must be enlarged in order to comprehend God. Receiving denotes capacity acquired by self-development; it is different from mere belief.” (Whispers from Eternity)
We also need to want more in order to receive more. So much more, that the cup of “self” feels confining and uncomfortable, as if we suffer from a spiritual claustrophobia.
When we’re willing to drop everything in our search for God, that is when He comes to us. And what is that “everything?” It’s our small, and if I may say, deluded, sense of self-identification. The one that thinks we are only a human in this body, with a name, relationships, job. It’s that sense of self, that lives identified to your earth bound form, and in forgetfulness of it’s true identify as a child of Spirit.
If you knew you were Divine Mother’s son and daughter, would you not expect to receive a hug and hold Her hand, just as you would your earthly mother? But we forget, and Spirit, rather then being our Father/Mother/God, feels like an alien creature to whom we do not know how to relate.
When we allow our sense of identity as Spirit to overshadow our sense of human self, that is when our relationship with Spirit quickens and the little cup of self dissolves into the Greater Self forever quenched and refreshed. Then the Ocean of His consciousness slowly seeps into our soul, like the tide imperceptibly coming in, and all of the sudden we are One with the Sea.
In case you haven’t read this before, here’s Yogananda’s classic poem, Samadhi.
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