We don’t wind up here on planet Earth because we were “sent” here, or because someone commanded us to come. Rather, there’s a process of attraction and repulsion. And per spiritual law, it behaves a lot like the laws involved in chemical bonds. So it’s our current level of consciousness that creates this world, including all the physical laws that run the place.

One physical law, for example, that we’re familiar with is the Law of Gravity. This is a special law that pertains to humans in our present state of consciousness. It parallels on the physical level our inner emotional reaction to giving up our egos as being the sole aspect of who we are. To us, that’s akin to falling and being crushed.

As we cycle from one lifetime to the next, the relationship between cause and effect often seems broken. Only as we mature spiritually and our awareness increases do we grow enough to sense that causes from our former lives result in effects we experience in this lifetime. It’s often uncomfortable to see how we are the ones who have created what we deplore now. And that if we want things to be different, we’ll have to give up something we’re ferociously hanging on to.

But once we accept the beauty in these laws, ah, what peace. What freedom. What safety. So that what seems like a fate beyond our control—like where we’re born, as what, the look of our body, the shape of our face, the kinds of talents we have—will all be seen for what it is: self-wanted and self-caused, sometimes wisely and sometimes destructively.

It is a spiritual law that the more advanced we are—the more work we have done over the course of many lifetimes—the bigger will be the impact of any negativity that remains. So then even minor infractions against the truth of divine law will cast larger and longer shadows.

To put it differently, this law says that the greater our spiritual potential to do the work we set out to do—to be aware of it, to understand what it’s about, and to follow the process of development—the greater will be the repercussion of not living up to our potential. It’s the gap between our potential and the actual direction we take in life that trips us up. The bigger the gap, the more severe life seems.

It’s often not some big tragic event we’re talking about. But it’s perhaps more like a chronic state of depression, anxiety or, more likely, feeling of disconnectedness. This is not a punishment, friends. It’s the grace of God helping to make sure we don’t fall behind in a useless puddle of stagnation. It’s intended to give us the incentive we need to do better. To open our eyes, pay attention and pray for guidance.

There’s another law that has to do with making connections. One goal is to make the necessary connections between what’s happening outside ourselves, in life, with what’s happening in our inner processes. A second goal is to connect the dots between our inner processes that seem totally unrelated to each other. So when we come across seemingly isolated problems—faults, conflicts, difficulties with others—we must go deeper to determine the connection between apparently disparate issues.

For example, say we have difficulty establishing fulfilling relationships and also feel blocked in our career. What’s the connection? Or maybe we uncover a pushy, greedy attitude and, say, also experience sexual dissatisfaction. What’s the connection? Or there’s submissiveness and lack of assertion, on the one hand, and out-and-out hostility on the other. We’ve got to search for the connection, for it’s a law that everything in us is connected. If we look, we’ll find them.

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