I am completely intrigued with this idea of remembering what we already know.  I believe we have all the answers to our unique life lessons already lurking within the residence of our Spirit and the process of maturation is really a process of discovery–like a treasure hunt where we are finding our personal truths along the way.  At first many of these truths relate to the laws of the physical world–how to get fed, how things work, how to ride a bike, etc.  As the process of life continues, though, much of our discovery becomes a spiritual quest, whether we realize it or not.  Things like choice of career, how to raise a family and seeking a deepening in understanding the role of God in our lives start to become the object of our thoughts.

The laws of the physical world remain and still hold evident.  They do not suddenly become untrue just because we enter into a strata of life that is spiritual in nature.  We still have to abide by physical world laws. And we now get to transmute these laws into a spiritual application while residing in a physical world. We learn to apply the laws of our physical world into an understanding of how to interact with our world from a spiritual disposition.

So how does this relate to anything having to do with practical everyday living of life on life’s terms?

As I have continued to have personal clarity on this philosophy, or theory if you prefer, I have concluded that my level of peace is directly related to my level of acceptance of this natural transcendence of life–from physical into spiritual.  I am finding that perpetual quietness of heart comes with a willingness to let this process take its natural course.  So many of those things we learned to hold evident in the physical world are really metaphors for spiritual applications and yet we have to first know the lessons in the context of the physical world before we can apply them in any spiritual context.

As we mature in years, our serenity and that feeling of comfortableness in our own skin becomes directly linked to our willingness to surrender the living of a life only by that which we can see and predict; and instead live a life by faith.  Living by faith is really a way of letting ourselves be guided by what we already “know”.  It adds a new dimension to our lives.

If we do not remember the past, are we condemned to repeat it? I think what is emerging true for me is “No, we are not condemned to repetition by forgetting; we are doomed to repetition by choosing to not accept the natural transcendence into a spiritual strata of life.”  When I am not practicing this acceptance, what I am really doing is putting the brakes on any spiritual growth and condemning myself to be stuck in the physical world; and then I am doomed to perpetuating the same cycles out of which I despair.  Let me explain:

Living in only the physical world as we mature works, and it is by design.  We have spiritual grace without any effort on our part. Our minds and bodies are consumed with making sense of our surroundings and how to interact with them.  And then we reach a certain point where there is this deep longing for something more.  Beyond that point, the physical world does not sustain us in the same way it did before.  There must be more.  Our sustenance must begin to come from a higher place.  And once this process begins, any time I put the brakes on it out of fear I am essentially limiting myself to what is familiar (i.e., the physical world) and thereby choking off a new source of sustenance.

This new source of sustenance (i.e., the spiritual strata) is so rich in nutrients because its entire nature is predicated on a type of “coming home”–an honoring of what we already know, a coming into our true selves, an acknowledgment and acceptance of what we have always known and have temporarily forgotten–a remembering of what we already know.