For when one is born, they are impressionable and completely dependent upon others for everything…this is natural…
And naturally as one grows, they become less dependent through their hunger for independence and their willingness to feed the hunger to become more independent…but at one point they stop hungering and willing independence, and their journey to independence halts and they become complacent, and stagnant…
For in their minds, they have reached a point of independence in which they do not think there is any sort of independence further or beyond that point…They have hit the illogical wall of independence…
A baby gains its first taste of independence when they learn to crawl, then walk, then talk…and as they grow they gain more independence in how they dress, how they speak, the music they listen to, the identity they adopt, and image they like to portray…and further out they get their license to drive, get their first job and begin having their own source income…eventually this path leads to having a career, a family, and a home…and most come to believe that is where the end of independence is, that there is no independence beyond that point except for financially…
This may be true for their physical independence, but this is where the start of spiritual independence begins…
For the journey through spiritual independence begins to relinquish experiences that have impressed upon one’s being during the journey to achieve physical independence…they become unbounded and consequently liberated from things they have done ignorantly…and free from the things that have been done unto them ignorantly by the hands of the external during their impressionable and dependent stages…
As those impressions have governed and even dictated one’s life, their actions, their perceptions, their thought processes, their thinking, and therefore their experiences…those impressions have left a mark that filters the way life is had by structuring life in ways that determines how it is filled…this is understandable and totally natural, for a child is born fully dependent and vulnerable to the external hands that direct their life…in their gentle and innocent existence they are so impressionable that the slightest comment like the tiniest and lightest leaf can leave a mark…
But at one point that child must become an adult…and it is difficult to say when the child becomes an adult because the days from birth to death are all connected…do they become an adult on their 9,125th day of being alive, or on their 9,126th day? Or maybe it takes 10,950 days, maybe even 18,250 days…
Nonetheless, it matters not which day it is, eventually one must choose, to awake or remain asleep, to become a sovereign individual or to be born a baby and die a child…it is an unavoidable choice and therefore one must inevitably choose…eventually it is up to one…what will one do with their experiences they have experienced based on the interpretations they have chosen to interpret it all in with…
Sure, in the beginning one eats what one is fed, but eventually one will need to choose what one will feed on…
Just as a child is fed what the mother feeds it, eventually as the child grows and gains independence the child will choose what they consume…and on most occasions they will continue the habit of eating what they have been taught to eat….and the cycle continues…
This is identically mirrored by what one does spiritually, for they continue to consume that which society, culture, religion, family, and country feed them, and that is what they feed on…and in this formed habit people keep their free-will deactivated and therefore continue being automated beings that are governed by the external hands of collective thinking within cultural, societal, religious, familial, and national norms and mores…and that becomes what one eventually chooses…for the choice is not between continuing the habits formed or not; it is between either breaking those habits to form new ones or not…for if one chooses to not choose, then that in itself is a choice, and that is the choice they will have to live with…
I guess that is the one choice that can be made without having free-will activated…and even then, it shows that free-will is present and existent within them…still radiating its presence in its inactivated state by granting one the ability to make a choice, to decide the trajectory of their lives…awakened or asleep…willing or not…
For every baby born that is given the longevity of life to achieve physical maturation is destined for this eventuality…the eventuality of choosing the continuance of being driven by remaining in the passenger seat along with everyone they have come to know, or to be willing to take the wheel and become the driver in which case they may steer in a direction that no other will come…this potential loneliness is an existential threat that most bypass and therefore choose the choice of not choosing…
Eventually one must break free of the external structures if one is going to become one with the true self…this is accomplished by breaking the habits the world has guided them to form…but even with the world’s complete involvement in one’s life, there is still that soul and spirit within one that is unreachable…the soul that interprets it’s own interpretations, and therefore chooses, and decides how life and everything within it will be looked at, viewed, seen, approached, consumed, fed upon, and ultimately experienced…whether one knows it or not…
Because God’s Grace cannot and will not be completely ignored…for one can close their eyes to turn their world dark in order not see what is before them, but that does not mean to that which one closes one’s eyes to disappears…for one can turn one’s own ears deaf to the sounds of God’s Grace so that they do not hear, but it does not imply nor does it actually silence God’s Grace…again, it comes down to choice: does one choose to see or not; does one choose to hear or not…
For either one believes in free-will or they don’t…
Even though, most will say that they believe in free-will, when in actuality they function with the thought of predetermination…because deep down they don’t believe they can change their life and their world, but fool themselves into thinking they have free-will because they have the ability to choose what clothes to wear or what toothpaste to buy, but those choices do not signal free-will….for they have no true significance…for with those choices the trajectory of their lives remains unchanged and destined where it was destined from birth…
In their belief, free-will is being able to make insignificant choices…but they don’t believe they can-will life altering and world changing decisions, which alters the trajectory of their lives…which is what free-will truly is…
And they don’t believe in such free-will mostly because it is a frightening thought, to take responsibility of the powers God has Graced one with…for one to truly acknowledge free-will, they must fully and completely remove the delusional existence of excuses…for one has certainly faced difficulties, hardships, setbacks and they all can be true, they can be good excuses, but excuses cannot excuse one of not doing things they must do and of doing things they must not do…
The truth is there to provide one with the certainty of reality and not the escape from it…therefore by accepting the gift of God’s Grace one pops the bubbles of laziness, insecurities, and pride’s existence…not saying it cannot not be felt or experienced once popped, but it cannot take roots deep enough to be able to direct and to control one…
For realizations, understandings, awakenings, epiphanies are all different structural sparks of the truth…
Therefore, when God sends sparks, one must be willing to nurture those sparks, protect them, feed them, fan them, in order for them to grow…one cannot stand idly by hoping they grow on their own, as it is in the idleness of unwillingness that one lets the sparks God sends to die out…
One is responsible to be willing to will that which is needed to grow the spark into a flame, and later an engulfment…For God Gives what is needed, for one to use the will granted, to do the things needed to be done, to arrive to that which one is destined for by will and not by world…
For God’s sparks are graces…
And deep down…God’s Ultimate Grace is one’s free-will…
Being that the ultimate Grace by God is free-will…it grants one the ability that even if one does not have that which is needed or, one exists in a state where there is absence, one has the unlimited free-will and therefore can-will that which is absent within one into presence…
So, they will ask about how the absence can be turned into presence…
What will it take for one to have that which one does not presently have within them to begin with?
It will take transcendence…
How can one achieve transcendence?
Only by God’s Grace…
So, one is unable to transcend without God’s intercession?
Absolutely…
Then one must wait to be graced by God to transcend?
One must be Graced by God to transcend, yes…but one does not have to wait at all..
Because God’s Ultimate Grace is one’s unlimited free-will…and there is no need to wait for it, for it is simultaneously within one in one’s creation…
To bring forth the presence within the absence…essentially one has to be willing to face the void, accept the absence, and through it will the presence…
Willing to look at the absence, willing to accept one’s absence of it, willing to understand the effects the absence has on one…through that one will gain the vision to see the void…
Willing to face and walk into the void is what allows one to transcend…as transcendence is on the other side of the void…
Walking into the void is the dissolution of all that one has been falsely, all that one is falsely, and all the false selves one was being led to become…for walking into the void one becomes completely bare…vulnerable in their nakedness before truth…
Therefore, if one is absent of respect, one must walk into the void of that absence and there one can-will it into presence…for one can will to be respectful even though one is not currently respectful…
If one is absent of honesty, one must walk into the void of that absence and there one can-will it into presence…for one can will to be honest even though one is not currently honest…
If one is absent of patience, one must walk into the void of that absence and there one can-will it into presence…for one can will to be patient even though one is not currently patient…
If one is absent of love, one must walk into the void of that absence and there one can-will it into presence…for one can will to love even though one is not currently loving…
Respect, honesty, patience, love, and truth take will power…for they demand the will to be exercised into excruciating levels of discomfort in order to be released from that which one is being held onto, and even deeper than that is the things one is holding onto without even knowing…
One has to exercise one’s willpower to be honest…and one has to continuously exercise that will to higher levels of honesty in order to be as honest as possible…
For one can always be more honest than one currently is…because the more one is honest one becomes awakened and aware of things one can be honest about that one did not see or was aware of before…for there are levels of honesty that are invisible to one’s current state…
Respect, honesty, patience, love, and truth take will to be exercised…
Whereas insecurity, laziness, pride, hate, comfort provide one the delusional reasoning to excuse oneself from exercising one’s will…and they lose out on their becoming to Be and therefore their current being…
For there is transcendence in the will, the exact will that is currently within them right now… awaiting to be exercised…
For transcendence occurs only through the Grace of God…and God’s Ultimate Grace is the free-will within one right now…
And it is through diversion of distraction that redirects one away from free-will and therefore keeps one from unwrapping the Grace God has sown within…
The diversion of distraction is achieved through temptations…temptations are through things such as insecurity, laziness, comforts, pride, easiness, and lust…which provides one the needed excuse to not exercise one’s free-will…and therefore blindly robbing themselves of obtaining the Grace of God that they already contain…insecurity, laziness, and comforts paralyze the will from doing what one needs to do…as pride, easiness, and lust paralyze the will to restrain from doing what one needs not do…
This stops one from obtaining that which they contain…For they contain it because of God, but they must obtain it because of themselves…
Complacency and stagnation of insecurity, laziness, pride, comfortability, and ease will rot one’s soul away…for like water, in warm conditions if its flow is paused for a long period of time, mold begins growing in its complacent flow…
When the conditions are cold, if its flow has ceased for a long period of time, the water will begin to freeze over in its stagnated state…
Therefore, one is not truly absent of the things one is absent of, because with God’s Grace one can will anything into presence…one must be willing to will it…it is not for one to wait for it to come, for it has already arrived…it’s that one must be willing to use God’s Grace to make it manifest…
For God has created the seed, the soil, the Sun, the water, and the abled person, and has provided it all at one’s disposal…one’s land is absent of the fig tree, but with willingness to use all God has given, one is not truly absent of it, but in the unmanifested state awaiting for its manifestation…
God’s Ultimate Grace is that with the free-will one has been graced with, one is able to change that which God has created one to be…however getting to those deep levels of free-will one will not change what God created one to be, but rather one will affirm God’s creation…for to tap into the unlimited state of one’s free-will is to have one’s free-will become synced and unified with that of God’s…one’s will being a raindrop that falls into the Ocean that is God’s Will…
This is a duty for each to do on one’s own volition…for no one can do it for another…for if one does it for the other, the other has not willed it and therefore remains inactivated…for we are all our own universal islands…each must unwrap God’s gifts on their own to receive it…if another unwraps it for one, one will have it in appearance but will not have received it…
It is for each to will…
For this writing has not the ability to do it for anyone, it is merely an alarm of remembrance…this is not a guidance for one to be saved from the water by being pulled onto land…rather, this is about reminding one to remain in the water because it is our true nature and to be aware of the baits that are thrown in from land, with the intention to hook, and pull one out of one’s nature onto land, to be trapped and displaced from one’s natural state…
The only limit to the will is the will itself…to what points of depths does its willingness willingly dwell…
Ponder this, can one not will to love someone they do not love? For what stops their willingness to love the one that is not loved? Within them at one point, does one not make the choice to not will any deeper to find the love that is needed to love the person they do not love?
This process towards engulfment can never be complete until one passes away…for the evolution is continuously available to the will within a physical body that is breathing and has their heart beating…this is why one can always will to be more honest than the honesty one currently possesses…one can always be more patient, more loving, more faithful than that which the will is currently willing to be…
Teo Estepani, LPCC 