I believe in a knowing that you can experience more and more by listening to the small voice within and by walking the path set before you. This is most likely a path that at times will bring confusion and despair, but also hope, love and grace.

There are ways for you to grow from being governed by your ego to being more and more guided, led and held by this inner knowing. The poet Rilke once wrote or said “the only journey is the journey within”. He is both right, and wrong. Wrong if his words are taken too literally. I truly believe in the journey within as a journey we are called to take, especially in the afternoon of life. Richard Rohr inspired by Jung writes about the first and second half of life in his wise book “Falling Upward”. When I say that understood too literally the words from Rilke can be “wrong”, I mean that there is always a need for balance. We need to look both outside and inside.

For me going cross-country skiing or hiking in the mountains are great ways to observe beautiful landscapes and God’s magnificent creation outside myself. At the same time these seemingly outside-yourself-experiences are also inner experiences. The beauty that I see resonates with something deep within me. What I see outside and around me connects with and gives birth to a knowing within me. So, the journey within is in a way the most important, but we also need to contemplate the beauty outside to experience a connection to our inner life and to spirit.

It is true what Augustin said “my soul is restless until it finds its rest in you”. As we grow up spiritually and connect with God’s spirit and our deepest self within we find a knowing and also a rest.

All of us have different life stories. Some have experienced very close and loving relationships when they were children and just beginners on their journeys. Others have experienced more troublesome childhoods, loneliness and a lack of true love and embrace. All of us have our own journeys to take. For some it may take many years to grow into this deeper knowing. Some also have to go through therapy to get there.

No matter what, I believe in this deeper knowing which becomes an intuitive knowledge of eternal truths and a knowing of true love. The knowing you experience makes dogmas less important and even less true, because truths that we know within are often simple and universal. The first and most universal truth I think, is that the universe is filled with love. We as well as the whole universe are created out of love. We are created and also placed in this world by a Love.

What about all the pain and suffering you say? Where is this love that you are talking about? For myself, life has noe been an easy walk either. All I can say today, I see you. Yes, there is great suffering and pain in this world. Yes, there is great pain and loneliness in our and other people’s lives. Still I believe that the deeper knowing we can experience is a knowing that tells us about a Love, a Love greater than anything else.

Let us just leave it at that today. Know that you are loved by Love, and knowledge of this Love can also become part of your inner knowing!

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