Are We Becoming Spiritual Orphans?

The current movement to awaken or enhance spiritual consciousness has been ongoing for decades. Are we doing as well as we might with this, or could we do much better?

I saw the opening text scrolled on the screen for the movie “Anthony Adverse” (which I chose not to watch) that ended with the sentence, “They were spiritual orphans.” Spiritual orphans—what a term; it intrigued me. My dictionary includes the definition of orphan that you might expect, of a child whose parents have died. There was another definition there, as well: “a product that is medically valuable but is not produced because it lacks a profitable market.” And there was the verb form: “to cause to become an orphan [orphaned by the war].”

Using the standard definition, I’d say a spiritual orphan is a person whose feeling, intuitive Heart guidance has been disconnected or diminished, or its existence has never been realized or developed: it isn’t working right, for whatever reason, so the innate guidance isn’t fulfilling its function. As for the second definition, you could say the lack of a profitable market (public recognition and receptivity) holding the product that has value (the full expression of spirituality) back from or for widespread use is the ridicule or dismissal true spirituality receives from mainstream and experts.  

Looking at marketability a different way, no one would argue the fact that books and other items focused on spirituality have been produced and are still a profitable market, but the items themselves are not spirituality, and using the items does not guarantee spirituality as the result. How do you obtain spirituality, or find it to obtain it? Here’s a quote by Rumi that answers this question simply and well, though I make a specific statement about this later on: “I looked in temples, churches and mosques. But I found the Divine in my heart.” You could say, “I looked in books, listened to tapes, and attended seminars. But I found my spirituality in my feeling, intuitive Heart.”

If you ever feel like a spiritual orphan, you might consider whether you approach spirituality solely or predominantly through your left-brain (logic, analysis, seeing just the “dots”). If so, this is a big part of the disconnection or lack of connection you experience. You can’t get to spirituality through the left-brain. You have to use both the right- and left-brain in combination with the feeling, intuitive Heart.

Every bit of information—conscious or subconscious—that you receive becomes a code that your brain, your biological computer, decodes and acts on or stores for reference. This includes information you don’t necessarily recognize as such, which includes commercials, ads, movies, billboards, symbols and logos, video games, and so on: everything you take in through your five senses is code that your brain processes, including subliminally, and possibly believes without question. Just as you are what you eat, you become, in some way, the information you ingest, deliberately or not, as well.

Think of it like this: each side (and part) of your brain has its own software, so to speak. The right side is coded for feelings (love, compassion, and empathy), intuition (expanded awareness), no time-no space awareness (you’re in the Now rather than the past or future), and realizing the bigger picture (holistic viewpoint, connecting the “dots”). But too much right-sidedness doesn’t allow you to put what you receive then decode into order or practical application (you feel unfocused, you drift along), which is where the left side comes in; but it’s meant to be a servant to the right side, not the dictator or ridiculer it can become.

If you process solely or predominantly through the left-brain, you might believe anything or might discount what you ought to believe, even if it defies what you’ve been told (e.g., Intuition is real, valuable, and felt vs. intuition doesn’t exist, or is nothing more than an advanced form of logic). If you decode information received solely or predominantly through the right-brain, you might interpret information according to what it is you prefer to believe about it, even if it defies or ignores reality (self-protective denial), or not be able to figure out what to do with the information (inertia based on confusion that results from conflicting beliefs or resistance, perhaps).

Even if you manage to use whole-brain thinking (or don’t), you still need to include the emotional, intuitive Heart, which reveals a Divine Trinity we humans are capable of but seldom use, mostly because it isn’t taught and we aren’t taught that it is who we inherently are. We look for spirituality; but where do we usually go to look at and decide on what the Truth of spirituality is? The left-brain. Jonathon Miller-Weisberger said, “It is necessary to perceive truth with the heart, not just the mind.” It’s the same for our spirituality.

Using intuition (expanded awareness) as our example, the fact that it is real is in direct contrast with what the left-brain is programmed and conditioned to believe (or is believed evil by some), so intuition is difficult for the left-brain to accept, much less use (a real contrast is that intuition is dismissed by the establishment but used by governments). Depending on your conditioning, you might believe everything you’re told by the “experts,” without question; and if the experts’ “facts” change after several years (or months), you’ll believe those as well, without question.

Your feeling, intuitive Heart is where Truth resides. The ancients who understood this maintained that our innate, true intelligence was found in the Heart, not in the brain/mind. The Heart filters out programming and tells you what you really feel, as well as what is going on energy-wise—even ahead of you seeing evidence, as opposed to the left-brain telling you what ought to think or decide the Truth is, based on your programming.

While living in New York City, someone asked me to take a road-trip to Louisiana. I went back and forth with logic about this (I did want to go, but not with that person) until I finally decided to leave all thought out of it and ask my Heart what it had to say. I got a resounding yes. I e-mailed the person and never heard back. Two days later, someone else contacted me and said he’d pay me a nice sum and all expenses to ride with his girlfriend, who was driving to Louisiana for an extended stay, and would arrange and pay for my flight back. Of course I said yes. My intuitive Heart knew I was to take the trip and that there was a better deal that would be offered. My Heart’s yes was not about the first offer, as my left-brain believed when I got the answer, but the offer I didn’t know about yet.

But we seem to continue to move further and further from listening to and operating from our Heart. The further away we move from our feeling, intuitive Heart, the further we are from being connected to the spirituality that is inherent in us and that we so deeply desire—and need. But here’s what we must Know: spirituality is not something we obtain; it’s something we already are. But we forget or never learned this, or it’s blocked behind so much that we have been taught and told. This is why listening to our Heart is not necessarily easily done: because so many others have forgotten this or have in some way been disconnected from this Truth, and they have been or are our experts, teachers, and examples.

This leads me to the verb form of orphan: to cause to become an orphan. When you see some of the stories about what’s going on in the world, do you consider them with your left-brain or right-brain only, or also with your Heart, which tells you “This isn’t right”? I saw an image that has stuck with me, of a very young black child curled into the fetal position on the dirt, belly swollen from starvation, still alive but barely. Two yards behind the child was a vulture, waiting. That was the moment when I grasped that we can look for our spirituality as far and wide as we wish, alter our appearance to look the part (as though true spirituality has a look), or do all manner of methods or practices, and still miss the fact of it as our true nature and our responsibility, because of where else we’re looking—or not looking. In this way, we all risk becoming spiritual orphans in some measure.

Perhaps the inundation of all that’s going on in the local and global communities, most of which makes no rational sense and demonstrates lack of Heart and spirituality, is contributing to making spiritual orphans of us all in some way, bit by bit, drip by drip. The more this inundation continues the more we move away from appropriate response and into overburdened senses; and our feeling, intuitive Heart becomes dulled as a self-protection mechanism. The more we move into this dulled way of being, the further away we move from not just the Truth of our spirituality but also from being and living as who we really are.

We are points of Divine Consciousness dreaming a physical experience. This statement is not airy-fairy; it’s a quantum physics fact that no one in-the-know argues with or can (any longer), but is still not being incorporated into our collective dialogues to expand our understanding of the true nature of reality and ourselves: there is only the Spiritual that exists; physical and spiritual are not separate, they are one and they are Spiritual. The way back to the Truth of who we are, to our spiritual nature, is through the feeling, intuitive Heart.

On YouTube is a 9-minute video of Erica Goldson’s 2010 high school valedictory speech. It is worth watching to hear how she explains what education is and does today, how it robs the upcoming generation of what’s needed to make a difference and to have a fulfilling life. It’s an articulate, well thought out speech from one individual who saw what-is, who proclaimed the Emperor has no clothes on, and pointed out that there are many who either see only what they’re told to see or ignore the fact of what they see. It’s brilliant, and I hope you watch it, because what she says about how students are being trained to be workers to fit employer needs rather than critical thinkers and creators, ties in with how we are being numbed to seeing, listening, and feeling with our Hearts. Look at what’s going on in schools today. Are we teaching upcoming generations that they are intelligent, creative, conscious, spiritual beings or are we teaching them to be spiritual orphans? However, it isn’t just the system. What do our own examples show them?

We might start to connect some dots using our whole brain and Heart. For example, you might read this article online: “Harvard Study: Fluoride Lowers Children’s Intelligence By Seven IQ Points,” which discusses the proven, stunning negative impacts on the brain and body in all age groups. The idea that toxins are used in this way (and in far too many other ways), despite controversy since it started, impacts us on the feeling, intuitive level, which is another form of spiritual orphaning: our left-brain argues that no one would do this knowingly (but it’s done); our right-brain doesn’t want to believe it is happening (but it is); our feeling, intuitive Heart knows it for what it is. But will we listen? 

The movement to awaken spiritual consciousness is ongoing, but is it or will it happen fast enough? It’s up to us, isn’t it? We can improve and expand our consciousness and spirituality by simply ceasing to do whatever is opposite of that, but we have to know what that is. Our feeling, intuitive Hearts can tell us, if we’ll listen and if we’ll act. Then we can be examples for others and the next generation and the next. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate. 

          

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer