The way God wants you to feel inside is way beyond anything you have felt before. Being reborn in love means gaining a new profound innocence that can never be corrupted regardless of anything you experience. It means being in a state of grace where you positively glow from feeling God’s living presence in your life. You will know from personal experience that love is the greatest power in existence. Feeling overwhelming love and expressing love in everything you do makes life intensely satisfying.
However, once we start receiving divine love, those tender shoots that are growing within us will almost certainly be overshadowed most or all of the time by our material minds. In my case, my mind continued to be just as judgemental, argumentative, rigid and self-righteous as ever. In short, my normal thought processes were based on an underlying ‘wilfulness’ that was contrary to how God wanted me to be. Sure, at some point one will have received enough divine love that our normal awareness will be subordinate to our soul consciousness as it comes into ascendancy. We will then experience a state of divine grace, which will eventually become constant. However, the process can be accelerated if we make a conscious effort to surrender this wilful part of ourselves to God. We do this by refusing to indulge our normal bad habits when we become aware of them and by earnestly asking God to remove this part of our being, along with all the conditioning that we have accumulated since birth that is not in harmony with God. It may seem we are losing a fundamental part of our identity but nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, we will start to find our true self, a gentler, compassionate self that is more aligned to God’s will. This elimination of the ‘false’ self in us in favour of a new soul-based consciousness is not altogether dissimilar to the spiritual awakening that those on some other spiritual paths seek. Except that divine love brings a much more profound element to the experience and presents us with a path of eternal progress.
A key element in the battle between mind and soul is being aware of the consequences of our thoughts and the desirability of not indulging in habitual negative thinking. Another is to avoid pursuing happiness by filling our lives with constant distractions, which is often just a way of covering up underlying unhappiness and feelings of emptiness. If we repeatedly indulge in negativity, we cloak our souls in increasing darkness like layers of an onion. Light (love) becomes restricted in terms of its ability to enter and leave our souls. The effects of this are semi-permanent in that the darkness stays with us indefinitely until remedial action of some kind is taken. For some, negativity becomes a vicious downward cycle that they feel powerless to break out of. The most effective way to counter this condition, which affects us all to some extent, is to pray frequently for divine love.
Over the course of a human life a great deal of darkness can stick to one’s soul. In extreme cases, one rash, foolish or thoughtless negative act can lead to a lifetime of self-inflicted suffering, which can leave us in very poor soul condition, which in turn brings more suffering until the underlying conditions are removed. The opposite is also true. Gaining a single drop of divine love, even if you are not conscious of it, may at some point open the door that eventually leads to the celestial kingdom. It is said that God helps those who help themselves. When we are aligned with God’s will and devote ourselves to doing God’s work, we bring a multitude of blessings into our lives automatically. Things start to fall into place, beneficial relationships are made, our health may improve, we receive greater help and protection, we experience more peace and joy, etc.
At times, especially when you feel no progress is being made, praying and spiritual effort of any kind can seem like an unwelcome chore. We can start to doubt our beliefs and feel we are unworthy of divine love. In these situations we should persevere, especially with prayer. We should pray until we feel a connection with God and that our prayer has invoked a response. Faith is what causes the things we desire to materialise in our lives and we can pray for more faith if this is an issue. In my case, I harboured feelings of emptiness and mundaneness for years, which made it difficult to connect to God when praying. I decided to continue only because I knew I’d definitely experienced receiving divine love at times and because I truly believed in the power of divine love to utterly transform me. I found it useful to pray for others whenever I felt caught up in myself. I would go back and reread all the divine love material I could find. A lot of contemporary Padgett-inspired books and websites deal with the challenges of the divine path and I have often come across inspiring messages that were particularly relevant to the situation I found myself in. Eventually, my spiritual condition would improve and I would become aware that I was making progress again. Divine love comes to us a drop at a time and it is not until a lot has been accumulated that we can look back and recognise how much we have changed. That is why faith and perseverance are so important. No-one said it would be easy.
It has been said that if you can make a start on the divine path while you are on earth then it makes it much easier to progress after transitioning to the spirit world. Most people in the world today are unaware of divine love and so don’t get the opportunity to consciously choose or reject this path. Even in the spirit world, many progress to a state of considerable contentment in the higher spirit spheres and have no interest in what may lie beyond. We are told that at some point in the future the celestial kingdom will be considered complete and the gates will be closed to new entrants forever. Since becoming divine is the highest path available to us, it’s crucial that those of us who know about divine love should do all we can to promote a widespread awareness of its existence. Of course, we should respect the free will of others and never force our views onto anyone. If you are shining a divine light from inside you then you will naturally attract the curiosity of those who are seeking meaning in their lives, perhaps without them even being aware of what they are looking for. Through synchronicity and the law of attraction your path will cross with that of others who have similar interests or who need your help. There are opportunities to be of service every day and we should take note of any impulse we feel, often subtle, to offer help to others.
It is a common reaction to doubt that a loving God would ever close the celestial kingdom while large numbers of spirits remain outside. However, God presents us with a continuous stream of opportunities and gifts and a curious but vital fact arises in connection with this benevolence. If we choose to wilfully ignore what God places in front of us then that opportunity or gift may at some point be withdrawn and it cannot be assumed that it will be granted again in the future. It is said that the first humans (represented as Adam and Eve in the bible) rejected God’s original offer of divine love (resulting in the fall of man) and so the opportunity was withdrawn and only bestowed again with the coming of Jesus many millennia later. The consequences of our free-will choices can indeed be far reaching. The full facts surrounding the predicted closing of the celestial kingdom are unknown to anyone but God at this stage; however, those closest to God tell us not to doubt God’s infinite love for all of us. Everyone will be given ample opportunity to choose the divine path leading to the celestial kingdom.
In our daily lives we adopt countless mental ‘poses’ that create a significant barrier between us and God. It’s so natural that we don’t even realise, even after we start experiencing divine love. Meanwhile, God and God’s love just is. The truth is so simple that we fail to recognise it. Our minds doubt – or forget – that a simple, heartfelt prayer will connect us to God and bring love into our souls and so we spend our lives in endless intellectual analysis from which we derive little spiritual benefit. Intellectual belief in itself doesn’t bring us closer to God, at least not directly. At best, it may strengthen our will to spend time making room for God in our lives. That notwithstanding, typically most of our thoughts do not bring us closer to God.
Removing the barriers created by the mind is the greatest challenge on the divine path. Yes, divine love does change us and gradually removes these barriers but we need to try to remember God as often as possible in our daily lives, even if just for a few seconds or minutes at a time whenever our attention is not required to be actively engaged elsewhere. I am reminded of Brother Lawrence, a 17th century French Carmelite friar. He devoted his entire life, even during daily duties at his monastery, focusing on feeling the living presence of God. Regardless of his exact beliefs, I have no doubt that this practice would have brought a great deal of divine love into his soul. Most of us these days would be unable or unwilling to follow his example and would see his behaviour as extreme and unpalatable, even if we were to admire his dedication. That said, what are we spending our time on that will make us happier than when we feel God’s actual presence in our lives?
The Padgett Messages - The Core Truths 