Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. And today we will be talking about finding your path. Very interesting topic, but before we get started, please consider like sharing and subscribing. As you know, YouTube uses this to trip the algorithm and get this content out to more and more people. And also please consider sharing this with your friends and family as well. So, Finding Your Path, as I was thinking about this, I really felt a lot of mercy in my heart. Kind of tugged on my heart strings because this whole podcast is geared towards kind of people in my generation. People the generation that grew up in the 70s and 80s that maybe were very outwardly focused, maybe didn't really focus too much on spirituality, maybe got disenchanted with. traditional religions and so forth, maybe did go after a lot of different religions. It's really for anyone who would like to learn how to be more spiritual, not necessarily religious, but spiritual, meaning that I'm more responsible for my mind. I'm trying to learn who I am as a soul and so forth. So anyway, that's the reason why this podcast exists. But today I'm going to talk about finding your path. What is the path? What do I mean by a path? I mean, A way for the individual to move forward in the quest for, let's say, self realization or the quest for being closer to God or the quest for finding peace in the world or the quest for being happy. Or in harmony, each of us has our own, let's say branch of the tree that we belong to. Let's say the tree with all the branches of the different religions, perhaps the tree of life and all of us have like a home branch. And I'm going to say that now is a very good time for each of us to take a look and see which branch or which path do I belong on. And what I'm going to discuss today is how do I know. It's my path. How do I know if I even want a path? And so forth. So there's a lot of people out there who are not necessarily looking for a path. Maybe they're just looking to not be so upset or to have more power in their life or something like that. I wasn't looking for God. I wasn't looking for another spiritual practice when I found this. I was actually just going about my life and It turns out that I found this at a time when I was in a very emotionally debilitated state, which kind of makes sense because you hit rock bottom and then you would find something, right? But I would say that you don't have to have the desire to be with God to start a spiritual practice. You don't have to have the desire to be in a religion to start something. I think that it's universally advantageous. for each soul, each of us to take a look and try to work on our own mind, let's say, work on our behavior trying to always improve, right? Trying to improve yourself. And I think spiritual practice, whether it's religion, whether it's spirituality, like we are talking about raw yoga meditation practice here, but there are many, many paths out there. There's traditional religions and so forth. What I wrote here is what is a spiritual path? I wrote something that you take on to help you to move from one awareness of yourself, the world and reality into another. I'm thinking of some celebrities right now. I'm thinking of one celebrity who had a spiritual awakening experience. And now this person is talking about, unlimited awareness and that we're not really the person we think we are. We're actually unlimited consciousness and this person is out there and he's a celebrity. And then there's another celebrity that I'm thinking of right now who just became a born again Christian who now is really following Jesus Christ and following and reading the Bible and following that. I'm sure, I can't really be positive, but it seems to me that both of those people didn't think that they were looking for that when they found it. I think that each of us deserves and each of us belongs, belonging, has a feeling of belonging to something out there that it would touch us deep inside. So I can share a little bit about my experience with this. So I wasn't looking for God. Like I said, I really felt like, me and God were fine, but I was going about my life and I was about 40 years old and I used to get my astrology chart done every year for my birthday. And I went there for my birthday and I was doing the chart and I had an experience that I couldn't explain. It had nothing to do with what was in the chart. I had this, an elevated awareness. That I, it was new and I couldn't really explain it and I couldn't really explain it to her either. It was something very internal and it got me to looking. It got me to searching. And then I eventually found this because somebody at work was a Brahma Kumari and it introduced me. And as soon as I heard the knowledge, I was like, that's it. And I never turned back. That doesn't mean that this is for everyone. It just means that it's possible what I'm trying to share with this episode is that it's possible for each of us to have that kind of an experience like this is it. This is for me. Whether it's Brahma Kumaris, whether it's Christianity, whether it's Buddhism, whether it's transcendental meditation, each of us has. The opportunity now to look and see that I can really belong. The feeling of belonging is very important for our health, our mental health, our spiritual health. I didn't think I was gonna say what I'm saying right now, but I'm gonna say that I think it can help us to feel more stable in the face of all the changes in the world. I'm not necessarily talking about organized religion, although that may be. Your path, but the feeling of belonging meaning that I know that this is for me It's like nobody told me I knew as soon as I heard the knowledge. You are a soul. I was like, that's it I think we all deserve that kind of a recognition and I can't it's funny because I can't really describe to you what that did for me. It was the beginning of my spiritual path. Let's say It marked the beginning of my spiritual path that moment when I said this is it for me I saw that other celebrity I was mentioning about being a christian and i'm sure he was exposed to christianity before He didn't show up to me like a very religious person At all before this, but now he's really serious. He found that that added to his self respect. So maybe we grew up in a situation or had experiences in the past where religion has disappointed us. Spirituality doesn't make sense to us. God seems like an abstraction. Everything just seems like it's kind of floated away from me. I don't relate to anything spiritual. So all of those things that I have just mentioned become like a burden that I'm trying to relieve myself of because maybe it was disappointing. I grew up Catholic, so I was thinking about, different things that happened in the church that was very disappointing and it was a letdown. And so you feel, Oh, I can't look up to them. I can't look up to them. I can't look up to them, but maybe And I guess what I'm trying to say is when you find your path, it doesn't take away from you. It builds you up. It adds to you. It helps you feel stable. And I think all of us could use that. So how do I get started? Well, I was talking to somebody, one of the other episodes we had, Karen Peruse in here as a little interview. She's a spiritual life coach. She's also a Brahma Kumari. And she was sharing how some people do buffet style spirituality. where they just stay in this idea of, Oh, I'm going to take a little from this and a little from this and a little from this and a little from this. And that's okay. At least you're learning about different things, but I would say that it's better to try it on, like really try on something. Let's say I want to try on Christianity. So you go to the church and you say, listen, I don't know if I really like this or not, but I want to learn about it. I really want to give it a shot. So for a month, I'm going to do everything. That there is with Christianity. Let me go to the Bible groups. Let me try it on. Let me see. I would say that within a little while, you'd know if this is for you or not. I want to say it's roughly like dating. Doesn't it sound like dating in a way? Like I'm trying on this, I'm trying like you're dating, but then when you find the right one, you're done. That's it. You don't need to try any more on. But I guess what I'm saying to, to the people out there who are listening to this, who think I don't really need anything. That's okay. But I do want to say that. From my experience, having a, spiritually based, if you want to call it religion or path that I'm following helps me to be able to detach and protect myself from reactions that I've had in the past. So other things that maybe I would have reacted to in the past in the world, I feel better about now. That's the spiritual path has helped me with that. I'm using Christianity as examples over and over again, because that's where I'm most familiar. Other than Brahma Kumaris, but, the Christianity, you can see how there's people of faith. There's somebody in my family, my sister, her sister in law. So there was some deaths in the family, a bunch of deaths in the family and my sister's sister in law is a Catholic and she is very active in the church. And I remember looking at her, she had lost her son and her brother in law, her son and my sister's husband, my brother in law too. But I had watched her. She had lost those two people within a month's time, her son and her brother in law. And I remember. What do you say to a mother that lost a son? And I remember she was a pillar of strength. And it wasn't phony, like I guess I, I'm always like have the phony meter up like that. It's, I want it to be real, right? But she was very, very calm. It was touching. Like I'm getting emotional thinking about it. She was very calm and her faith was very, very strong. Like in the face of that, her love for God and her faith. was stronger than the grief. It doesn't mean that she didn't feel grief, but something was stronger than the grief. So what is the benefit of finding a spiritual path? What is the benefit of finding the one that matches you? You will be able to build yourself that kind of faith and that kind of resilience. And that kind of perspective that will help you in all of life situations. I feel that that is the reason for religion. Religion is not really there for us to worship the people and feel bad and whatever. It's there for us to follow if it's a match, if it's a match for you. If it's not a match for you, keep searching, keep going, keep trying other things on until you find it. I do find that you really do feel stable once you find it. It's like, okay, done. Something feels better inside. So I'll leave you with one last thing I wrote down here. So a little advice all religions have a right to be here. So here's the other thing. If I pick a religion or if I pick a spiritual path, there's no need to judge others. Every single soul has a right to choose their own path and all the other paths are here for a reason. It's okay. It doesn't hurt me if you're following Buddhism. It doesn't hurt me if you're following, Islam or Judaism or any of the religions, or it doesn't bother me if you're an atheist. If that's the thing that makes you feel good or, I don't know if atheism can be called a spiritual path, but maybe agnostic or something like that. There are other ways to, to look into this for yourself. I wrote here, use your journey as an opportunity to develop a universal love, understanding and an open heart. So for those of you who are searching for your path, For those of you who don't even know if you need a path or want a path, maybe the promise of being able to be resilient and get stronger and be powerful in your life, to be able to be the master of your own life. The master of your own mind and also that your heart would have hope in a situation, whether it's belief in God or, mastering your own mind or understanding the universality of everything or believing in Jesus Christ or whatever it is. Whatever the match is for you, that you can use that as a reserve, a resource. For hope and support for yourself when there's nothing else there you have that it's very beautiful and powerful it is possible to get past the traumas from our past religious experiences and take it on as it's I think it's meant to be which is as a support and a growth potential and a way to empower ourselves So i'll leave it there. I hope that gave some food for thought. And again, for those of you who aren't looking for a path, maybe take on wait a minute. Okay. Maybe I'm not really looking for religion, but she's thinking, she's saying that maybe there's some other things to be gained here. Maybe I'll take a look. The Brahma Kumaris information is in the description below. And I have found for me that this was the path for me. It embraces, uh, all the other religions. It's, it doesn't have any, dogma, let's say for me, it's pure spiritual science, that made a lot of sense to me. And also it's giving me the room to get in touch with my own heart and my own, love for the world, let's say. Okay. So remember our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And so until next time, thank you for being here. Take care. You
