Sacred Union: Journey to the Soul

By M. R. Aurisch

There was a time when the sacred was an inseparable part of the world.

But as the human mind developed, how we sensed and approached the sacred changed, and the sacred became so far removed from our soul that by the dawn of the twentieth century, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed the fall of God from the perspective of man.

Bringing the sacred back into our lives can bring us enormous benefits, but to do so, we must take an authentic look at ourselves and the world we live in.

Spiritual counselor M. R. Aurisch takes you through that process in this life-changing guide that helps you look at your life with a clear lens, so you can prepare an authentic ground from which to grow.

By turning inward, youll find God in your soul and advance on your own spiritual journey and soulful evolution.

Embark on a journey to psychospiritual becoming and recognize the spiritual, physical, and experiential aspects of being with the insights and guidance in Sacred Union.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Aug 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504313698

M. R. Aurisch

M. R. Aurisch is a spiritual counselor, educator, scholar, and healer with international experience lecturing in spirituality and integrative health. The core of her work is influenced by a diverse spirituality that teaches that we are all sacred.

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Copyright © 2018 M. R. Aurisch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1370-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1369-8 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date:    07/23/2018

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Part 1: The Transformative Spirit

Chapter 1 The Journey to the Soul

Chapter 2 Igniting The Sovereign Spirit

Chapter 3 Cultivating Inner Peace

Part 2: The Transformation of Being in the

Process of Psychospiritual Becoming

Chapter 4 The Shifting Ground of Self-Awareness

Chapter 5 Developing the Relational Self

Chapter 6 The Path of Empowerment Travels

through the Murky Sludge of Reflection

Chapter 7 The Heart of Spiritual Sovereignty

Chapter 8 Transcending Resistance

Chapter 9 Aligning to the Soul

Chapter 10 Spiritual Union

Epilogue

Selected Bibliography

About the Author

Dedication

This work is dedicated to you. I hope that you find solace, strength and inspiration amongst the pages as you embark upon the sacred journey to your soul.

Acknowledgments

To my greatest teachers, my beautiful children. The most sacred experience I have ever witnessed in this world is that of being your mother. Thank you for blessing each moment of my life and for filling my days with love and laughter. Bringing you into the world and watching you grow up has been truly miraculous in every way.

To the patience, love and support of my husband. Your gentleness, strength and endless giving humbles and inspires me. Thank you for sharing my life and for being my best friend.

To my mother and father for giving me life, for teaching me to always ask why, for showing me the beauty of the world around me and for the music that gave words to my soul. Thank you for encouraging me to find the truth and for teaching me to believe that anything is possible. My head will always be in the clouds, my heart will always be connected to others and my mind will always be curious.

To my nana for instilling the love of books in me. Reading next to you will always be one of my most treasured memories. Thank you for sharing infinite worlds and for opening my mind to all that is. To my pop for showing me the meaning of perseverance and courage. And to my brother for being my first and always friend and for being you.

With all my love, through all of time.

Prologue

Since the dawn of time, humanity has embarked upon the sacred journey to the soul. Although we have made innumerable attempts to describe this journey, many of the stories we create don’t adequately capture the reality of what an individual goes through as they navigate the path of spiritual becoming. Regardless of how we attempt to relay this experience, the only way we can arrive at the soul is to personally discover it for ourselves. Reading a recounted narrative is not the same as traversing the serpentine path that elucidates our innermost being and actualises our state of psychospiritual becoming.

Our journey to the soul was historically guided by our cultural and spiritual traditions. The sacred intimately partnered with the soul, forming a sensual bond between us and the world we inhabited. Here, the sacred could be found in all things: the earth, the sky, the sun, the moon, the breath, the body—even the kiss of a summer’s breeze. It informed our healing arts, our science, our spirituality and our society. It revealed the patterns in mathematics, the formation of language, the story of the cosmos and the nature of the soul.

We saw the sacred as an inseparable aspect of the world. But as the human mind developed, how we sensed and approached the sacred changed. The deep and intimate connection of the soul with the sacred gave way to an externalised spirituality which slowly separated the self from the soul of all things. This created a shift in how humanity perceived the sacred and our connection to it. The once personal union of the soul with the sacred had become so far removed from our origins that by the dawn of the twentieth century Nietzsche proclaimed the fall of God from the perspective of man. The mind had split the sacred from our collective consciousness.

This fissure is likely owing to the increased emphasis we placed on logical reasoning, the advancement of technology and the propagated duality of mind and body. In today’s society, the loss of spiritual connection has significantly contributed to feelings of spiritual desolation, and the journey to the soul has been largely subverted by what we think we can rationally justify and who we perceive has authority over the evidence. Where once the concept of mind was synonymous with the soul (in fact the soul was originally called ‘psyche’), over time pockets of humanity have separated the self from the spiritual, resulting in an unprecedented degree of spiritual abandonment, apathy and disconnection.

That the modern mind has temporarily split the sacred from consciousness is inconsequential to the soul, for the mind has always possessed a tendency to do so. The natural affinity of the soul towards sacred becoming is such that no moment in history nor propensity of mind could keep the soul from finding its way back to the sacred path. Whether we seek to find our soul reflected through an established tradition or whether we journey towards it by our own accord, the process of spiritual becoming consistently takes us on a transcendent journey through the psyche and into the depths of our own beings. For all of us, this is a very personal process of discovery. However, for those who find themselves on this path without a spiritual framework to guide them, the experience can be confusing and disorienting, and at times it can be utterly frightening.

Though we may partner with others along the way in order to bring forth insight and awareness, the truth is that no one else can take this journey for us, for the experience of drawing oneself closer to the soul is as intimate as the most precious whisper and as unique as seven billion glistening snowflakes melting on the wave of your single breath. The journey to the self is a uniquely sacred passage of psychospiritual becoming.

As you progress through the pages of this book, I will guide you through the hallmarks common to the various phases of psychospiritual becoming. These examples will serve as indicators to help you identify yourself within each stage of development, enabling you to feel grounded and secure along the way. However, as each person’s experience is different and unique only to them, I recommend that you not attach to specificity, but instead trust that your intention will guide your spirit through your own inherent process, bringing you deeper into your self with each passage that you contemplate and traverse.

Though you will journey through this process on your own, please know that at no time are you ever truly alone. I will be with you at all times through your journey to your self, and we will be joined by your most sacred and trusted friend—your deeply sacred soul. Even at the most challenging of times, please trust that your sacred self will never abandon you, for when you find yourself lost in your darkest place, your soul is always there to reflect back the truth that will light your way. The challenge will always be in your capacity to trust that this is continually occurring and in coming to know this as one of your greatest strengths.

Herein lies the most ethical truth that we are all responsible to—on the most fundamental level all things are connected. In embarking on your sacred journey to the soul, you bring the awareness of a sacred humanity to all whom you encounter. For as each whisper begins with an inhaled breath, every encounter we have is a reflection of the state of your spirit, and therefore holds the potential of your own becoming.

Some say we are human beings having a spiritual experience. Others say we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Both perspectives are correct, for they each recognise the spiritual, physical and experiential aspects of being. In this text, the terms ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ will be used to describe the states in which we find ourselves. It is important to recognise that the two terms are not interchangeable but are intended to describe two distinct manifestations of being and two uniquely distinct processes of psychospiritual development. The spirit is the animation of the soul, experiencing the physical world through the many encounters of our daily lives. The soul is the wise and eternally sacred you—it is your truest and eternal friend. It is through the process of spiritual development that the spirit evolves, grows and eventually transcends the self as it draws closer to the centre of our soul, uniting us with the core of our being.

To better describe this process, I ask that you draw the mind to a mental image. In a safe and comfortable place, please bring your attention to the image of a rose bud. As this image comes into focus, imagine that the petals of the rose are drawn closely around its centre, in such a way that they prevent the inner petals from being seen—tightly, securely, nestled around the rose’s core. While we know intellectually that the rose has a centre, the tightly encapsulated bud conceals the centre from our vision, and the core is hidden from those looking in from the outside. For what we see we perceive and what we perceive we know to be. As the rose matures, it begins to open, gently unfolding each delicate layer so that each opens to that which came before and that which comes after, until the rose reveals the centre of its self. The pollen from which life begins is exposed to the petals that look upon it. Through this process, each layer of the rose elegantly unfolds to uncover that which was deeper and more interior to that which was known before it. There is a gentleness and synergy to this imagery, as one’s mind moves in awareness from that which is tangible and easily perceptible towards an awareness of the intangible centre of that which is yet to be seen and therefore is yet to be known.

It would be remiss of me not to tell you about another image that is often used to describe the process of spiritual unfolding—and that is the image an onion. Or, more precisely, peeling back the layers of an onion. It is important for you to be aware of this image also, because at times the process of spiritual growth may feel like peeling yourself through a tough, thick and opaque substance, such that when we begin to remove the layers of the self which have become crusted over, we notice the sting of our actions and may cry at the experience of prying open the resistant, rigid layers of our being. Allow your mind to rest gently on these two images and do not become attached to either.

Your process of spiritual becoming and your eventual transcendence may feel like the gentle unfolding of soft and luxurious rose petals, or it might feel similar to the tearing apart of a rigid armoured skin. You may experience a mixture of each of these sensations as you journey to your soul, or the two might be so intricately intertwined that at times the distinct perception of pleasure and pain is wholly indistinguishable to you. The process of spiritual development is not meant to be painful, but some periods of your growth might be more challenging than others. It is important that you know this ahead of time so that you don’t become attached and distracted by those experiences when you encounter them. This awareness will ease your mind and hasten your transition.

As you embark on the journey to your soul, please trust yourself and know that your soul would not have brought you to this place if it were not right for you. As you enter into the various stages inherent to your process of psychospiritual becoming, I recommend that you intentionally remind yourself that your spirit would not have brought you to that place if you did not already possess the capacity to make it through. Know that the act of reading these pages will progress your growth through your commitment to transcendence. Trust that this is your rightful course, and enjoy the revelation of your soul as you step onto the path of your soulful discovery.

Regardless of whether you locate yourself within a religion, draw from resonate aspects of many religions or ascribe to no religion at all, this text will guide your spirit along its sacred path of psychospiritual becoming. As you traverse the pages, you may find that you need to pause on certain sections to let the content integrate into your consciousness for some of it may feel heavy and unfamiliar. There is no rush. Through this process, the sacred will be restored to you as you awaken to the magnificence of your true and authentic self. May the journey to your self be joyous, and may you always remember who you are.

Part I

The Transformative Spirit

Chapter 1

The Journey to the Soul

The journey that you will take through these pages wholly regards the restoration of the sacred to the heart of humanity. I have termed it ‘the process of psychospiritual becoming’ because when you step upon this path you undertake a sacred journey through your psychological and spiritual states of being, so that you become fully awakened to the nature of your true self. In this process you become your true self, brought to your soul by way of your spirit. The journey to the soul brings you to an awareness of your authentic being so that you may come to live your life animated by the sacredness that rests within you.

In embarking on the journey to the soul, the soul invites us to meet our authentic self, so that the mind can know the true nature of who we are. As we progress down the path, the soul will reveal the many facets of our nature so that our current state of awareness and understanding of the self can be transformed to embody our inherent identity. In turning the mind around, our actions better reflect our soul and our lives become an expression of our original principle.

The journey to the soul is a gradual process of spiritual transformation, because if the soul were to bring us to this state immediately, the nature of the mind is such that it would likely refuse to go along for the ride. The transformed spiritual way of being is significantly different from how we currently know ourselves to be; it is a state that we are yet to be awakened to. To the mind, the ‘end state’ of our spiritual becoming (the state to which the psychospiritual journey ultimately takes us) feels incongruent with what it knows and would be perceived as a threat to our current way of existing. The mind, then, would serve to protect us from any perceived harm by preventing our perception of it. Acknowledging the nature of the mind on the journey to psychospiritual becoming, the soul works in a gradual way, progressively bringing us through ourselves in order to reveal itself to us.

To arrive at the transformed state of psychospiritual being, we must first take an authentic look at the many things that contribute to our lives so that we can better understand ourselves, each other and the world we live in. Although the process of self and external reflection is necessary, it will likely feel quite confrontational, as the soul asks that you look at the reality of your life with a clear lens so that you may prepare an authentic ground from which you can grow. In understanding this, you have already begun to prepare yourself to embark on the journey of your alchemical spiritual transcendence.

Tradition

Most of the world’s societies have developed and used an array of spiritual traditions to awaken an individual or collective experience of the soul. Through these traditions, humanity was able to gain access to our sacred spirituality via the rites of passage that were available to us at the time. This phenomenon is a universal