An Endless Quest for Spiritual Truth: A Practical Guide to Everyday Spirituality

THE QUEST

FOR GOD’S LOVE

A Practical Guide to Spirituality

in Everyday Life

Eric Chifunda

Copyright © 2021 Eric Chifunda

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2021

ISBN 978-1-63338-322-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63338-323-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Other books by Eric Chifunda

SELECTED INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

POTENT QUOTES FOR SOUL : Uplifting Quotes for a Fresher Perspective

Preface

Growing up, I wondered about life. I was in search of something beyond the everyday humdrum life we seem to go through, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I thought I had a sense of what it was, yet not quite. It seemed real and palpable yet intangible and elusive.

It seemed far yet as near as my heartbeat. I knew with curious certainty that it was something that could show me the way; The way to a new and brighter tomorrow with a promise of freedom from the shackles of this world. I felt that I wasn’t going to rest till I found it. I hoped that finding it would help unravel the mystery of my unfulfilled life.

I had a deeper, unquenchable desire to understand life in general and my life at a deeper level. Questions about who I was, where I was coming from, where I was going to and why I was here taunted me.

I often felt I was at the mercy of life—a life that seemed random. The paradox was that I felt I was alive, yet at the same time, I was asleep—spiritually. Deep down within me was a yearning to wake up—spiritually. Hoping that by waking up from my apparent spiritual slumber, I would begin to live a life with meaning and purpose. Not forgetting to be cognizant of the fact that life has unending traps that come in different subtle but enticing and well-packaged guises designed to lead one astray. Not forgetting how temptations constantly dog us, trying to trip us so we can yield to them. Should I yield to temptations, get trapped, and fall, as I often have, I would fail in my quest for deeper truth about life. But if I had an awakened consciousness, I could muster up enough strength and courage to rise and continue on my life journey, stronger, wiser, and with clearer sight. With clearer sight, I could sidestep life’s unnecessary traps that serve to cause unnecessary pain and suffering. With clearer sight, I could select to endure the pains only which are necessary for my growth.

Questions upon questions, my search for the unknown seemed unending. Finally, at the height of my long apparent futile search, feeling worn, tired, frustrated, driven to the brink of giving up the quest for the call of unknown truth, an epiphany hit me. It felt like a sharp ray of light pierced through my hardened and closed consciousness, lighting up my inner world. I caught a glimpse of a new world; at the same time, I experienced a much-needed reprieve from the pressures of my daily grind, if only for a fleeting moment. Momentarily, I enjoyed a brief foretaste of heavenly joy, beyond words, that would await me should I fully awaken to this higher unknown inner reality. Suddenly, it became apparent that it’s Light I have been searching for. Light emanating from a higher source I understood to be God. The Light of God to guide me along the apparent random and uncertain journey of my life. In the Light, I can awaken to higher truth, love, freedom, wisdom, and joy. In the Light, I can begin to move, live, and experience life in its fullness. Is there more to life than Light? Is Light an aspect of God’s love? I began to wonder. It would be a long while later that I would come to learn about Sound as the other aspect of God’s love. A deep desire to understand God’s love, its nature, its role in our everyday life, its reality, its source, and all things God began to gnaw at me. I felt that Light would lead me to higher truth. And in light, my ardent quest for spiritual truth about life and God’s love began.

Acknowledgments

I want to express my deepest gratitude to my friend and former co-worker, Edwil Barquin, for asking me a seemingly simple question out of the blue while at work. When are you going to write your book? he casually asked me, catching me off guard as I had not thought of writing a book at that time, though I had been privately writing in my journal my perceptions and insights about life for years without any plan to write a book. His question triggered an idea I had not thought of until that moment.

I also want to express my eternal gratitude to Harold Klemp, my teacher, my friend, who has inspired me beyond words.

I owe Michele Bluestone a debt of gratitude for her helpful suggestion about the book format in the early stage of the manuscript.

I would be remiss not to express my grateful thanks to my good friend, Isabel Chuang, for her unflagging support and encouragement.

A special word of thanks also belongs to Bobbi Hicks for her helpful, expert guidance and suggestions that were given so generously while I was revising this book. Not to forget, the knowledge I gained from attending one of her great entrepreneur trainings, part of which underscored the essential role of including timelines when you set goals, which I applied. This helped me in completing my manuscript in a timelier manner.

My heartfelt thanks also go to Linda Anderson, who, through a chance encounter at an ECK seminar, answered some questions about book publishing which helped set me on the right course.

Prologue

Our quest for happiness, for a higher version of ourselves, for greater life fulfillment, is a quest for God’s love, knowingly or unknowingly, irrespective of one’s religion or belief system or whether one believes in God or a higher power or not. God’s love that undergirds, sustains, nourishes all life speaks to all hearts; it’s available to all living forms, all God’s creations. From God issues God’s love that permeates all aspects of life. Thus God’s love is everywhere all around us. Yet, not many are aware of the many faces it manifests in our everyday life. It is so subtle, so commonplace, so basic that often we overlook it.

God’s love is an elusive silent presence; it is what makes you smile, laugh, love, sacrifice for another, happy, wise, free, strong. Anyone can experience these positive aspects more profoundly once one embarks on the quest to expand one’s consciousness, which increases the capacity to experience more of God’s love. Awakening to God’s love in its varied everyday manifestations can enable one to accept and partake of it more consciously readily. The journey to uncover God’s love can slowly transform one into a more loving and free person.

As you delve into this book, page by page or randomly, keep your mind and heart open and explore the tapestry of some aspects of God’s love interwoven in many and varied strata of our everyday lives.

Life

What Is Life?

Life is what you make it, is a common refrain. True, but not so simplistic. The truth of the matter is that there are two aspects to life: the visible outer day-to-day life and secondly the nonphysical, hidden, limitless, spiritual side, where night dreams appear and beyond, the one we know less about and to which we pay the barest attention. To understand the depth and truth about life, we need to plumb its depth.

Life is sacred as it is sustained by the life force, Divine Spirit, God’s love, the essence of God. Life is designed to lead Soul back to God whence it came from. Life should progressively lead one to greater awareness and greater love for God.

In the beginning, Soul was undeveloped, untested, therefore immature. The process of growth through a variety of life experiences gradually raises Soul to a level of maturity in its conscious knowingness of its mission and relationship with God.

In the initial stage, life may seem unconnected to learning about love for God, but that of living it at a basic human level centered on one’s basic physical level. The awakening of consciousness through proper spiritual training and the right life experiences leads one to expand one’s awareness gradually to the point of living a life of serving others instead of self only.

Despite all the hardships in our life journey, as one expands in consciousness and understanding, one begins to realize that life is intended to lead one to God via love. And the difficulties we face along the way are designed to temper Soul, awaken us to our true spiritual nature—a side of us that is indestructible. This realization of our eternal nature changes the way we view life; therefore, how we live our lives.

With awakened consciousness, we are able to see that life and our physical surroundings are not static. Though they may appear fixed, they are fluid and can be molded to our choosing to make our lives better. Despite all the pains in life, we begin to view life as not something to run away from, but to be fully lived and embraced. Such is life, such is its simple yet complex nature, and to understand it and enjoy it greatly, one must learn to recognize its profound hidden meaning, which can be facilitated by awakening one’s consciousness.

Answers to Life

There is a spiritual answer to every question. However, life does not come with a manual to guide us toward all the answers we need. During periods of turmoil, doubt, anxiety, adversity, trials, or when at crossroads, we wish God could give us easy clear answers about what to do or the right direction to go. Why doesn’t God give us easy clear messages? Could it be that the messages are clear, except our hearing and sight are faulty? Could it be that Divine Spirit is always trying to guide us in the right direction, but either we are not aware, or we refuse to follow? Could it be that we hold on to old ways tenaciously that we resist new and right ways that may come about? Could it be that we have not purified our hearts enough to hear the guiding voice of God? Could it be that God is always present with us, but we are not always available to God because of our own ignorance, pride, or stubbornness? As the Christian bible aptly states, something to the effect that we have eyes, but we don’t see, and we have ears, but we don’t hear. This implies that our dependency on our limited physical eyes and ears does not allow us to see spiritual realities because they are outside the range of our physical senses. Hence, to view spiritual truth, we have to forego the use of our limited physical senses and use our spiritual faculties that are designed to gain knowledge of Godhood.

It seems that our need for God grows greater when we are having a difficult time. Our need for help seems to make us want God more. Therefore we tend to be closer to God during these difficult times. And when our needs are fulfilled by the grace of God, we are the last to remember to thank God. At that time, our attention is no longer on God because the need for God is no longer there. Without consistent attention on God, our understanding of God’s ways will be wanting. Therefore when God speaks, we won’t hear because we are not familiar with His ways, His language, His voice. It seems life’s answers are for those who have learned to hear and see through their spiritual eyes and ears.

To get answers, one ought to be ready to see and hear when they come. The difficulty is that life’s answers may come in ways that are unexpected. Thus they may come in a way we might not recognize if our hearts are not ready and open to God’s ways. Thus it takes an awakened heart to recognize, receive, and accept answers from God. If we expect to get anything of worth from life, we must do our part—that’s putting in work truthfully. The more we expect from life, the harder we have to work in whatever endeavor we choose. That’s the way life works. As we get a good return from life, we must be grateful. Being grateful prepares our hearts to receive more of life’s gifts. Answers come more easily to one with a grateful heart because a grateful heart is an open heart. And an open heart is a receptive heart. A receptive heart is a golden heart. A heart of gold is a loving heart; a loving heart has a direct link to God.

And therein lies the key to getting answers from God.

Life Goes On

Life is a mystery, yet not so to those whose spiritual eyes and ears are trained and open. Life never stops here when one dies. Life stops here only as an illusion. Death never takes away life in the real spiritual sense. Life goes on, on and on beyond the reaches of human consciousness, to the very heart of God. Beyond death, beyond dreams, beyond the world of appearances as we know it here in the physical world, there’s continuity of life.

There’s eternal life. Life beyond our reach yet within our reach—higher life than our minds can fathom. In higher life, we find higher truth. Most people don’t want truth. Yet it is in the truth that we discover a new life concept. But we need a paradigm shift to open us to a new world. A world filled with light, love, beauty unmatched here on earth. A higher world imbued with the pure light of God in which we can find wisdom,