INNER LIGHT MINISTRIES JOURNAL
LONGING OF THE SOUL
VOLUME 17 NUMBER 3
SEPTEMBER, 2006
by Jim Gordon, President of ILM
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(from the talk, Greater Depth In Meditation - 9/6/05)
here is an energy on the planet at this time that carries a lot of questioning of the “why” of things. “Why is this happening?” “Why is the same thing happening again?” “Why not something different?” “Why does this have to be?” The questioning is rising up all over the planet. One thing I have seen in my inner experiences is that this planet has always been the same: it is a school, an opportunity of learning for the soul to have experience here, to learn here, to grow. And it is ever the same. If you went to an elementary school, and then left it and went on to middle school, and on up to high school, and maybe to college and beyond, and then you returned back to the elementary school, you would find that it is very much the same today as it was fifteen years ago, thirty years ago, fifty years ago, whenever it was you left it. It’s very much the same. There may be different teachers in the classrooms, the furniture may be different if they are lucky, but it is still the same: the same situations, the same lessons. And so it is with this planet: it is a school, it is an opportunity of learning here. And it remains the same and the lessons just repeat over, and over, and over — until the soul “gets it.” How many times have I said I’m going to repeat it over, and over, and over until you get it … there will be a day when all of a sudden you will go, “Oh I get what he is talking about.” Or you’ll say, “Golly, why didn’t you ever say it like that before, I’ve never heard you say that before!” … when in truth I’ve said it over and over the same way or very similarly. So it is with life in general, that this universe, this planet repeats lessons over, and over, and over so that the soul, through that repetition, gets each lesson learned, gets each lesson experienced and fulfilled. And when we have gone through those repetitions, when we have learned those lessons, that’s when the soul begins to long to go home. Up until then, the soul
knows it wants something, but it is looking downward and outward into the world for its fulfillment. But when we fulfill all the lessons that are here for us to have, the soul begins to know and begins to look elsewhere — and that’s what the longing of the soul is about. The soul is longing for God. The longing is to return home from which we came, to unite once again with the Lord. And what I hope is that in all of ILM’s sharings and guided meditations, and in your daily practice of meditation, you’re beginning to feel and to know the inner call and the inner longing, because that is God calling us home. It is like a tug on the string of a puppet: the puppet sits limp and motionless until the puppeteer comes and begins to play with the strings, and then the puppet comes alive and moves around. Well, in a very similar fashion, it’s when God calls us home, when he pulls upon our little life cord that connects us back home to God, that the soul begins to go, “Oh, it’s not here, it’s not in the world. I feel that ‘call up’, I feel the tug up, I’m longing for something ‘up’.” And then we begin a different journey, an inward journey, going back home to God. It’s through that inner call, that inner tug, that God provides for us the signal for that return to begin. So begin to pay attention to the longing of the soul. The soul is truly longing to go home, but often times we, at the mind level, misinterpret that feeling, that longing, that wanting. We misinterpret it ‘into the world’ and so we are ever longing for more money, or more possessions, or more things of the world in some form or fashion. And we misidentify that longing and we misdirect the energy of that longing back out into the world, and then we wonder why we aren’t getting fulfillment: neither fulfillment in the outer world, nor in the inner world through our meditation. If you’re not finding a true inner experience, begin to listen to the inner call of the soul wanting to go home, and allow yourself to become sensitive enough to feel it, to know it, to hear it, to see it, however it comes alive for you, because it is truly that longing that will get you to sit down and meditate — not just for five minutes but for hours on end.