The Kenya Experience

A good friend of mine has been following these posts and asked me in a private email did my experience in Kenya test my belief or faith and did I believe any differently now than I did before I left?

I sent this reply to her email, but I thought I’d share it with those of you who read this blog.

To wit:

Dear ............

I don’t believe that the All That Is tests us. We test ourselves by the experiences we choose in life in order to grow into our own divinity. I believe no soul is made to do anything or given any experience, terrible or pleasant, that was not designed in the spirit world by that soul for the purpose of glorifying God and advancing individual spiritual growth. All of this is done before entry into this world.

This thinking is inimical to the constricting dogmas of some religions, but in my experience and as I see it, it is a spiritual truth for me. It does not hinder the foundational truths of most religions and it allows me to understand and accept the tragedies and trials of this finite world.

There is not one path to God. All paths lead to God, even a path through the slums of Nairobi.

As I walked through the pathos, the poverty and the putrid odor of the slums I was immediately connected to the Divine. It reminded me that what I was seeing was with human eyes, not with the divinity within me.

Of course, my human awareness and emotion was sad, and I want to do everything I can to humanly help, but my spirit, the one that connects to the oneness of each of us, was in awe. Awe that these millions of spirits chose this condition in order to teach compassion to the world. What a gift.

(For those of you who choose not see the truth of this, that’s fine. It works for me. I will not debate the point.)

These souls were not forced into or inflicted with this life of deprivation by a dispassionate God. They, as spirits, participated in this life choice in order to spiritually grow, glorify the Divine within them and by example teach the rest of us that human compassion and the giving of substance is essential on our path to the Godhead.

The Almighty, the Source, the All That Is, and the omniscient Divinity known by so many names loves us unconditionally and knows that we chose to come into this density in order to advance more rapidly into the Divine Oneness that created us.

We have a loving divine creator, not a stern, demanding, commanding entity that tests our loyalty or gives a life of misery, pain and poverty.

My visit to the slums of Nairobi affirmed not only the grace of God, but also the love He has for his children by giving us free will, free experience and free choice.

Our time on this earth in poverty or depravation and power or privilege is nothing compared to the eternity in our true home.