THE CRUCIAL TURNING

One night, lying in bed waiting for sleep, it suddenly came to me that whatever else had happened or would happen, I had made the crucial turning, done the work I was meant to do. I had climbed out of the bushes and gotten on the path. 
    Before that crucial turning, I felt fragmented, full of contradictions, self-loathing and despair that I would ever be able to change. I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me but I couldn't see what it was; at the heart of me there was a mystery I'd never solve because I didn't even know what was mysterious. 
     But I made the crucial turning. I had a spiritual awakening. I discovered something beyond and behind the problems and fears that filled my thinking, about myself and about the world. I'd come to understand certain universal spiritual principles - surrender, detachment, atonement, meditation, ongoing self-examination, service - and slowly those principles became the context of my life. When something bad happened, I asked myself, which one of those principles will help me get free? Do I need to surrender or let go or accept what is; do I need to ask, what is my part? Do I need to take a moment to sit quietly and find the energy of those principles inside me? How can I apply those principles so I can climb the ladder they provide to a higher perspective? 
    I have many regrets about the past and on most days I wish certain things were different now. I wish the blues and lethargy didn't come around to claim me. I wish my life had more continuity. I wish so many things. But there is a continuity, an unspooling ribbon beneath my feet and it supports every step I take. It's the path, the solid ground of faith in the principles that I've lived with for a very long time. Faith has grown in me because I've experienced time after time the solace and freedom they always give me when I remember to breathe deeply and make the effort to connect with them.