Being Awake When a “Moment of Truth” Arrives

Last updated on: April 9, 2016 at 10:00 am by Robert Atkinson

Being Awake When a “Moment of Truth” Arrives 2016-04-05T20:13:42-04:00 Robert Atkinson

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There are moments that come into our lives that are meant to turn us in the direction our life is meant to go in. We all have our own “moment of truth” experiences that define or change the course of our lives forever.

This is when, as Jung might say, a timeless, universal archetype buried within our unconscious bubbles up to our consciousness, giving us the opportunity to see something vitally important to us in a completely different and deeper way. It is when our intuition can take over and make us more aware of what is right in front us.

In another context, this same phenomenon is often referred to as grace, and it is meant to assist and propel our spiritual development. As Baha’u’llah has made clear in the Baha’i writings: “The manifold bounties of the Lord of all beings have, at all times, through the Manifestations of His Divine Essence, encompassed the earth and all that dwell therein. Not for a moment hath His grace been withheld, nor have the showers of His loving-kindness ceased to rain upon mankind.”

A moment of truth in my own life came when my grandmother was living with us for part of the year when I was about 9 years old. An only child, I enjoyed having my grandmother stay with us for part of the year, it gave me something new to experience. I soon found that I was drawn to her for some as yet unknown reason.

I wondered, when I observed her in her room every day, why is she so committed to her daily devotions and reading the Bible? There was something about her regular routine that was a mystery to my 9-year-old self. Her daily devotions had a deep impact on me. But I didn’t realize this then, and I surely didn’t know why.

It was around this time that I was sitting on my bed one afternoon just staring out the window when a voice came to me saying, “Someday you will know God.” I was aware enough to hear this voice and remember it, but the meaning of what I heard escaped me.

I came to understand much later that the journey of the soul begins whether we are ready for it or not. It is a journey that, at first, is not tied to consciousness, but later on becomes directly dependent upon the level of conscious awareness we have of our own lives, and the action we take.

My 9-year-old soul was probably well aware of why it was drawn to the mystery of my grandmother’s devotion and commitment. But my 9-year-old mind was not. It was about 15 years later that my conscious mind caught up with my soul, and I further realized that the Creator is the unknowable essence of all that is.

It was this ‘moment of truth’ as a nine year old that ultimately led me to the series of adventures that became my memoir, Remembering 1969: Searching for the Eternal in Changing Times. All the things I encountered on this quest are what I found to be personally sacred. This was a process of soul-making that connected me directly to a universal layer of existence and to a timeless pattern that others had lived before me.

The more we become familiar with the timeless elements of myths and folk stories, and the sacred pattern they follow, the more we will understand and recognize those same elements in our own lives. This understanding gives us a clearer perspective of our life and helps to make it a more meaningful and even sacred experience.

When we can clearly identify the movement from order to disorder and back to order in our lives, along with the resolution of our own conflicts, we have found the universal in the unique and the sacred in the personal. When we do this, we have felt the transformative power of our own experiences and we become consciously aware of the sacred operating in our lives.

When we can identify the times in our lives when something timeless broke into our daily existence, we are transported to the realm of the sacred*.* Such “moments of truth” give us a feeling of being connected to all of life and make us aware of something eternal within us. These moments have the power to set us off on a whole new direction in life and give us the assurance of being protected and guided through unknown realms.

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