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There is at times a collision between the conscious and the unconscious. Anxiety fills the body and we know not where to turn for relief. We are agitated and want to walk and yet short of breath and feel like we are jumping out of our skin. What is it? What is the problem?

Our life has taken a wrong turn. We are going down the wrong path and our unconscious mind is letting us know that we need to appraise our life. It is like the flag men deep down within us waving flags and sending alarm bell warnings to slow down, danger ahead, be careful, consider changing course. Something in our life is not right that our conscious mind is not aware of. Consider what is the conflict between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind?

In the spiritual life, we pay attention to this "existential anxiety", to these uncomfortable "dark nights of the soul." We find people to discuss it with and we consider changing course which means to stop doing some of the things we are doing in our life, and to consider a new course. We have expressions like "barking up the wrong tree", "up the creek without a paddle", "jumping ship", "if you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, get out". The Holy Spirit will not tell us what to do, but will tell us what not to do. Pay attention to what the universe is telling you.

Life is a series of daily activities which provide rhythm and routine to our lives. If we depart from those routines and rhythms we are thrust awake, self conscious, and we become more aware.

Some activities are more superficial which we do with less thought: brush our teeth, comb our hair, take out the dog, wash our dishes while some require more thought and planning like what to make for dinner, how to spend a Sunday afternoon, purchasing new things like clothes or a car or visiting a friend in a funeral home whose relative has died.

We could see our daily activities as an archer’s target going from the more thoughtless and routine tasks in the outer circle to the more significant and consequential at the center, the bulls eye. Supposing we lived more of our life in the bull’s eye? Would this be a good thing? We constantly had a heightened sense of importance and consequence for the things we do, the things we engage in?

In the spiritual life, we are aware of the sense of significance of the things we do. We realize that they all are holy. We are present in the now and do even routine things with thoughtfulness and grace. As the Buddhists say, “Chop wood, carry water” because in it is in the daily routine tasks that enlightenment resides.

Virtue is not a one time event but the product of habit over a period of time. Virtue is something we develop not something we just do. Likewise, evil and sin are not one time events, but rather something that develops over a period of time until it clouds our spirit and colors our functioning in ways that deaden our being. Violence, addiction, promiscuity, sloth, greed, and indulgence slowly sink the human spirit into darkness just as love, temperance, discipline, industry, generosity, and moderation brings it into light.

In the spiritual life, we pursue light not darkness daily. If we go off the path into darkness we pull ourselves back on the right path with effort and help from others. Virtue does not require praise because it is its own reward. Sin and evil do not require condemnation because the suffering of their consequence alone is enough punishment for any person. As the slogan says, "You make your bed, and you lie in it." While the circumstances of life and what we are taught heavily influence our life trajectories, it is the development of awareness that allows us to overcome ignorance and create a life of happiness, health, and virtue. While life gives us many beds, with awarenes and effort, we can create a bed in which we can comfortably and happily lie.

One of the important factors in contributing to a healthy spirituality is the recognition that as human beings we are all imperfect and in need of help. In Alcoholics Anonymous it is called "surrender". Surrendering to a higher power, whatever we conceive that higher power to be, is the beginning of movement to a healthy spirituality.

This surrender, this request for help, is paradoxical, because many people resist it insisting that they can manage by themselves. There is a denial of our dependence and interdependence on others. People in denial can be egotisitical, distrustful and defensive, afraid of being vulnerable to the care of others. It is in recognizing our imperfection that we are strengthened. It is in recognizing our imperfection that we become more honest and truthful. It is in recognizing our imperfection that we become more grateful, compassionate, and loving towards others. In is indeed a paradoxical observation that we realize our strength comes from knowing our weakness, our honesty comes from knowing our shame, and our gratefulness, compassion, and love comes from knowing the help we have received from others. It may seem odd to suggest that one of the most important spiritual practices is asking for and accepting help.

What did Socrates and Jesus have in common? They both were willing to die for what they believed in. They no longer had any ego or vanity. They had emptied themselves and were filled by a love for Truth, and for God. Whether they lived or died no longer mattered for them because it was not them that lived but the Truth and God that lived in them. After 2600 years and 2000 years they are still remembered and talked about not because of the historical lives they lived but because of their spirit or the Spirit that was manifested through them.

In the Christian religion Jesus taught us to pray the Our Father which says in part "...Thy will be done..." meaning that not my will but God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

In the Spiritual life we struggle to give up our will so that God's will can work through us. We struggle to give up our ignorance and lack of awareness so that Truth can manifest itself through us. As it says in the prayer of St. Francis we struggle to give up hatred, doubt, despair, and sadness so that love, faith, hope, and joy can manifest through us. In order to do this, the prayer of St. Francis asks that we be given the ability to console, to understand, to love, to give, to pardon, and to die into eternal life. This dying into eternal life means the extinguishing of the ego, the becoming one with the cosmic consciousness, enlightenment. As the Buddhist monk said to the hot dog vendor, "Make me one with everything."