A human lifetime is made up of a whole bunch of days. And each day is a day of limitless possibilities. As conscious beings, we have the capability to make each day count to its fullest potential. The problem is that time can be deceptive. We tend to view time as being a commodity that will never run out. This is especially true when we are young. We see a human lifespan as being endless and have to force ourselves to approach each day as though we needed to be concerned about making the most of it. But the truth of the matter is that a human lifespan does not last forever, and eventually we run out of days.
Until we grasp this truth, our tendency will be to let the days pass by without making any conscious effort to make them count to their fullest. Thus we let them run together and blend into a kind of bigger time framework. We might look up and take stock at the end of a week or a month or a year, but a single day seems too short a time span to take much notice of. Plus most of us are busy, doing things that we need to do in this modern world in order to keep our heads above water. We work jobs, run errands, do chores around the house, etc. And when we finish with all that, we seek only to chill out and relax. That is how a lifetime passes us by. We feel that we simply don’t have time for being conscious and honing in on the present moment. But this is a travesty. Why? Because to let even a single day go by without contacting and exercising our endowment of spiritual consciousness is like the universe taking a break from its created mandate and ceasing to exist.
If we had no endowment of spiritual consciousness, it might be different for us. If we were nothing more than a biological life form, then spending our days in busyness and distraction would in no way be a travesty. But because we were created as conscious beings, life can never be merely instinctual for us. We can attempt to ignore and override our conscious presence, but we will never succeed. Instead we will become all twisted up inside. Why? Because our endowment of consciousness is a force in its own right. It is not only a part of us; it is a dominant part. Furthermore, it has its own evolutionary agenda. So when we stifle it, it is tantamount to a stream of water becoming damned up by a shift in the soil of the streambed. The water backs up to the point that it must find some other outlet. Then it breaks forth destructively.
The question is: How do we spend our days in such a way that we do not stifle our consciousness? This is really much simpler than we might think. All that consciousness needs from us is a little attention and recognition. Minimally, it needs only for us to acknowledge its presence. It is similar to our need to interact with and be touched by our fellow human beings, without which we become lonely and forlorn. Our endowment of consciousness needs only to be touched and interacted with. This minimal maintenance can be accomplished without spending a lot of time or effort by simply setting aside a few moments of each day for meditation and sincere communion. But if we desire to do more than the minimum, it will require more of us. And if we want our consciousness to thrive we may need to adjust our priorities and schedules. If we want to make each day count to its fullest, this is how we go about it. We must allow our consciousness free rein. We must let it soar to the heavens and encourage it to open itself to the divine presence of Spirit. We must practice making it receptive. For when we do this, we will then be in a position to receive all universal good into our lives.
In his inimitable way Jesus often spoke of these matters. One situation that really jumps out is when he visited the Bethany home of the sisters Martha and Mary. Martha was staying very busy, trying to be the good hostess. She was cooking, serving, cleaning, etc. But her sister Mary did not share her compulsion to try to earn favor with Jesus by works. Instead she sat at Jesus’ feet and did nothing—nothing that is, except make herself fully receptive to all Jesus had to give. Eventually this dynamic led to conflict between the sisters. At first, Martha, having made the judgment that her sister was being “useless,” kept her displeasure to herself. But at one point she could stand it no longer and blurted out, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to get up and help me.” These loaded words not only exposed Martha’s judgment of and frustration with her sister (probably a lifelong dynamic between these two siblings); they also revealed an unspiritual misperception of who Jesus was and what he came to do. In other words, Martha fully expected Jesus to vindicate her and uphold the moral standard that lauds work and condemns laziness. But that was not what Jesus did. Instead he pronounced these timeless words: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen that good thing, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42).
By the actions of these two sisters we can learn a great deal about human nature and how to make each day count to its fullest. We see Martha being given over to busyness and morality, to the degree that she had completely lost sight of her own endowment of spiritual consciousness. We see her acting the part of a compulsive unconscious human being, using all her time and strength to get things done and “do the right thing.” We see her not making each day count to its fullest, but rather letting one day slide into another and culminate in futility. Unfortunately, this speaks of how most of us live.
On the other hand, we see Mary as having chosen the one thing that truly matters. By sitting at the feet of the Great Master and refusing to allow any other priority to sway her, she clearly was making that day count to its fullest. And it is reasonable to assume that that was how she lived her life in general. In other words, by her actions that day she showed what she valued most. And through the upholding of true spiritual values, she not only made each day count; she aligned herself with the agenda of her own endowment of consciousness, thereby flowing with the current of universal life and avoiding the pitfalls of damning up the living waters within her psyche. Then to top it off, she was the one who received vindication from Jesus, not Martha. And in all likelihood this vindication was very sweet after having endured a lifetime of persecution from her “upright” sister.
To those who might be inclined to disparage any correlation between this story and our lives in today’s modern world I would remind you of who Jesus was. It is easy to dismiss the correlation if we look at Jesus as being outside of ourselves. For we might say to ourselves: “If Jesus were visiting my house, I would sit at his feet too. But alas, neither he nor any other great spiritual master has ever visited my house.” But who was Jesus? He was a man whose endowment of consciousness had so fully merged into God that it had made him into a great master. In other words, he was fully evolved consciousness. So we must remember: God is pure enlightened consciousness, and this divine endowment of consciousness is the same endowment at work in men—the only difference being the state of our evolutionary unfoldment. Jesus was not foremost a man; he was pure consciousness. He was not exclusively outside of those he interacted with; he was also inside of them. How? Because his consciousness was one with theirs.
What this means is that Jesus is here; he visits our house at all times of the day. Therefore we can choose, like Mary did, to sit at his feet and not be swayed by worldly pressures to give way to busyness and distraction. For, he is inside of us. He is our own consciousness. It all depends on what we value. If we value being lauded by our fellowman for being industrious and morally upright, we will pursue Martha’s path. We will stay very busy and try to please God through a program of good works. But if we value sitting at Jesus’ feet and all that that entails we will be choosing the one good thing that Mary chose. Instead of busyness and distraction we will spend more and more of our daily allotment of time sitting at the feet of our own endowment of consciousness. We will pray and meditate and cease from our human labors. And if we really hope to thrive we will seek to become vessels of pure receptivity, opening ourselves to the divine consciousness and receiving all that it has to give us. In this way we will not only make each day count to its fullest; we will also make this incarnation one of total liberation. We will at last gain our freedom from karma and sin.
Our time on this earth is not as unlimited as we tend to think. The days pass swiftly. Before we know it, they have turned to weeks, months and years. Then eventually we all find ourselves standing on the threshold of that great transition that we call death—a threshold that might also be called the threshold of value reckoning. For, it is then that what we have valued most throughout this incarnation will be brought into the full light of acknowledgement. If we have shared Martha’s values we will, in all likelihood, be afraid of the transition to come. Why? Because we will know in our heart of hearts that we did not use our time during this incarnation as wisely as we might have. Instead we were often busy and distracted and might even have attempted to justify ourselves through moral superiority, as Martha did. But on the threshold of value reckoning none of this carries much weight. All that will be evident is that we squandered much of our gift of time. We did not get serious about our commitment to consciousness evolution, and that was, in truth, the real reason for our being here. We did not sit at Jesus’ feet as our top priority and thereby make each day count to its fullest. Therefore this will not be the incarnation of our liberation, and our karma will continue to dictate that we return and do it all over again.
This is what Jesus meant when he said, “If you do not believe, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24). What does it mean to die in our sins? It is to fall short of the goal of consciousness evolution that leads to liberation. Karma and sin is the same beast. If we fail to satisfy our karma in this lifetime we will die with it still very much in tact. And if we are still subject to the karmic wheel of births and deaths onto this plane, we can be sure that we will return here. We will die in our sins, and we will be born into a new incarnation in our sins.
But if we make each day count by choosing the one good thing of Mary, we have a really good chance of being liberated from both karma and sin in this present incarnation. If we believe in our own endowment of consciousness and gain the revelation that it is made of the same stuff as the divine consciousness, that belief will cleanse us of all sin and liberate us from the karmic wheel. Thus we do not need for the man Jesus to visit our house in order to sit at his feet. We only need to turn inward and give our own endowment of consciousness some attention and room to breathe. We need only to value this pursuit and make it our foremost priority. In this way we will be making each day count to the fullest and when we find ourselves standing on the threshold of transition we will marvel at the fact that we feel no fear!