In an earlier post of mine entitled “The Coarsening of Consciousness,” I asserted that the present era is marked by a deepening collapse of the sacred into the secular as a result of the continued coarsening of human consciousness worldwide. This process began at the time described in the ancient records as the “fall of man” and has continued to this day. There were, according to the record, physical implications to the fall, but the mental capacities of mankind were the epicenter of the tragic event and thus suffered the greatest damage.

The fall marked a watershed in the history of mankind. From that point forward, the human mind took on an oversized role in the regulation of human affairs. The pained and troubled thinker was born and this new tension reverberated through the emotional realm. Chaos ensued. A surge of fear and shame–the wages of sin–led not to repentance (i.e., reorientation and rethinking), but to hiding, which aggravated the situation as it always does.

Perhaps you’ve experienced this in your lifetime?

The fall didn’t happen once, long ago. It happens every day, in the little decisions we face from moment to moment. You’re cruising along and then you make a bad decision, ignorantly or willfully, and it eventually catches up to you. If, instead of facing it head on, you duck for cover or deflect responsibility through blame, you eventually reap your reward and experience a decline in function, perspective, or both. You become a smaller person.

If, on the other hand, you take responsibility and surrender to what you know you need to do to get back on track, you find that function and perspective are immediately restored. You become a bigger person. Your reputation may take more time to recover, but that you are not responsible for what others think about you; you can only control your decisions and actions. The point is that the fall is reversible in the individual experience and the restoration of consciousness is as automatic as the restriction of consciousness.

Righteousness has its reward as does sin. Divine or cosmic law works both ways.

We cannot think our way out of the mess we’ve created for ourselves. You might’ve tried that before. It tends to complicate matters. The mind–your mind, my mind, any human mind–does not possess sufficient scope to dig itself out of the holes that it creates. Fortunately, the “bruised” mind can heal (very quickly in fact!). The key is not to think or try harder in these moments but to relax the mind, to let go of the mental and emotional struggle (for struggle with implies subjection to, always), and to create a space in which divine wisdom can once again move through your heart, mind, and body.

Repentance is essentially the creation of a safe and sacred space in and through which divine intelligence can flow. Divine intelligence is always at hand. Repentance, forgiveness, thanksgiving all create space in us, vital space which frees us from the unnatural limitations and restrictions of unrighteousness. Our minds, bodies, and hearts are purpose built as a vehicle for the transmission divine intelligence, but we must be attuned to it if we are to recognize, receive, and transmit it into the circumstances we face in the moment…in the now.