"We were all meant to shine as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

I grew up believing in the unlimited potential of all human beings—that each of us has the ability to harness the power of the God force within and manifest our own destiny. I never once doubted this infinite power of the Universe, a power that flows through each and every living thing with perfection and grace. I have always known that everyone is worthy to receive this power and draw upon it any time we choose.

The power I speak of is not limited, ego driven, special or available to only a few select individuals. It is abundant and available to everyone. This power has no bias, knows no boundaries and can be tapped into at any time. If you picture an oasis—a spring of life—giving water-a place where everyone of every race, color and creed can freely drink without fear, you will have come close to understanding this power.

If we let it, this power can direct our lives to a higher state of health, a higher state of love, a higher state of truth and a higher state of being. It will lead us through the darkness of the past and into the light of the future. It is as real as the sunlight yet as invisible as the wind. It can provide us with every answer to every question ever imagined, if only we would ask.

This power can provide us with all the wisdom and guidance we will ever need to navigate through this life. It can heal our wounds; both emotional and physical. It can lift our spirits and make us whole. There is nothing that cannot be accomplished the minute we become aware of this Universal energy. It runs through our very souls and is no further away than our hearts.

Sometimes we tend to over think it, intellectualize its presence, or attempt to reduce it to something that can be dissected and taken apart. But the minute we do so is the minute it will leave us, for it is perfect in its completeness ever constant yet ever changing. It is holistic in nature and the sum of all its parts. All spokes in the wheel lead to its center. All spiritual paths end at its doorstep.

We are not this power but it does live within us. It sets waiting, unbridled and focused, ready to come to life the minute we call upon its strength. We know it is there, deep within our souls, yet few of us ever use it. Instead, we let it lie dormant and untapped while ignoring its vast potential and allowing ourselves to settle for lives that are often less than the divine purpose we were meant to become.

Within its presence, the ego is all but demolished. For this power transcends all ego and focus on self and creates, instead, a loving environment where personal gain fits comfortably within the framework of group consciousness. No one loses when this power is brought into our daily decisions. No one loses because this power belongs to everyone.

This amazing power cannot be bottled or sold. It does not exclusively reside in a certain building, or a special book or within a particular group or religion. Its truth can be spoken by everyone—in different languages and with different interpretations—not just by those who choose to stand in front of others and proclaim its presence, but by every man, woman and child.

To access this power we need only to release ourselves from past patterns of behavior and allow our mind to subordinate itself to our heart. For this power lives within the heart and is manifested through our thoughts and our feelings. Through our thoughts it helps us to create our future. Through our feelings it allows us to understand our truth and become our highest gift.

Some are comfortable calling this power God; others are not. Some see this power as male, some female. Some see no sexual connotation whatsoever and instead envision a universal power that knows no gender. Some find this power in a church, synagogue or mosque while others find the same power while hiking through nature or within the imagination of their own minds. It makes no difference how we see it; only that we do. It makes no difference how we access it, only that we do. It makes no difference when or where we come to understand it; only that we do.

The power to control ones destiny lies in our ability to flow with this power and trust its infinite wisdom. We may hasten the journey by beginning to take responsibility for our lives and refusing—absolutely refusing—to blame others for our past mistakes. For there are no mistakes, there are only opportunities for learning. What we often see as failures are not failures at all, but simply another chance to understand what we are not. This understanding will move us closer to this Universal Power and bring us ever more clearly into its grace. As I consider the awesomeness of this power, a power that I have come to trust, I am reminded of something I wrote several years ago. It's a short story about an aging grandfather and his ten-year-old grandson and brings forth an analogy of the very power I am speaking of. I would like to share a small piece of this story with you, so that perhaps you too will more fully understand the power within and begin to drink from this life-spring of Universal power and strength.

The young boy held the tiny seeds in his ten-year-old hand and began counting them one by one. "Twenty-four," he shouted to his grandfather, who gazed over at him from across the dusty field. "Wonderful!" grandfather replied. "Twenty-four sunflowers. That should keep you busy this summer. It will be your job to tend the soil, remove the weeds, do the watering and make sure they grow to be big and strong. Do you believe you can do it?" "But there's nothing here, grandfather—they're just seeds," the young boy demanded. "How will they ever turn into sunflowers? Heck, these seeds don't even look like sunflowers—there's no resemblance whatsoever. They just look like, well, seeds." "Come," grandfather said. "I want to show you something." Laying one of the seeds on a large stone, the wise old man quickly picked up another stone of equal size and upon slamming the two together, crushed the seed with a decisive blow that turned it into nothing but powder. "Look," he said. "Do you see anything moving?" "No," the grandson replied. "Look again!" the grandfather demanded. "Look again!" "Nothing. Grandfather. I don't see a thing!" "That's the point, son," the grandfather replied. "The power of the universe is invisible and because we cannot see it we think it does not exist. Yet in truth, we do see it everyday of our lives. For everything in this life is of its power. We have simply forgotten that it is so." "You see," he continued, " if we trusted only our physical senses it would seem that there is nothing within this seed that will amount to much. But if we were to look closer, with a very powerful microscope, we would see the energy of life—God's energy—vibrating within the seed just as it vibrates in everything. The power is within the seed even though we can't see it. Why, it's the same energy that your mother and father used to create you. The same energy that runs through you today." "But I'm not a sunflower, grandpa," the little boy laughed. "No, son, you're not a sunflower. But you are connected to the same Source—the same life force that flows through every living thing on this planet and beyond. There is nothing here that was not perfectly created—you included. God's power and energy lives in us all. The same energy that will transform this seed into a beautiful sunflower, will transform you from a child to a man and allow you to become anything your heart desires." "But, wait a minute, grandfather. "Even if we plant the seeds, water them, and tend the soil, how do we know they will grow?" "It's at that point that we must take a leap of faith, son," grandpa replied with a serious grin. "Not blind faith mind you," he continued, "but faith based on the power that God has bestowed upon us, the universal power that lives within. We must have faith that this life force is without bias, nonjudgmental and abundantly flows through everything and everyone—including sunflower seeds—in equal amounts and with the same results—life! Even though we can't see it, we know that it exists, for time and time again it has manifested itself in a newborn baby, a drop of rain, the petals of a flower, a litter of kittens. We must have faith and believe in this power. Our belief will make it so."

"Our belief will make it so." I would even go one step further and suggest that our thoughts, the ideas that make up our beliefs, will make it so—or not so—depending on what we think about. The Universe will respond to our thoughts and bring them to life. As my mother use to say, "Be careful what you wish for."

The God force within each of us mandates that what we think about expands and becomes our reality. Our thoughts create our truth and ultimately our experience of this thing called life. Want to change your life? Change your thoughts—it really is that simple. But many of us are unwilling to embrace this truth. Instead we hand over the power to define and shape our own lives to others. We don't trust the Universe and our place in it and consequently, we don't trust ourselves to make Divine choices. We want someone else to make the decisions for us.

But by not choosing we are in effect choosing not to choose. The result is that we settle for whatever life hands us—often not the things we desire—because we believe that we are not in control. The fact is, that while our egos are not in control, the God force is. And because the God force resides in us, we are very much in control. Our power lies in our ability to reduce the endless desires of the ego and let our Godliness prevail. By doing so, we can co-create with God the life we desire.

Dr. Wayne Dyer, a spiritual master whose teachings I have studied for some twenty-five years, sums it up like this: "Destiny is not preordained. Destiny is ordained totally by you. Every single moment of your NOW existence is the result of your previous thought. The idea that everything is already laid out for you in advance is a hallucination. You can and do manifest your own destiny."

We are all equally important in the eyes of the Universe. Each of us has a Divine Purpose—that which we were born to do. But to achieve our life's purpose, to become who we were meant to be, we must first tap into our God-given power and allow the Universe to bring into our lives the desires of our hearts and the true manifestation of our authentic selves.

You see, over the centuries, God has heard our prayers for a better world and He continues to send us help 24/7, within the potential of every newborn child. It may be hard to believe sometimes with all of our self-imposed roadblocks and negative self-talk, but we—you and me—are the only hope for a better tomorrow. God gave each of us His power and He's just waiting for us to use it. Don't play small. Don't fear your own Divine potential. Plug into the power within and let your light illuminate the world!

Some Things To Consider

If you could do anything, what would it be? Why aren't you doing it? Think about all the masters that walked the earth—Jesus, Buddha and all the others. Take a look at all the miraculous things they did with their lives. They represent the potential in all of us. We may never reach their level of enlightenment but we must try. See if you can move just one step closer to becoming more like them. See if you can move one step closer to living your dreams.

All Rights Reserved © 2002 By Jeffrey Alan Hall