The past three months have been extremely enlightening. While working on this site, I've come across many other wonderful spiritual sites. It's encouraging to know that so many people are dedicated to developing their own awareness, and that so much information is being made available to them. I've also enjoyed reading messages left by visitors to the discussion area. I've picked up some great insights and recommendations for further reading. Thank you all for sharing.

I've made some other "self-discoveries" as well. I believe one reason for this is increased levels of personal meditation. Let me preface this by saying I'm no master meditator, I don't spend a large amount of time, but I do try and do it several times a day. When I began this journey, I wondered why so many people suggested meditation, I really didn't understand what it had to offer. Well, I just read something that really made it "click" for me. This quote is from Carlos Castaneda, "Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses, and extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words." Done properly, meditation turns off our internal dialogue, and helps us discover those extraordinary things, or that part of God, hidden within us.

Another thing that's helped over the past few weeks is trying to pay more attention to my dreams, remember them upon awaking, then attempting to interpret them. It doesn't always work, but I do remember more than before. Some of them are so strange they defy interpretation, but others have been quite insightful.

I believe despite the vast repositories of spiritual advice contained in sacred books throughout the world, despite advice gleaned from web-sites or received from friends, there are simply some things you have to figure out for yourself. Mostly this is done through trial and error, or the "school of hard knocks". These lessons of life are the whole reason we exist in this schoolhouse we call earth.

Each one of us has different lessons to learn. No one can learn your lessons for you. No one can do the work for you. No one can make you do it, it must come from within. Certainly, we can help each other along the way by providing insight and encouragement, but the lessons are ours to learn. Isn't that what makes life so wonderful though? The joy of discovering new things. New things about God, the universe, and ourselves.

Some lessons one person struggles with here on earth may be a piece of cake to someone else. We come to earth with a core of knowledge gathered from previous lives. We don't remember it all directly, but it makes up facets of our personalities, our strengths and our weaknesses. We need compassion when dealing with others struggling with problems. Perhaps we've just been fortunate enough to have learned and incorporated that lesson in a previous life. When it comes to our weaknesses, we need to relish the challenge of overcoming them. We need to confront them head on, and if they knock us down, we need to get up, dust ourselves off, laugh, and confront them again. Help will be provided to us, if we seek it, and we continue to work. We all have the capability to grow and become more God-like by overcoming these weaknesses and learning these sometimes difficult lessons. My prayer is that we continue to do so, and by so doing, we develop a world beyond the one we currently reside in. A better world, a world closer to God.