When something occurs that is distressful or tragic, there is a somewhat pat answer that we sometimes get from spiritual advisors. It is “Everything happens for a reason.” I just read a wonderful blog by Dr. Jim Lockard about this very topic primarily concerning the  COVID 19 pandemic. It got me thinking, and I reflected on the many times, I might have said this very thing when dealing with the numerous tragic events we have experienced over the last decade. However, I never meant it as fatalistic or as deterministic or as Kismet.

In regard to COVID 19, saying everything happens for a reason could be translated to mean that the Power of this virus occurring is the fault of some outside force who might have decided that this is a good thing for our spiritual development. From my viewpoint, I do not translate the statement in quite that way. I do not believe there is some plan laid out for us to teach us some kind of a lesson.  I also do not believe in happenstance. I am not a victim to outside effects. I am Cause and how I choose to experience the COVID 19 pandemic, what I choose to receive or cast off, is up to me. I find the reason why it has happened in my realm of experience. If I am experiencing it, then my consciousness has something to do with it.

We are all connected in consciousness, moving as Mind in One Field of Energy. A virus is not just a virus; it is an effect of consciousness. It is created from Cause. For me, it has to be, for that is Law.

A virus is matter, but it is energy, too. What we focus on grows, and also how we are experiencing it is our responsibility: Response-ability. Again, perhaps we are the ones individually that give our individual reasons, focus, importance to everything that happens in our realm of experience.

How did Covid 19 get here? Ernest Holmes, Founder of Religious Science, a branch of New Thought, would probably say that as long as we believe in evil, evil will persist to exist. (He defines evil as “that which seems destructive. Evil is an experience of the soul on its journey toward the realization of Reality.”)

Perhaps if we take the stigma of evil off COVIF 19, and instead see what we can learn from its existence, and let it fall away from our consciousness as SO IMPORTANT, it too will fade from our experience. Whether we created it or not is not as important to me as how we will love ourselves, each other and our planet back to wholeness now in the midst of its presence.

If it is here for a reason and we are indeed that reason, and if everything is always unfolding for our highest good, our spiritual evolution, our call back home, then I believe somewhere in our consciousness, we were longing to stop, to pause, to end the madness of life’s crazy trajectory toward extinction.

The Law of Cause and Effect works to fulfill our dominant thoughts. As a collective consciousness we are powerful. We didn’t create the virus, but consciously or unconsciously we were needing an experience to bring us back to wholeness. Again, “evil is an experience of the soul on its journey toward the realization of Reality.” In the New Thought philosophy, we step out of the way of how things happen – outlining. The Law brings us the effects of our consciousness in the way that is the quickest and also in the way that we can understand at the level of our consciousness. I definitely feel we are experiencing many great changes in consciousness because of COVID 19.

What we take from COVID 19 is our responsibility. We are always free to change direction, to take what we want from any experience, to step aside and to have a different experience, or to fully jump in and have the full experience, maybe even transcend. I cannot give up my freedom to choose how I respond to what is occurring in my life. I choose to live in consciousness that believes that everything happens for a reason, but I that give it that reason for me, not for you.

In Love and Truth,

Rev. Rita