The Price of Manifestation

When a person begins a Spiritual Path, and they are often told that they will encounter obstacles in that Path, they usually expect those obstacles to be spiritual in nature. Sometimes, that is exactly what happens, but more often than not, those obstacles are much more mundane in nature.

Let me give an example; I had planned to spend the weekend relaxing, and enjoying the time off. Unfortunately, Friday night while heading home from one of the Witches Meetups I run, an image of a radiator appeared on my dash. I stopped at a 7-11 to pick up some antifreeze, with the idea of adding coolant to my radiator at home Saturday morning.

As I drove from the 7-11, I heard a *BING*, and looked back at the dashboard. The temperature gage was pegged at redline. Apparently, the coolant issue was more catastrophic than I had assumed. It was about 9:30 at night, and I was next to my neighborhood gas station, so I pulled in. I popped the hood, grabbed the antifreeze, opened the coolant overflow reservoir and started to poor the fluorescent liquid in.

That’s when I heard the wet dripping sound. I had nearly emptied the gallon of antifreeze into the reservoir, and it was all pouring out the bottom of the car. Well, that wasn’t going to work. I bought another gallon of coolant, and drove the few more blocks to get home, all the way hoping any heat damage would be minimal.

You must do the work.

Saturday morning, I checked YouTube for videos on what it takes to replace radiator hoses on my BMW, and found that you have to remove half a dozen parts, including the radiator fan, just to get access to that area of the engine compartment. When I first started driving, there was enough empty space under the hood to crawl in and get to any part. I miss those days.

It didn’t take long to decide that this was a job I didn’t want to do. I’ll have to take it to the shop. Fortunately, I have a BMW shop about 10 miles from my house, where I’ve had work done before. Of course, I’ve never gotten out of there for less than $1000. I can’t drive the car without coolant, so I’ll have to have it towed, which will probably add a couple hundred dollars to the total. They aren’t open on weekends, so I have to wait until Monday before I can do anything.

So why am I telling you this? Well, I had planned to start putting together a project for the website on Monday, as part of what I plan to manifest this year, but I now expect to spend at least a few hours at the repair shop instead, assuming they have an opening to work on it right away. This mundane problem is going to block me from taking one of the steps toward my manifestation.

I often say that the Path of the Witch is the hard Path, but that’s not quite correct. Life is hard. How you choose to face those hardships determines where your life takes you. Most choose to ignore the hard parts of life, if they can. Others, facing the problem I’ve encountered would simply give up on their desire, and blame fate, the Gods, or anyone else for keeping them from being happy. Life just sucks, and it’s never their fault.

Your life is always spiritual.

I’ve said it before, but I think it bares repeating, your spiritual life and your daily life are not two separate things. They are the same thing. Everything you do, everything you encounter, every challenge you face, is spiritual in nature, no matter how mundane. What you do in your daily life, you also do in your spiritual life. If you lie, cheat, steal in your daily life, you do the same in your spiritual life. How you face your daily challenges, is also how you face your spiritual challenges.

Over the past few months I have been explaining how to manifest whatever you desire. I said there would be challenges, and that you would face obstacles. This is simply an obstacle I’m currently facing, in my manifesting my desire. It’s not a particularly big obstacle, though for someone who has no extra money, it could seem insurmountable. However, it illustrates the types of things that seemingly appear out of nowhere, to attempt to keep you from manifesting your desire.

Granted, my car is 17 years old, with over 150,000 miles on it, but a massive coolant leak is not something I expected to happen. I have some choices to make. I could just give up, and blame the universe for not being fair. That’s not an option. I could let the car sit, and ignore the problem. I am working from home now, so I don’t need a car to go to work.

That’s not an option either. Eventually I will need a car to get around with. In fact, I have another Meetup across town that I want to attend tomorrow evening. Waiting until I have the need, will only mean that I’m not ready when the need arises. If anything, waiting will only make the problem worse. I need a car tomorrow night. If I don’t get it fixed now, I won’t be able to get across town tomorrow.

Seeing the big picture.

That’s easy to see when we’re talking about a car repair, but most people tend to put their problems off until they can’t any longer. Everyone seems to think that if they ignore the problem, it will eventually go away. That never happens, it just makes the problem worse.

The car has to be fixed. I can’t be without transportation. That means money I could have spent working toward my manifestation, will instead be spent on the car. Even if I didn’t have the money in the bank to pay for the repair, I would need to get it done.

I could buy a new car, that would solve the problem, but it’s going to be cheaper to fix the one I have. At least for now. Besides, I don’t want to be responsible for making car payments over the next few years, when I’m still working on ways to get an income. That money can be put to better use. As I manifest my desire, I will have the money to buy a new car, if I choose to.

Taking a little time to check your options, allows you to figure out what you need to do. Most people don’t take any time to look at a situation. They just act, or refuse to act. Sometimes they take the correct action, but more often than not, they take the wrong action because it seems the easy way. Even a few minutes of reflection would let them realize the error before taking it.

The Way of The Witch

The Way of The Witch, is not to avoid obstacles and challenges. It is to adapt to them, and overcome them. Sometimes that means going around them. Other times, it means going through them. It doesn’t matter who you are, or how long you’ve been a practicing Witch, you will face obstacles. I have been a Witch for over 30 years now. I know a few things, but I still have my challenges.

We don’t learn from the good times, we learn from the times when we face adversity. The challenges teach us lessons, and they also test us, to see if the lesson was actually learned. Obstacles and challenges come in all types and sizes. Some we find easy to move beyond. Others may stop us in our tracks. The trick is to not let the challenge stop you for long. Look at it. See it for what it is, and find the way past it. There is always a way.

I am not allowing this obstacle to stop me. The things I had planned to do today, I did over the weekend instead. If I am forced to do nothing while my car is repaired, I can work proactively to get done what needs to be done before hand. I don’t need to lose a day of work toward my manifestation, I just need to rearrange the schedule a bit.

Remember, noting in life is free. That includes manifesting your desires. You must pay for the manifestation by doing whatever needs to be done in order to attain your desire. Part of my price for getting my desire to manifest, is paying to have my car repaired, whatever the cost. I expect that I will continue to pay a price for my manifestation. Sometimes the price will be monetary, other times it will not. In either case, it will be a sacrifice I am willing to make, in order to see my desire manifest.

Have you encountered any challenges yet, in manifesting your desire? If so, what, and how have you moved beyond them? Let me know in the comments below.