Can You Help Me?
By Stephen Thomson
We live in a world filled with the idea that someone or something can help make our life complete. Yet the only real source for true help is in the journey into our own unique spirit. For several years, I belonged to a loving, supportive spiritual community in Ohio where each month I participated in a Sweat Lodge. A man named Tim, who has become an important life-teacher and friend, is the Water Pourer. I learned a lot about myself in this Lodge and grew under his loving guidance and support. He did nothing less than help me to see a different approach to and understanding of my path and a new way of viewing the world around me. Through Tim’s support, I grew to know and understand one of the most important elements of my journey: along the way we can meet people who can show us the road, but the ultimate decision for changing and growing or remaining static and stuck is purely our choice.
There is one Sweat Lodge that stands out in my mind, which brought me to this understanding. If you haven’t done a Sweat Lodge, let me share with you that each ceremony is different, each with its own special gift. It was during one of the hotter sweats that I was feeling a great deal of discomfort on every level. The Lodge was dark. I was sweating buckets and my heart was racing. I thought I was going to pass out. It was at this point that I knew I had two options. One was to bail, ask for the door to be opened and just leave the ceremony. The other choice was to do something that doesn’t come easy for me. And that was to ask for help. So, I shouted out, “Tim, can you help me?” He said “No.”
“No?” I heard myself repeating. “No,” as in you are not going to help me? “No,” as in you don’t want to help me? Or, “No,” as in you don’t know what to do to help me? After all, my ego assured me, hadn’t I done the right thing by asking for help? I deserved help then. Or, was I begging? I asked myself, looking to be saved by another, looking to not feel whatever lesson I needed to learn. Was my “ego voice” once again getting in my way by demanding that the Great I Am gets an easy answer? I have a history of a couple of different “ego” voices within me, who usually don’t assist me on my track. How can I tell them? They are usually not peaceful, but self-rationalizing. Whichever voice it was, there wasn’t time to stay with that kind of thinking. The ceremony continued. Translated: Tim added more water to the already glowing rocks in the center of the Lodge. More heat, more steam. The moment for discussion and decision had passed.
Later, as I thought back on that particular day, I couldn’t help but wonder what could Tim really do for me? The purpose of a Sweat Lodge is similar to any other ceremony I participate in; it is a mirror of my life. By going into the Lodge, I was presented with an opportunity to bathe in the reflecting light of my own life. There, I clearly saw how I handle parts of my life. My question to Tim, asking for help, was a reflection of the expectations and limitations I has placed on my own life. I came face-to-face with the not so hidden, childlike desire for someone to help me – to make my life and me different. Yet in my consciousness was a deeper knowing that I am the only one who can do that.
This particular Lodge was a reminder to me of an important and basic spiritual law. The help each of us truly desires comes from a source far beyond the limitations of our consciousness and the people around us. The truth of who we are is known to us. Any request for help along the way can only be given temporarily to us by another. The powers in each of us rest in our ability to reach beyond the limiting agreements we have made with ourselves and go onto create a bigger, fuller life we can live. In this case, my call to Tim for help was reaching out on a physical level. Of course, Tim could not answer that call. His response was not personal. It was filled with the wisdom of right action in the moment.
What I now realize is that my plea for help was an acknowledgement of my connection in that moment with the Divine. It was a call to all the powers and forces of the Universe which I was experiencing in that moment. Tim allowed a place for the Divine to answer in his place.
During the next month, meditate and journal on these few points:
How many times do you reach out to others for help and support when you know the core truth in yourself?
When I am asking for help, am I avoiding doing my own work finding the answers to my life questions?
How did my helper or teacher become my teacher?
What is my expectation of this person?
What is their expectation, no just of me, but of my need for their help?
What am I really seeking when I ask for help?
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