“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto thee.”
Could you please elaborate on what this means? I have not been as successful in my career as I should have been as per my talent. Could sufficient non-connection to God be the reason?
—Bina, USA
Hi Bina,
Of course there are many reasons why you may not be achieving as you feel you should, but it is true that no matter what else is ‘in your way’ coming closer to God will always help.
What Jesus meant when he said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all else shall be added unto you” is that when we are in tune with our divine nature we feel intuitively the ‘right way’, … what we call dharma (the Law that “upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe”) … to move forward, to make decisions, and choices.
He is saying, first look within and attune yourself to your highest, most expansive way of finding solutions, then from that inward place ask for guidance. From this ‘place’, found only in meditation, we bypass the mind that often gets in our way of making anything other than ego centered, looking for immediate gratification choices, and we move into soul consciousness, or wisdom guided decision-making.
We are all so used to thinking our way through everything, yet that is sorely limited compared to the source of infinite knowledge (Kingdom of God) available to every one of us.
As complex as this sounds, it is really quite simple. Start a daily practice of meditation (classes available through Ananda.org), or perhaps start by writing some affirmations from Swami Kriyananda’s book, “Affirmations for Self Healing”. Choose one that speaks to you and sit quietly and write it five times/day. Write it with deep concentration and focus … write as if you mean it. Your life will begin to change in ways that are unimaginable. We often think we have to focus on our problems to solve them, but mostly that just makes them look even larger than they are. As Yogananda said, “A room may be in darkness for thousands of years, but the instant you turn on a light, the darkness disappears”. That light can easily be found in the forms mentioned above.
“Seek ye first …” means start looking within for solutions rather than focusing our attention out.
Bless you in your search for wisdom.
