Today my good friend Lynnea sent me a video about an autistic boy. (You’ll find a link to the video at the end of this post.) I won’t give away the details, but you know the plot: A person overcomes a handicap to accomplish something amazing, their achievement is celebrated and emotionally shared by lots of people, and the viewer sheds a lot of happy tears.

This was one of several videos in the same genre I’ve seen recently, and it’s gotten me thinking about the entire issue of disability and how it relates to those of us who find ourselves in the fortunate position of being able-bodied and fairly healthy. What I realized shocked me at first, and then unfolded into a revelation that has since become one of the major spiritual themes in my current life. I now pass it on to you in the hopes that it may assist you in your own spiritual evolution.

First the shocking part – I found myself envying the handicapped subjects of the videos – their perseverance, their certainty of their path, the mastery they achieved, and the bond they formed with those who witnessed the results. I asked myself why can’t I do those things? And would it be easier if I had a tangible handicap to overcome?

Of course I immediately tried to cancel this question (since thoughts create, and what could be created here feels a little scary), but it was too late, and anyway, I assured myself, I know better than to resist the flow of a thought that is about to uncover a major piece of my shadow. To the contrary, I welcome it, since I have come to love my shadow as much as my light, as they are but two sides of the same coin of my spiritual Self.

The answer that immediately came from Sam-el (my Higher Self, who revealed this name to me about a year ago) was that I DO have a handicap, and I have yet to overcome it.

As I asked Sam-el to go on, I heard that EVERYONE comes into this life with a lack or disability, that the physical ones are only a small portion of the spectrum, and that we CHOOSE to take them on for a common purpose. Once that purpose is achieved, the disability becomes irrelevant to our lives, but that in order to compel us to achieve the purpose, the specific disability must be something particularly difficult for the individual ego to bear.

Disabilities can be things like poverty, a less than pleasing appearance, or a lack of freedom, support or community. In my case, Sam-el revealed, my disability is the lack of several types of partnership that I have always fervently desired and am not currently enjoying in my life – the intimate kind; the sustained, soul-based work/business variety; and the type that comes from a group of people working together, up close and persistently, on a cause that is dear to their hearts.

This lack has caused me to cry myself to sleep many nights, scheme about how to fill it many days, and feel sorry for myself more times than I can remember (or like to admit). It is (or at least feels) even harder to bear because I HAVE experienced all these kinds of partnership in the past, and the brief intervals when I had them brought me so much peace and fulfillment. (I am after all a Libra, and one that has partnership written all over my chart.)

So then I asked the next logical question (and perhaps, you dear reader have already asked it yourself and are wondering when I’d get around to answering it, or perhaps since you’re so wise you already know the answer!): What is the purpose? And will knowing it help me rise above my disability, which means, will the knowledge end my suffering?

And Sam-el, who never fails to oblige me with answers when I ask the right questions, replied:

We take on disabilities to experience our Divinity.

By now I realized that I was onto something, perhaps even the core of life itself, the driving force of our evolution as spiritual beings. But to understand how and why this was so I had to examine my own disability and see what it had to teach me – maybe even finally LEARN the lesson in order to harvest the Divinity within.

So I asked, What is the gift of my aloneness?

And this time my answer came as a stream of questions.

Did the loss of your intimate relationship not force you to own your projections and encounter the hidden aspects of yourself, in the process healing (and loving) all of your Being, and learn how to give unconditional love to others? And did this not make you a better healer as well as a more peaceful human being?

Has your aloneness not provided the quiet (and the motivation) you needed to go within and commune with me? (This I heard from both Sam-el and God him/herself.)

From that communing have you not experienced Bliss – physical, emotional and spiritual – reliably and repeatedly?

Have you not felt the embrace of ascended masters, angels and beings of all realms and dimensions, and known the purity of love as it resides in your own heart?

Have you not co-created a community of souls around the world bringing peace and healing to Earth, and have you not felt their hearts beating with yours, their laughter and tears, their very breath and life energy surging in your own body?

Has your lack of partnership in work not forced you to realize your abilities and capacities as a business leader? To know in your gut that there is nothing you cannot do in this area, to commit to mastery of your field – healing and teaching – and to grow stronger and more confident with every step on this journey?

Have your clients not been your lovers as well, with an abundance of unimpeded unconditional love passing between you and them in each and every session?

Has your daughter not come to know you as a model of womanhood, as someone she can count on and take inspiration from, as a fountain of love for her?

And then I heard perhaps the most important truth of all.

Your lack, and the pain it has caused you, has made you feel different, BE different from others. And that single difference is the chink in the wall that has enabled you to tear down the entire illusion of a fixed world, run by one set of rules that applies to everyone and by which everyone is judged.

That single difference is strong enough to break through the density of matter, the oppression of bad news, the inertia of all you thought you had become and were stuck doing. It is enough to bring into question Identity and Duality themselves, the bedrock of our 3D existence.

So here’s the Truth, the core of my lesson: Nothing is as it seems. The Real lies within. Life is a game which we all play with the same FULL spiritual deck, and whose rules we get to make up as we go along. I am not alone and have never been. My aloneness has set me firmly on the path of spiritual mastery. And, like all journeys, this one has no final destination, and can be enjoyed, if I choose, for its own sake .

As for partnerships, who’s to say if mine are better or worse than those of my neighbor to whom I compare myself. Or perhaps she’s just got a different disability; may she discover its gift and thereby experience her own Divinity. For mine I’m eternally grateful.

Now here’s the link to the video I mentioned at the start of this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y80BBjJAUaI