Look up and out

My daughter loves to ride horses, so yesterday we found a corral and hired a guide to take the family on a trail ride around the Lake Louise area.

I have almost no experience riding horses, so I was quite preoccupied for a while learning how to ride a horse proper and give it the right commands.

Aside from Moslin, my gelding, wanting to eat green grass which he was strictly forbidden to do, all went well.

After 30 minutes or so, I looked up from the trail and realized there was a gorgeous lake view to take in plus a multi-layered and brilliantly colored jettison of rock bulging out of the earth on the other side of the water to admire. I had been so engrossed in riding that horse that I had become oblivious to my surroundings.

Aha! I exclaimed. How often does this happen in our travels through the highways of life? How often do we get so focused on what we’re doing that we fail to see incredible and beautiful sights whizzing by us? And they are gone without us even realizing they existed!

I pondered some of the states of mortal thought that are wrapped up in a narrow view of things and miss out on much good.

For instance, take self-absorption. A mindset absorbed with self interest doesn’t appreciate and see all the good going on in their neighbor’s life. It doesn’t matter to them. Or take gluttony. It doesn’t consider the long term implications of over consumption because it doesn’t care. It wants to consume and does so with indifference to the benefits that come from moderation, discipline, and finding contentment outside of food. Or the pursuit of money! Greed and lust race through life with laser focus on financial accumulation often to the detriment of moral and spiritual growth.

There are many other narrow limited views of existence I could enumerate that keep the human mind preoccupied and ignorant of a greater good to be seen and acknowledged.

And then there are the bigger errors of “I am mortal, I am sick, I am poor.” These constrained views of reality would really limit experience to a confined sense of things and have one spend day after day missing out on immortal blessings, health and satisfying wealth.

I decided that believing “I am mortal,” would be like me watching the mud on the trail ahead of my horse and ignoring all the beautiful flowers, forest, lake and mountains around me. A mortal mindset would ignore eternal life, permanent health and ever-present riches of Love. There is huge physical, moral and spiritual freedom that comes from acknowledging eternal life, no matter how mortal one might feel temporarily.

I committed myself to not watching the muddy trail of mortal belief so much and holding onto the greater more inspiring view of spiritual reality.

The widest view is the spiritual view. The best view is the heavenly view. The grandest view is God’s view.

For the rest of the ride, I declared, “No more getting mesmerized by the trail ahead of me. Look up and out to the glorious sights around me.” And I took the inspiration even higher to behold the glorious creation of God in divine Mind that could be discerned only with spiritual sense.

A feeling of peace took over, and the strain and stress that accompanied worry about the path underfoot faded into nothing.

The family had a fun time, even though a bit wet when finished, and I was better spiritually for the adventure.

On a trail ride beside Lake Louise