Thanks to Nick Fewings of Unsplash for the image

There are two ways of looking at Hope; like everything else, I suppose.  On one hand it’s great to have, especially from a religious perspective. To have hope in a world that has seemingly gone mad is surely a very positive thing.  But, I’m going to look at hope from a deeper spiritual perspective.  First of all though, what is it?  For me, hope relates to an event or something in the future that is going to be responsible for making me happy.  There’s only one drawback with that.  If I don’t get the thing I’m hoping for, or if the event I’m hoping for doesn’t happen, I’m in danger of my hope turning into pain and suffering.

Hoping for a certain thing or event to happen really keeps us blind to our true reality, which is the One eternal Self.  This truth can only be realised in the Now, or present moment.  Past and future constitute imaginary time and do not really exist.  The past that shaped and conditioned us, happened Now, and the future that everyone is worried about and that contains the hoped for things that we have spoken of, can also only happen Now.

Yes, hope can be a positive thing when it is understood for what it actually is, but it can also be a jailer, keeping us locked away in the mind-made prison of imaginary time (past and future).