Finding my Inner Wisdom through Acceptance and Identity
Written by: Eika Jung
“Your Heavenly Parent who loves you resides deep in your heart. You are designed to hear God’s true voice. We all need to hone our ability to hear the true voice of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother in our hearts. Your heart is your eternal guardian.” – Mother of Peace
There are certain life outcomes that aren’t ours to decide, regardless of the contributions we’ve made. One such example is being laid off from a job. And so, I’ve joined thousands of corporate workers that are newly unemployed. AI has come for my job. Yet, I was not completely caught off guard. A few months prior, I was mulling over whether to report a work incident, when I felt an intuition, strongly advising me to let it go and to urgently find another job. So strong was this sense that I stayed up after midnight searching for jobs.
Mother Han reminds us that “your heart is your eternal guardian.” Whether it’s a voice, a visual, a bad taste, or a gut feeling – I think its effect is similar for all of us. We experience a quiet shift, an internal tug, a sense of momentum or of letting go. The heart as a guardian implies protection and a sense of safety. While it did guide me to look for jobs, it did more – I felt at peace with the news that I was being let go the moment it happened. I felt guarded from anger, stress and grief (all perfectly valid feelings to have by the way).
But how does one “hone our ability to hear the true voice of Heavenly” Parent in our hearts? It certainly isn’t straightforward. I’d like to tackle this by discussing the legendary cartoon movie, “Kung Fu Panda (2008).” The premise is that the Dragon Warrior is destined to receive the Dragon Scroll. Tai Lung, Master Shifu’s most dedicated student, trains for the Dragon Scroll prize, convinced his Kung Fu mastery will earn him the unrestricted power that the Scroll gives. Master Shifu builds up this expectation in Tai Lung very explicitly. But to everyone’s surprise, the spiritual leader, Master Oogway, reveals an untrained, seemingly undeserving panda, named Po, as the Dragon Warrior. Master Shifu is also incredulous. This insult is too much for Tai Lung to endure and he vows vengeance on Po, determined to steal the Scroll and its power.
It is Master Oogway – much like the quiet voice of God – who never explains or defends the revealing of Po. In fact, many times, he shifts the attention away from Po. It’s clearly not really about Po. He simply trusts that the Divine is already at work. It is really Master Shifu’s expectation of Tai Lung that created a monster. Master Shifu could have shaped Tai Lung’s training differently – no need to perform or cling to rigid rituals to force a Dragon Scroll outcome. I believe Master Oogway and Mother Han share the belief that “honing our ability to hear” means lowering our external expectations of how God should sound (obvious, clear, specific) and trust that the Divine is the life force swirling within and all around. This life force is illustrated well by the petals of the movie’s sacred peach tree, swirling in the wind.
Scene from Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks Animation, 2008)
Master Shifu resists change, resists accepting what is, and it’s honestly extremely relatable. At the end of the movie, the Dragon Scroll is revealed. It does not contain a magical power – it is just a mirror, reflecting self. But Po understands the true reality, and the ultimate reassurance, that he is already Divine. In many ways, we are each a Dragon Warrior. Our heart is the Dragon Scroll; revealing (and accepting) our nature is Divine power. Master Shifu is genuinely surprised that Po defeats Tai Lung – but his full acceptance of the outcome allows him to feel peace.
In this period of uncertainty — unemployment, recession, war, El Niño, AI — it can feel as though outcomes are simply happening to us. And in a sense, they are; the Divine governs what we cannot. But Mother Han’s reminder is also an intimate one: because our Heavenly Parent resides in us, the same force moving the larger world is also quietly moving within. Our heart is not separate from that governance — it is the personal address where the Divine speaks. Like Po before the mirror of the Dragon Scroll, we don’t need to earn access to that voice. We only need to trust that it is, always, already there.
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