Showing posts with label Spiritual path. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spiritual path. Show all posts

Saturday, August 10, 2019

What is the spiritual path like?

What is the spiritual path like? It is not a bunch of ideas, beliefs, allegiance to creeds, but it is a set of behaviors, practises.

One of the most basic of spiritual practises is forgiveness in the place of judgment. Forgiveness is of spirit while judgment is of the ego.

To follow the commentary on  A Course In Miracles click here.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

The right decision in the end

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UU encourages the search but offers little guidance, other than its naming six sources for its "living tradition", in where to look. Like Moses and the Israelites, UUs have wound up wandering in the wilderness for 57 years since its merger in 1961. If UU is to thrive it must clarify its spiritual mission and provide more useful guidance for the spiritual journey.

When I was a child, about the age of 10, it dawned on me that "It's not a bad life if you know how to live it." Where this aphorism came from, I have no idea. I don't remember anybody telling me this. I just seemed to understand this from my intuitive mind. The aphorism arose from my "inner well." It seemed a right understanding then and it still does at age 72 all these years later.

Now, after all these years, I have a better understanding of what this aphorism means. According to A Course In Miracles, I can live my life on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. I have tried, since age 14, to live according to the path of the spirit, and have learned how to do this reflecting on my experience.

Experience has been a great teacher. Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I have tried to live an examined life. To live an examined life, the person has to admit that (s)he doesn't know. Knowing that you don't know is the first step on the path of the spirit. Knowing that you don't know, and that other people don't either, leads one to no longer trust the path of the ego to provide the satisfaction and fulfillment of the good life.

Throughout my life I have been well aware that bull shit abounds. Bull shit is abundant and we live our lives sinking deeper and deeper into it until we, sometimes desperately, become aware that there must be a better way. With this awareness, what I call, "the dawning," we initiate a search. We become a seeker for what that better way might be. I call this initiation of the search, "the turning." "The turning" is the turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit.

"The turning" is easier and ultimately must involve our asking our "Higher Power" for guidance. There are many formula's human beings have created for this requesting. One of my favorites is "What would Love have me do?" or more simply, "What is the loving thing?"

In the Christian prayer, the Our Father, we say in part, "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Bringing my will into alignment with what I think is God's will brings peace and joy and the "good life" which I have been seeking.

Sometimes my ego objects to my doing God's will. Doing God's will can fill me with fear sometimes and yet I have found that to move ahead in faith, in spite of the ego's objections, has always been the right decision in the end.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Two paths: the path of the ego or the path of the spirit

Of the six sources articulated for the living tradition of Unitarian Universalism the first is "Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life." Sounds good in theory doesn't it? But are you ready? Are you ready for that "direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder...?" Not everyone is. Most people in our contemparary culture have chosen to go down a different path, the path of the ego. The path of the ego seductively entices us with materialism, power, sex, and illusional drama. Most people in our contemporary culture think the things on this ego path are real when postmodern philosophy has taught us that they simply are "social constructions."

The Dali Lama said that the purpose of human life is happiness. Profound statement. But what does it mean? The next question, of course, is, "what will make me happy?" It is in answering this question that the fun begins and people get lost in the wilderness.

Spiritual teachings tell us over and over and over again that the ego cannot make us happy. The ego promises to and seduces us into all kinds of things and activities and eventually we come up empty handed and in despair.

The spiritual path, though, leads to not only happiness, but joy, and bliss.

The Creator, our Higher Power, God, the Universe, the Ground of our Being, whatever we choose to call the Ultimate is always happy because it is the Ultimate's creation and the Ultimate could not be anything but pleased with the Ultimate's creation which the Ultimate only desires to share because sharing is part of the Creation itself. As part of this Creation we have a choice: to pursue the illusions of our separateness and what we think will make us happy in the kingdom we have created, or to pursue the Kingdom of Our Creator by discerning and following the Creator's will.

Discerning and following Our Creator's will is the narrow gate which Jesus talked about. The saying, "Many are called but few are chosen," at one level makes sense because not everyone chooses to follow the spiritual path of discerning and following God's will initially, but eventually everyone will come around to it. It's only a matter of time.

For those of us who have chosen the spiritual path to discern and follow God's will, it is our purpose to help our brothers and sisters make the same choice when they are ready. For those who follow the ego's path changing to follow the spiritual path can be a big change. It can be for some the easiest most natural thing in the world when they are ready, but becoming ready sometimes is very difficult and painful and entails much suffering because of all the mistakes that are made.

For those of us following the spiritual path, it is our job to forgive ourselves and our brothers and sisters for their mistakes for they know not what they do. Forgiveness is the path to gratitude and gratitude in the moment, the Holy Instant, is the path to the Kingdom of the Ultimate, the"direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder.".
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