Practical Spirituality
Each of us has the enormous power of being able to choose where to place our attention.
Let nothing come out of your mouth that is a verbal reflex. Think twice.
Any practice that regularly leaves us open to ourselves has power to transform us.
To grow is to find yourself becoming the kind of person you’d always hoped you’d run into some day.
Unless you always knew as much as you know now, how can you condemn someone for knowing less?
If you find yourself reacting to someone with anger or irritation which is out of proportion to any harm they have done you, try to understand what compels you to reject them so emphatically.
Be present to yourself and you will be undisturbed by others lack of presence.
____
PS: "Enemy of the Republic" at Cruel Virgin (linked under My Greater Blogosphere at right) has nominated my blog for an award at http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/nominate. She didn't say for which category but there are some interesting possibilities. Just hope it's not for "Best Animal Blog" because "I am NOT an animal!" as somebody in some famous movie or other said, lol... Seriously, thanks ER --
Let nothing come out of your mouth that is a verbal reflex. Think twice.
Any practice that regularly leaves us open to ourselves has power to transform us.
To grow is to find yourself becoming the kind of person you’d always hoped you’d run into some day.
Unless you always knew as much as you know now, how can you condemn someone for knowing less?
If you find yourself reacting to someone with anger or irritation which is out of proportion to any harm they have done you, try to understand what compels you to reject them so emphatically.
Be present to yourself and you will be undisturbed by others lack of presence.
____
PS: "Enemy of the Republic" at Cruel Virgin (linked under My Greater Blogosphere at right) has nominated my blog for an award at http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/nominate. She didn't say for which category but there are some interesting possibilities. Just hope it's not for "Best Animal Blog" because "I am NOT an animal!" as somebody in some famous movie or other said, lol... Seriously, thanks ER --
Posted by Paul at 9:48 AM Permalink
21 Comments:
Yes, Paul. That is REALLY good.
Most of the times I have reacted strongly to someone it is because I see my own faults reflected in their actions. (This is the beauty of having children, by the way. They take every annoying habit you have and demonstrate it for you so you can see it!)
Have a good day!
Except for one thing in your postscript. "I am not an animal" !
To me the greatest help in ridding myself of religious ideas (replacing them by something that comes from within me, not from without) is the recognition that "I am an animal!"
But I know you did not say it with this kind of seriousness. Congratulations on both insights and award - well, nomination. Let us not count chickens before they are hatched.
so seemingly simple, yet, so difficult to practice sometimes.
I wish I could do better at the "don't react/ reflex"
I do go off on occassion.
Dang! That's why I was doing all that poetry back after the "contest" and, still, every once and a while.
I will especially try to remember this!
- Liz
EMERGING FIRE: That has to be one of the major kinds of reactions – being irritated when someone reminds us of something we don’t like in ourselves.
KATHY, glad you liked it! As I was posting I actually had the thought: Kathy would probably like this one – because you do short sayings on your blog.
VINCENT: Chickens?? I am NOT an animal!!! Well, not poultry anyway…
VISHESH: I like it –
RED M: For sure on the practice. And life goes on, and after you get some things settled, other things come up. But over time, I do notice that there’s progress in the sense that it takes more and more to disturb you and you can deal with worse and worse problems.
Lol… I think I’m talking too much about my own life here! Minus a progressive disease, it may typically be somewhat easier than I’m making it sound! Prior to the illness, my life was definitely becoming more peaceful and joyful year by year and I was able to take everyday problems in stride.
BONEMAN: But the don’t react/think twice doesn’t mean “don’t ever be spontaneous” – poetry would be OK! Only refers to “knee-jerk” negative reactions.
SUE: A Note on “The Art of Blogging…” Thanks Sue, and it’s also interesting, what you just said. Confirms the sense I’ve had that online interactions, sustained over time, can give some real insight into the other person. In real life, people have told me exactly the kind of thing you just did, and as an elementary school counselor, that was part of my style with kids.
LIZ, I'm glad that resonated with you –
Great thought and guidance! We all need these reminders.
#1 I had to be less going off minded and more to the point.
#2 It improved my ability to come up with limericks a lot. (not now, Cato! Not now!)
#3 Drove folks nuts because I couldn't stop doing them....
thankfully, I DID finally stop.
About the CREATOR thing...y'know. Somewhere out there in blog-land there's a comment by someone explaining whatever side of the question he was trying to explain, and he started out with how big the universe was.
It made me think (ow. That hurts...)
no
It made me think along this line. The universe is larger than we can see across, some 15 billion light years. Huge! And, probably it's actually five-seven different universes.
All huge. Way more bigger than any of us can think.
So, if the CREATOR created it all, how can a small mind such as mine even fathom that existence?
And, what would I call such an entity?
Yet, Moses swore on the "I am that I am" voice.
If this is real, there's no saying that the voice was from the CREATOR, the ONE who made the whole universe.
Perhaps it was the SPIRIT.
I dunno. I ain't "up" that far.
But, it seems more likely. Genesis, with or without the translations, it's usually the SPIRIT of GOD moving on the waters.
The SPIRIT of being the noun. GOD as the CREATOR.
Can I "bank" on this?
I dunno. I ain't "up" that far. I can only guess.
But, as for the name?
I DO have an answer there.
I say the CREATOR just to be specific, but will also just as quickly deny it being a truth.
However, anytime someone wants to call out the actual name of the CREATOR, or GOD, I always have the same answer, and that is you say the name through a lifetime of service to others.
Me? I haven't even come close, yet, but, I'm on track.
You? Heck, your service brings more to the CREATOR than I'll ever be able to imagine, so, yer on yer way t'actually saying the name.
I used to invite some jehovah's witnesses in for tea and such. One day I mentioned that to say that "jehovah" was actually the name was too small.
To say the name they would need a hundred thousand trumpets and an equal number of drums, and an equal number of choir members, and....well, a whole lot of sound just to squeak out the name.
'Course, they started gettin' mad at me when I mentioned once that there weren't actually too many witnesses to jehovah, if they believed that to be his name (yeah, I don't put gender into the mix as they do)
In fact, since even Moses wasn't allowed to see, that would leave like, two entities....
Jesus
and the devil.
The last time they came by was when I mentioned Matthew 23; 13,14.
pretty much never saw them on our raod again after that.
oh well.
BONEMAN: On the existence of a Creator: the same logic would apply to any creative Entity, whether you conceive of it as God, Spirit or anything else. Self-generativity or "aseity" - I AM THAT I AM - could as logically characterize being itself as some Other being said to have created the rest of being.
In fact you could even end up with a kind of infinite regress. If the assumption is that any thing needs an other thing to have created it, then you'd need a Pre-God or Pre-Spirit to have created God or Spirit etc. etc...
But it's hard to put this stuff to words, so I do hear you that the idea of Spirit works for you. And I agree that nobody's an expert on what in the world we're doing here or what reality's all about. One time I read a book about Einstein and even that totally non mathematical sketch of his ideas blew me away. I understood maybe a third of what I read - kind of...
So I think that when we talk about ideas like causality and time and try to apply them to things like ultimate reality instead of stuff like who was it that ate that last Chips Ahoy when I wasn't looking, most of us, including me, are, as I think Johnny Carson used to say, in "deep doo-doo."
If a divine Entity did create the world, it seems likely to me that the phrase "God (or Spirit) created the world" will turn out to be some kind of very loose metaphor for what actually happened. Given even no more than the counterintuitive realities of the universe as we've begun to understand it - that space curves, light takes time to travel, time slows down with speed, and now with quantum physics and string theory -it seems doubtful that God's genesis of the-rest-of-reality would bear much resemblance to how people accomplish things in the four dimensions that we operate with in day to day life.(time being the fourth dimension with the other three spacial)
N2: I agree. I usually steer clear of the word "choose" because it gets into the whole free will/determinism thing (or what we might term "deep doo-doo" as per above...) that I don't think is resolvable. So yes, I was talking about the practical value of being conscious of our attention, where we place it, and our ability to alter that - regardless of whether those who develop skill with this are predetermined to or not.
well deserved.
I Am Not An Animal was made famous in the movie about Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. This story is about human dignity.
Set in the Victorian Era, actually Victoria herself made the acquaintance of Mr Merrick, it is unfortunately just as relevant today since we humans always seem to take one step forward and two steps back.
We should probably all adhere to the time honored wisdom of having two ears and one mouth and using them in that ratio. However Fran Leibowitz succinctly noted that the opposite of talking is NOT listening
..it's waiting!
I always jokingly refer to the poor bastards getting raked over the coals on other blogs as being objects for your pity and not your scorn..not because I can practice what I preach, I just like the sound of it.
Measure twice and cut once.
I like this idea! I think the only person you should always compete against is yourself. This is a theme that runs through my spirituality -the idea of eternal progression. I beleive I am here to learn and experience. I believe the Fall was designed for us to experience all that we could not have had experienced otherwise. And this knowledge we may gain is what may help us to grow.
Yet as I embrace the God of my understanding today, that is not who I am, and more surprising to me, that is not who He is. God is not the fulfillment of my prejudices about Him, but is whoever and whatever God is, whether you see God as a person or an abstract principle. I didn't find my way by thinking through whatever I say or whatever anger comes to me, but by surrendering to something greater than me, whatever answers me when I pray, "God help me!" The God who answered that for me has anger about selfishness, lies and indifference toward suffering. I don't think He has anger with all the autonomic reflexes I do, but He has His way of expressing, "I don't like this," as I have mine. I am not master of those ways. At best I have the control a surfer does over the waves that come to him or her, control over some of my actions, but controlled at least as much by what comes to me.
Maybe that's proof that my spiritual path is flawed, as is my understanding of God. I've always known intellectually that my God might be my prejudices, not reality. If so I've done my best for that not to be the case, for my growth not to be my fantasy, but what God wants of me, as in the Prayer of St. Francis. Perhaps I've failed. I don't think so, but what do I know?
The thing is that my way is most different from what you describe with your last point. Why should I be undisturbed? Does God want me to be undisturbed? Does God want me to listen to the equivalent of a baby's cry and ignore it because I'm not the baby's mother? Does God want me to listen to lies and indifference but remain silent because I am incapable of delivering a perfect rebuke, either in content or in emotion? I find my ability to think through such questions to be inadequate. I find the words of other human beings, any others, equally inadequate. So I asked God. Somehow I learned to listen to His answer, at least I think I have.
I don't know if it happens for everyone, but I encountered a time when my spiritual path deviated from my expectations. So do I choose my expectations or something beyond my understanding? Do I sit down in the dirt and refuse to move until sombody makes a little sense of this for me, naturally or supernaturally? I think I actually did that. Then somebody came, somebody whom I trust, even though I lack a perfect reason to do so. He led me places I didn't expect at all, but in ways that I came to trust, even though sometimes they are ways exactly opposite to tradition.
It really does pay to be flexible. Of course I could be entirely wrong about that. That's one part of the human dilemma. We have to trust something. What should it be?
Wise words to live by . . .
Gracias . . .
"Let nothing come out of your mouth that is a verbal reflex."
BEing one who only opens his mouth to change feet i can relate to that. It is hard to not just react, it takes so much sometimes to stop take stock and then make a calm decision.
I never leave the house without saying i love you to my wife, especially after an argument. I would hate to think the last thing i said to someone who meant so much to me was in anger.
Good to see you back on the blogosphere....
AIDAN, good to see you! Not sure just how we lost track... I'll be checking in on your blog. Anger, in all it's forms - that could be a topic in itself.
FRENCHXPAT: Continuing to grow up sure does seem to be a major part of what we’re here to do – like it or not! The alternative is stagnation.
DAVIDD: I don’t consider myself “the author of my spiritual growth” either.
I don’t strive to “see any practice in its best possible light.”
I didn’t speak of becoming “the kind of perfection I wanted to run into some day.” I said “person.”
I didn’t “find my way by thinking my way through whatever I say.” Like you, I found my way by surrendering increasingly to something greater than me. I also like your surfer analogy and have used the same one in thinking about my own process.
You misread my last point: “Be present to yourself and you will be undisturbed by others lack of presence.” It doesn’t mean anything like ignoring starving babies or refusing to undertake other forms of constructive action in life; it means striving not to let your mind and actions be controlled by knee-jerk negative reactions, such as resentment or the desire for revenge, to the negativity of others.
“Wise passiveness” is a phrase I like for what you refer to in your next to last paragraph.
On your last: we do trust something. All of us. I’m pretty sure.
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