Is that God Calling?
Exactly what is “will?” Have you noticed differences in your depth of intentionality on different occasions and at different times in your life? New Year’s resolutions, for example, are known for very often not being followed through with.
In contrast, it’s possible to feel ourselves turning in a new direction and giving assent to this at a profound level. Our lives can take on a new or renewed course and purpose. One example of this is the sense that people sometimes have of being called to their work. The will to perform work to which we feel called is indefatigable.
How do you account for life-altering changes in intentionality that feel less like we initiate them and more like we respond to something greater than our personal volition?
In contrast, it’s possible to feel ourselves turning in a new direction and giving assent to this at a profound level. Our lives can take on a new or renewed course and purpose. One example of this is the sense that people sometimes have of being called to their work. The will to perform work to which we feel called is indefatigable.
How do you account for life-altering changes in intentionality that feel less like we initiate them and more like we respond to something greater than our personal volition?
Posted by Paul at 8:14 PM Permalink
22 Comments:
“All transactions should be directly with what one accepts as God”
“There are three states for each domain of one’s existence – the state of dormancy, the state of passive manifestation and the state of active manifestation. The contention between these states is put to rest only when one recognizes and accepts a fourth state that transcends the three states. The excellence in higher domain serves as the fourth state for the domain below that.”
Can we say that that the fourth state is “the spirit of enterprise”- as an approximation.
Is not the intentionality, which you are talking about, the same as the spirit of enterprise that manifest in different forms in different domains?
If so, the changes in intentionality in any domain are to be attributed to the subtle changes in the higher domains. And such impulses take the form of a “CALL” from within.
Wish you all things good for the coming year.
God's calling? Maybe when they come with a sense of peace. I do know that He always answers, if I try hard enough to listen.
I try not to second guess myself when the directives come from a priest or a sister.
AVGW: I really like that first quote. I find myself wondering if the context for the rest is more one of describing the workings of inner life, or a cosmological/metaphysical scenario - maybe the former within the latter...
MISTIPURPLE: That strikes me as major - that it's known by carrying a sense of peace.
"How do you account for life-altering changes in intentionality that feel less like we initiate them and more like we respond to something greater than our personal volition?"---I don't see it as "greater" but as coming from the unconscious. Some would say God acts from within. I don't find the term "God" at all helpful in these days when the religious context is not clear. It has too much baggage. I follow that internal voice because I have learned to trust it. I have no need to account for it at all. It's my intent to be its instrument as completely as possible.
hmmm, interesting, I am not sure we have a choice, but only an opinion or an approach I suppose... imho :)
I envision Allah's will as what exists and human will as a striving to make "real" a condition or state we feel is necessary. When our "will" coincides with Allah's will then we are happy. I surmise there are all sorts of repercussions for that, but I am too lazy to take it further. Which also says a lot about my will...
Happy New Year!
peace - kevin
VINCENT: The word "will" can be used to denote phenomena that are distinct though in some ways similar. This could be a problem, but not necessarily.
I agree - unless you use the word God in relation to a community or individual that already agrees with you on what the word means, or you clearly communicate what you mean, it’s problematic outside of suggestive or metaphorical contexts. (Some religious poetry, for example, transcends sectarian divisions.)
With regard to your “intent to be its instrument as completely as possible” – couldn’t this suggest that the internal voice that you’re not labeling "God" is in some sense greater than, say, the other voices of Vincent?
CRYSTAL: Seems that way to me. We’d probably want to be clear that by referring to work that makes us happy, we mean work that brings us joy in some contexts but can bring pain in other contexts, and yet still leaves us at peace.
Maybe we could say that work that “fulfills” us also fulfills God’s will for us.
KEVIN: From your cursory thought there, I’m thinking you’d make a pretty good accountant, so to speak, and that it must be sheer “laziness” that kept you from going on to draw the important distinction between willpower and will, lol.
Happy New Year to you too, and all -
I value that internal voice more than other influences, and prefer it to my will. But this is some distance away from calling it "greater".
If it told me to bomb Iraq and torture captives, and I were arraigned for war crimes, I would still say it was an inner voice, one which I preferred to listen to, rather than God's voice calling me.
In other words, I take responsibility for the choices I make.
I love being here. Just wanted you to know. :)
I wish you good days and better ones at least. You are in my thoughts often.
It is amazing how somethings things happen and I did not have a part in planning them. What I am learning is just be open to possiblities and if if feels right take advantage of them.
Good Luck with your book.Helen
"I take responsibility for the choices I make." Still, your choice among the voices isn't arbitrary. Some voices are weightier than others, and I'd even say that we can "hear" a voice that isn't subjective. And that this doesn't mean having to conceive of it as the opposite of subjective, i.e., externalized and objective.
MISTI, I really appreciate that.
HELEN: Yes, it seems to me as well that our capacity for opportunism is a major force in creating a life.
Just wanted to wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
May the new year bring you a sense of renewal, invigoration of spirit and lots of love. All the best for 2008.
PAULINE: That everything that goes on in our own minds goes on in our own minds doesn't preclude important distinctions.
For example, some things that go on in our own minds, emotionally as well as cognitively, connect us to the wider world, the beyond-self, helping us - and others, and, at this point in human history, our species as a whole - survive.
Other mental phenomena close us in, shut us down - disconnect us from larger spheres of reality and interest.
And thanks for your contributions to the interestingness of the discussion...
And part of my repugnance for Christianity is its imperialism, annexing spiritual experience and moral virtues as if it had invented them.
A huge obstacle to writing something in the area of religion and spirituality that's based on experience, not doctrine - in an effort to point out that there's some important non-doctrinal ground that hardly anyone seems to be looking at - is that religious language comes with so much baggage.
And yes, there's clearly considerable lunacy connected with religion, as well as some great truths. Your reference to far right claims that there's no morality or spirituality outside of Christianity is a good example.
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