Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – The Law of Consciousness

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Awareness, Belief, consciousness, expansion, Growth, Saturday, spirituality

Have you ever created a picture, poetry, or a physical object like a table or bookshelf? When you began you stared at a blank canvas, piece of paper, or a pile of wood. What gave that life? You did.

The Law of Consciousness dictates that the thought or idea has to start from the inner, to be expressed later in the outer form. You have to have the story, poem, music, or design in your head before you can create it.

The same process occurs spiritually. You have to have an idea of what you are seeking before you can seek it. You have to realize the existence of something before you can explore it. You have to believe before you can experience something. Without the belief or awareness of something, you cannot conceive it.

To be conscious of something, you have to gain the realization or belief that what you are thinking is possible. Then it is easy to manifest.

Where do ideas come from? They come from the real self–Soul. Soul is not bound by matter, energy, space, or time. It is infinite. It is omnipresent. Subsequently, Soul sees the whole picture. When Soul tries to communicate to the mind, the mind censors it, particularly if the information that is transmitted is too much for the mind to handle. Subsequently, our spiritual progress is slow and measured. This is the way it has to be, but progress is made, regardless of your awareness of it or not.

This is the Law of Consciousness. Have a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – The Law of Change

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God, inevitable, Law of Change, reality, Spiritual, Spiritual Saturday, Universe

Take a moment to think about your life. What do you notice?

One thing I notice when I look at my life is change. The Law of Change deals with this aspect of our universe. Nothing stays the same—nothing. Our bodies age, our friends change, our environment changes, our relationships change, and so on. Everything in this reality we live in is constantly changing.

Why does change occur? It occurs because our universe is built on three different forces. There is a positive force, a negative force, and a neutral force. These forces interact with one another and impact each of us in an infinite amount of ways. Since each of us is unique, we experience these fluctuations in these three forces uniquely. Our experiences with these fluctuations can be good, bad, or indifferent. Our experience is dictated by our reactions to them. If we perceive change as good, we accept it. If we perceive change as bad, we fight it. If we perceive a change as neutral, we don’t see the change, so it doesn’t affect us.

Realizing this, it should be apt that we embrace change, expect it. But do we do that? No. We fight it, we rail against it, we dislike it. This results in a pretty unhappy existence for most.

When things change around us, we have to change. For example, if you are working a good job and told one day that the company is going out of business, you have to adapt to that change. If your loved one tells you that he or she is no longer in love with you and is having an affair, you have to adapt to that. When you wake up and realize you’re sick, you have to adapt to that.

Change is inevitable. It is constant. It is ongoing. When things change, look for the positives. Embrace the change as necessary for your spiritual growth. When you do this, you’re going to begin enjoying changes in your life and realizing a fact: All is in its rightful place in the worlds of God – Harold Klemp. Nothing is left to chance here. There is no bad or good luck. All is in its rightful place. Our feeble human minds may not grasp the reason behind a change, but the change is going to come, and it is necessary for you, me, all of us.

I hope you have a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – The Law of Causation

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Bible, Law of Causation, No escape from your actions, Past lives, Reap, Reincarnation, Sow, Truth

Everything in this universe has a cause. In other words, if something happens, there was an initiating action that sparked it. If we take the time to look, we can see how we have caused everything in our lives.

Sometimes it is difficult to see the cause that created an effect in our life. This is because the cause or initial spark happened in a previous life. This ties into the quote “We reap what we sow” (Galatians, The Bible).

Why is this important? It is important because we are much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. Every single thing we get in life is the product of what we have done or have not done. This translates to a startling conclusion–we are 100% responsible for everything we receive.

Why do bad things happen to good people? The Law of Causation explains it. To understand it, however, you have to acknowledge that Soul is infinite, and it has lived in multiple lifetimes. In other words, reincarnation is real. If you accept this premise, then the things you are reaping in this life were caused during one of your previous lives.

If you truly believe this, you’ll live your life quite differently. You’ll realize that no one escapes their wrongdoing, even if they get away with it in this life. No one escapes. The Law of Causation ensures that every good, bad, or neutral action you take comes back in the end.

Begin living your life as if everything you sow, you will reap at some point in the future. If you acknowledge the truth of this law, your conduct will change in very dramatic ways.

I hope you have a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – The Law of Spiritual Revolution

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Learning, Past lives, Reincarnation, self-improvement, Spiritual Saturday, spirituality, The censor

“No matter what we were in the past during any other life, we are spiritually greater today.” – Sri Harold Klemp – The Loving Heart

Do you believe in reincarnation? If so, this statement will make some sense. My religion, ECKANKAR, and it is one of the key tenets of the path. The reason is simple: Your body is not the real you. What is the real you, you ask? Soul.

You do not possess Soul, you (Soul) possess a body. It uses this body to experience and learn. Since Soul, a spark of God, is infinite in nature, these finite bodies come and go, but Soul remains. To give you an idea of what this is, think about your own thinking. The part of you that is thinking about what you are thinking is Soul.

With each life you live in this physical realm, Soul learns. Unlike the mind, which is nothing more than an automaton, the Soul remembers everything it experiences. So, even if the mind cannot understand that it existed in many forms, places and times, Soul understands.

Why don’t we remember our past lives? The mind of a newborn has to start this life like it has every other. If it could remember every single past life it ever had, it would be so overwhelmed that it could not function. Some young children remember many of their past lives in youth. But the mind, slowly develops what we call the censor. The censor blocks out things that the mind could not handle. For example, if you experienced a traumatic death in a previous life, the mind will tend to censor out those experiences because they would be too shocking to the person’s psyche. Since the censor is developed along with the child’s brain, younger children tend to have nightmares, particularly during the time the censor is developing. During this young age, the censor is undeveloped and those nasty nightmares make their way into the dream state of the young child.

As the censor develops, the nightmares disappear. Some nightmares continue into puberty and adult life, but these are part of this life, not a past life in most circumstances. Nightmares can be sourced from violent books, movies, or even video games. I remember as a child watching horror movies on the weekends with my Dad. They were nothing compared to the movies of today. I’m talking about the old black and whites like The Wolfman, The Mummy, and Frankenstein’s Monster, played by the likes of Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi.

Soul works with the mind by giving it impressions. These impressions are like feelings or prompts. These come from Soul’s huge amount of knowledge and experience—experience it gained over the many past lives you have had on this Earth plane. With each life, Soul learns. When it occupies a new body for another life here, it applies these learnings to the new life, hopefully avoiding the mistakes of past lives that may have even resulted in your untimely death. Subsequently, you are better in this life, than you were in previous lives, merely because you know more than you did before. You have more wisdom to draw on.

Does this learning ever end? Fortunately, no. I say fortunately, because if there was a true state of all-knowingness, what would be left? Nothing. When considering that Soul is infinite, it would be an absolute hell, knowing there was nothing else to learn, nothing else to experience, nothing to improve, right? This is where The Plus Factor comes in.

“The law of spiritual revolution presupposes inequality in all things and beings and their continued effort for self-improvement in life” (Klemp, 2010, p. 537). This continuous improvement occurs infinitely for Soul, as it strives for self- and God-realization. There are always new worlds to explore, new things to learn.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – New Year

Tags

Eckankar, ECKist, free access, Gratitude, Spiritual New Year, Thanksgiving, worldwide seminar, Year of Thanksgiving

For ECKists like myself, the 22nd of October is our New Year. Each year has a spiritual meaning within a 12-year cycle. This year is the Year of Thanksgiving.

What does the year of Thanksgiving? It is a year-long celebration being thankful for the gifts of spirit. Each year, starting on the 23rd of October, we have our worldwide seminar. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, our worldwide this year is virtual. For those of you who are interested, you can participate in this seminar for free.

Here’s the link: https://www.ecksouladventure.org/

At the bottom of the page, you’ll click on the yellow register button. It’s simple. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be sent a password for the seminar. Then you can return to view talks, workshops, and see Sri Harold Klemp, the spiritual leader of ECKANKAR. My family and I watched some talks today. They were terrific!

You will not be bugged about joining ECKANKAR. No one will keep your email address on file and enter you into any email lists. We offer access to this seminar to the world, but do not proselytize. This is ECKANKAR’s gift to the world.

Have a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Love Yourself

Tags

Contentment, Detachment, Giving, Humility, Love, receiving, Self Love, Selflessness

“You have to give love to get love” – Paul Twitchell

This is a simple equation, isn’t it? It’s the simplicity of these wise words that makes it difficult, right? The mind likes to complicate things–make them difficult. Easy things are hard to imagine, because we are so ready for the hard things.

Our minds are always on the lookout. The mind seeks out danger because it is wired to do so. It is fearful of the unknown. It is fearful of something new. It is also very hard on us.

When you begin something new, what does your mind tell you? Why are you doing this? You don’t know what you’re doing. You will mess up. You aren’t good enough? The mind is a terrible taskmaster for some of us.

When people speak of love, they typically mean loving someone or something else. When was the last time you loved yourself? When was the last time you cheered yourself on, patted yourself on the back, imagined a younger version of yourself and told that version that you were good, you were enough, and that you are loved? I bet it might have been a while–am I right?

You have to love yourself, before others will love you. You also have to be satisfied with being alone. When you love yourself and are happy by yourself, you won’t have any expectations of someone else. You won’t attach strings to the love you give them, because you are already satisfied with the love you are receiving–from yourself.

Take the time to really love–YOU! You know yourself better than anyone. You are the only person that can do this for you. Why be dependent on another person? Why yearn for love when you have more than enough to give yourself?

This isn’t selfish. You aren’t going to neglect the loved ones in your life, just take some time to love yourself. When you do so, you’ll find that the love you give is more selfless. You give love to just give it. You won’t expect anything in return.

I hope all of you have a terrific Saturday. I also want to thank all of you who stopped by to wish me a happy birthday. It was nice to hear from you. It was the icing on the cake, so to speak. A great day, followed by happy birthdays here and on my social media accounts. It was really nice.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – The Dark Times

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altering your thinking, change, Dark Night of Soul, Dark times, despair, Making Changes, The Pit, Unhappiness

Some days I am very nostalgic. I think about my life and all the things that have occurred. There are some times where I was on top of the world; at other times I was in a pit. The pit is where nothing works, nothing is right, nothing is all there is. Some have labeled these times periods as the “dark night of soul.”

There are a lot of blogs that people write to overcome a trauma. These blogs range from topics like dealing with various diseases, unfaithful mates, and other topics that are troubling to people. Many are experiencing their own dark times and use blogging as a tool to climb out of the pit they find themselves. This is healthy. Working yourself out of your personal dark times is something that inspires others who may be experiencing the same thing.

Dark times can span a short period of time. They can also span many years. It really depends how deep a person’s pit is. I would wager that there are a few people who enjoy the pity that comes to them when they are experiencing dark times and stick around longer than needed. There is still a smaller population that finds themselves in the pit and don’t want to leave. They’d prefer the “safety” of the pit, rather than digging themselves out and experiencing something new that is too frightful.

My experience during dark times has always been transforming. I have experienced my share of dark times throughout my life. Each time I find myself in these types of situations, I recognize where I am and begin planning ways to escape. I test out each one in my mind and then choose one that has the best chances of turning my situation around.

A certain level of pride comes from escaping or resolving the times we are in those dark times. It feels good to stand up, dust ourselves off, and begin anew. Yet, there are still some who cling to what they know and never escape. Their dark times become the new norm. Instead of escaping their pit, they begin decorating it, surrendering to this new lot in life.

How do you get out of the dark times? The dark times call for a change. They require a change because this is the only way to get out. The dark times come when something—more than one thing – collapses. Perhaps you’re living beyond your means, or you’ve put too much faith in another person. When these unsustainable situations collapse in on themselves there is a feeling that we are trapped, like an insect in a spider’s web. In one of my situations, I couldn’t help but have the feeling of walking off a cliff and not being able to stop myself. We get out of our dark times by making a decision to change our way of thinking and doing things differently.

Sometimes we need help to get out of our personal pits. We need the help of a psychiatrist or counselor. At other times we may need a financial advisor, medical professional, or a family member. Sometimes the shock of our dark times requires an entire change of mindset. Whatever you do during the dark times requires a change. A change of circumstances, a change of location, a change of values, a change in diet, or a change of employers.

To escape the pit, you must want to escape. No one can do it for you. The only way out of the dark times is to look for a way out. Once you do, things will get better.

For those of you experiencing the “dark night of soul”, I wish you well on your journey. It is a tough time. It will get better. It always does.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Food

Tags

alcohol, Allergies, Carbs, Diet, Food, junk food, pastries, Religious diets, Spiritual Saturday, Sweets

Paying attention to foods can help you lead a better spiritual life. People ask me, “What is good food?” There is no good food or bad food for everyone. It depends upon the individual, upon his particular health condition. Who can best tell what’s right for you? You can, of course.

—Harold Klemp
The Language of Soul

Have you ever ran into a person that was allergic to something that you weren’t allergic to? My Mother and Brother are allergic to pork. My Dad, my Sister, and I aren’t. Interesting, right?

How about Avocado? My Mom is allergic to Avocado. The rest of the family isn’t. I can eat guacamole until my skin turns green.

I cannot drink Whey protein. It binds me up. It took me years to find this out, but sure enough. As soon as I moved to a plant protein powder, the binding up issue dissipates.

My body loves carbs, but has a horrible time digesting them. I’ve been bad as of late since the lockdown. I’ve eaten all the carbs I enjoy. But the weight gain follows. I’m not a proponent of a keto diet. I know many are, but for me it is just not a sustainable way to live. That being said, the carbs that do not put weight on me are the slow digesting ones, like oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potato. White breads, white potatoes, white rice, high sugar items like snack foods and pastries are a no-go if I want the weight to come off. The same goes for alcohol. Beer, mixed drinks, and all the rest put the weight on.

I just wanted to demonstrate what Harold is getting at. You have to eat what you know works for you. In some cases, particularly if you are a diabetic, you really need to watch the sugar or carb intake, to maintain your blood sugar levels.

So, enjoy the foods you can. Enjoy eating. As long as you are eating what your body can tolerate and is healthy for your particular condition, have at it. Everyone is unique. Everyone has different tastes and tolerances.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Happiness

Tags

Control, Happiness, Internal, Spiritual, spirituality, stoic, stoicism

Each of us fluctuates from being happy or sad or find ourselves in between these two opposites. I became interested in this a few years ago. I began a study of what made me happy and what made me sad. This led me to a philosophy called stoicism. A few of the famous stoics were Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. The core philosophy of stoicism is only worrying about what you control and let go of the rest. When you pursue this line of thought further, you realize that the only thing you have control over is your attitude about the circumstances or happenings in your life.

If someone does you wrong, a natural reaction is to get angry about it. This is one reaction. Another reaction could be gratitude. You could be grateful for learning about another person’s character. This knowledge can be used to avoid that person in the future, or at least to avoid expecting this person to do anything requiring trust.

There are many things outside of us that could affect our mood. The weather, what a government official says, what a person does or doesn’t do, and the list goes on and on. When you think about all the things that impact your mood, there are many. So what are you supposed to do?

The key to living a happy life is understanding that only you can decide to be happy. Happiness is within you. Happiness is an attitude that springs from your core. This doesn’t mean that you are happy all the time; it means that you are happy most of the time, with intermittent points of disappointment, anger, sadness, and all the other emotions. This requires you to look for the good in every situation. It requires that you look for the lessons that are there, just for you.

It is easy to react. Someone does something that upsets us–we get pissed off. You read a news article about some politician doing this or that, and we get pissed off. You lay some plan for an outing and it blows up and you again get pissed off or disappointed or a combination of the two.

Our emotions all spur from something outside of us in most cases. We are unhappy with our jobs, our partners, our friends, the weather, you name it. When you truly aspire to be happy, regardless of your circumstances, your life will change for the better. You learn that you are in control of your emotions, not the other way around. You are in control of how you react to outside circumstances. When you realize how much control you have, life gets a little easier.

Have a great Saturday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Religious Study

Tags

Benefits, Christianity, community, emptiness, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, mores, norms, Religion, spirituality, Values

The Global Religious Landscape

I put the link to an article that provides some data on religion today across the planet. Religions with the largest number of followers are Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Interestingly, 16.3% of the world’s population are not affiliated with any religion, a higher number than the number of Hindus presently.

There are many advantages to religious practice. Religion provides a community of support that individuals can depend on in times of trouble. Religions offer the ability to connect with other like-minded individuals in a social context. These organizations also offer a system of values that one can rely on when moral dilemmas arise in one’s life.

If you consider yourself non-religious, that’s ok. As the above information shows, there are many who do not affiliate with any religion. I would recommend pursuing a religious belief system if you find that your life is missing something or is empty. You can’t put your finger on the “why” of this emptiness, you just know that it exists.

If you believe you would like to try religion or explore religion as a solution to this emptiness, I would recommend learning about the various religions to figure out which one fits you the best. Learn about Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and any other religion you have an interest in.

There are many books out there that can give you an idea about the basic tenets of each religion, what they believe, and how each one operates. Next, you could visit a religious institution and meet with the religious leader of that organization to discuss when they meet and so on.

If you attend the meeting, get to know people in the group that attend the meetings. Ask them why they believe what they believe. Read through the books they use. Once you have been there for a while, you can make a judgment about continuing your attendance and pursuit of this religion or decide to move on and try something else.

I’m confident you’ll find something that aligns with you. If you are still in doubt, about the benefits of having religion and spirituality in your life, do a Google search on benefits of spirituality, benefits of religion, or something along these terms. Test out what these articles claim.

If you find something, congrats! If not, keep searching. It is a worthwhile endeavor. I enjoy the religion I follow. It provides many benefits to me and my family.

I hope you have a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave