Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – We are Spiritual Beings Having a Human Experience

Tags

Anger, Attachment, Contentment, Detachment, Discrimination, Forgiveness, Greed, Humility, Lust, Passions of the Mind, Soul, tolerance, Vanity, Virtues

“Remember, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Stephen Covey

Read more at: Brainy Quote

Have you ever wondered how you can think about thinking? What part of you is watching you? My religion is ECKANKAR and we call this you—soul. Soul is a spiritual being. It is the real you. It is that part of you that can watch what you are thinking, saying, and doing. Soul is what thinks about what the mind thinks and what the body does. Soul uses your body to experience this life.

I believe in reincarnation. To believe in reincarnation, there must be a something that outlives the body and takes a body when it is time to live another life. This is soul. Soul experiences. Soul learns. Soul needs a body to experience things here. It needs a body to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. It needs to experience the mind’s memory, it’s intuition, and its subconscious, automatic processes.

Soul is the real you. It is a spark of God. God creates soul and soul exists because God loves it. Soul is forever. It never dies, it merely moves to another realm of existence when the human body dies. In this realm it interacts with other souls to continue its learning on another plane of existence. It can return here, it can go to other dimensions or planes, it will go where it needs to go to continue its spiritual journey.

I know this may be a little mind-blowing to some of you. I like using Saturdays to move away from the self-improvement chats and all the rest to dedicate one day a week to discuss my religion and some principles and insights it offers. I am not here to evangelize or push my beliefs down your throat. I merely want to educate. In ECKANKAR, we believe that each soul chooses the religious path it needs during this lifetime. Some souls select Islam, some Christianity, some Buddhism, some Judaism, or Hinduism. Regardless of the religion soul chooses, it is the perfect religion for that soul at the time. As an ECKIST, I believe this to be true. Your religion is yours and yours alone. It is exactly what you need in this lifetime to move ahead spiritually.

The viewpoint of soul is the highest. When you come to realize that soul is the real you, life gets a lot easier. Life isn’t scary anymore, when you realize that you have an infinite amount of lives left. Soul never dies. Soul is infinite. This life will come and go, but soul is forever. Soul takes all its experiences with it when this body finally goes to sleep for the last time. Soul needs these experiences to learn the lessons it needs to gain wisdom and progress spiritually.

Think about all the things you learn during a lifetime. You learn about love. You learn about work. You learn about loss and suffering. You learn about joy and ecstasy. You learn about horror and evil. Soul learns why the passions of the mind like lust, anger, greed, attachment, and vanity are dead ends. Over time, it learns that the virtues are ever-lasting. These are discrimination, tolerance/forgiveness, contentment, detachment, and humility.

When you are lustful, angry, greedy, attached to material things or ideas, or vain, there is a coinciding feeling, a pit in your stomach, an ache in your heart, or some other discomfort. When you are discriminating, tolerant and forgiving, content, detached, and humble, the feelings are lighter. You have a feeling that is long lasting. Things are just right. Soul needs to learn these things through millions of lives and even more experiences. It is the only way.

You are soul, a spiritual being, learning and experiencing through a human body, not the other way around. I wish all of you a Happy Easter tomorrow (for those that celebrate).

Baraka Bashad (May the blessings be).

Until next time…

Dave

Advertisements

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Living the Detached Life.

Tags

Attachment, change, David Allen, Detachment, Flux, Impermanence, Mind like Water, Suffering, The Buddha

“The root of suffering is attachment.”  – Buddha

I wanted to discuss the character trait of detachment today. Detachment is not a passive state of mind. Detachment doesn’t mean that you don’t care about achieving things or finishing projects. Detachment is a state of mind that does not rely on an idea, material item, or outside circumstances or person. Detachment allows a person to be free from desire. Following the Buddhist mindset, detachment frees us from suffering.

Think about how our reality is in constant flux. This flux means that your body, your possessions, your relationships, and even what you think you know today, will change. Anything that changes is, by definition, an illusion. Subsequently, if you attach yourself to things that will change, you are just asking for pain and suffering. David Allen, author of Getting Things Done provided one of the best explanations for this state of detachment. His statement about having a “… mind like water…” is the best explanation of a detached state. Think about that for a moment. Water does not overreact to anything. It reacts exactly enough to accommodate changes to its environment. When you throw a pebble into a pond, the pond accepts the pebble without over compensating to the entry of the pebble through the water’s surface tension. Once the pebble has passed through the water, it generates a wave that expands outward from the point of entry. This expansion is equal and consistent. Once the ripples dissipate, the water returns to its normal state. It accepts change, reacts just enough to accommodate the change, and then returns to its original state.

A mind like water can be the same as the pond. Something happens with your job, your health, a relationship, or something you depend on. It upsets you for a moment. Like the pond, you let your mind return to your state of calm. It takes time to develop this mentality, but if you realize that nothing is permanent in life and accept this premise, life smooths out. The changes come but they do not adversely affect you as much. You react like anyone does when a loss comes. You are angry, upset, sad, for a time, but that time period is much shorter than someone who has not achieved this state of mind—the detached mind. You enjoy what you have when you have it, but when it goes away, you remain grateful.

When you pursue something, enjoy achieving a goal, we can use the same mindset. You enjoy the victory for a moment but realize that it is time to pursue another goal. The pursuit provides meaning in our lives. It gives us something to work toward. It is the time during the pursuit where the growth happens. We learn a new skill; we learn a new discipline; we learn a new way of solving problems. This we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Attachment causes suffering. It sets us up for failure because whatever you own, including your own body will atrophy and fade away. To avoid this, remember who and what you are. You are not the body. You are not the mind. You are a soul. Notice the wording. I did not say it is your soul. That would signify that your body owns a soul. That is not true. The soul uses a body. No one owns or possesses a soul. You are soul and it has a body for its use during this lifetime. This may take a while to wrap your mind around, because using the phrase: “my soul or your soul” is so common in today’s society.

If you can accept this idea—that you are soul—your life will smooth out. You will lose your attachment to your body, your mind, your possessions, your job, your friends and relatives. You will lose your attachment to an ideology. None of these things will last. You are only “using” them while you are here. When you pass away, die, or what I call translating, you merely move to a different state of consciousness. Your body doesn’t come with you. Your possessions don’t come with you. Your relatives don’t come with you. You leave your money, your toys, and your loved ones at some point. So, enjoy these things while you have them. There’s nothing wrong with being grateful for what you have now. Detachment will relieve a great deal of pain, when these things inevitably go away. A detached state of mind knows of our fleeting existence here. It knows that nothing is permanent. It expects nothing. It accepts the blessings that are present and strives for the sake of striving, because the striving is where the experience, learning, and growth are. Whatever happens, because of this striving, is not of concern.

Well, I’ve given you a lot to think about. Try getting your mind wrapped around some points I’ve made here. You’ll find that your life will take on a new meaning and you will be ok when things you depended on go away. (They all will at some point).

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday -How We React is What Matters

Tags

Awareness, Balance, Detachment, Filters, Internal Maps, Negativity, Positivity, Reaction, reality

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”—Epictetus

There are so many things that happen to us that are out of our control. We get sick. We suffer during national disasters. The people in our lives betray us.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on the mind and have learned a great deal. Each of us has an internal filter. This filter causes us to miss, alter, or even delete the inputs we receive from our environment. This filtering is both unconscious and automatic. If our filter is healthy, there are no problems. If our filter is unhealthy, there are all kinds of problems.

Some people can look at a situation and see the good in it, regardless of the circumstances. Others could look at the same situation and see the worst. All of us do this. We test our environments and make judgements. These judgements affect the way we interpret our lives.

Have you ever noticed how some people are always experiencing one disaster after another? Everything seems to go wrong. Their health is bad, their outlook is mainly negative, and they expect the worst. The people in their lives cause problems, their decisions cause problems. All of this occurs because of their internal wiring. Because their perceptions and filters are on automatic, they cannot change what they see. Their lives perpetuate a vicious cycle because that’s all they can see.

The opposite of this person is someone who walks through life in bliss. Everything they touch turns to gold. Anything they try to do yields results. Their relationships are healthy. They are healthy. Their outlook is positive. Like their counterpart above, they automatically look for the good and this is what they get.

Most of us fall in between these two individuals. Some things that happen to us we feel bad about while other things happen that we feel good about. All of us have that weakness or outlook that plague us.

Regardless of our internal filters or maps, we all deal with reality. Reality is. Things happen to us. Our reaction to this reality dictates our mood. Some will look at a bad situation and see the good in it. Some will look at a bad situation and only see the bad. Some will rail against this reality and try to change it. They fail, become frustrated, and continue to complain about reality, which will not change.

What’s the solution to this problem? Acceptance and detachment. If we accept reality for what it is, we adapt to it. Detachment eases suffering. We expect nothing; we accept everything as it is. We can still set goals, pursue our interests, and strive for what we want, but remain in a detached state about our results. This detachment allows us to continue to strive and accept the results we have attained. Then we adjust and push forward again. We don’t get pissed; we don’t get ecstatic. We accept things for what they are, make the changes we can, and live with the rest in peace. We are in peace because our detachment allows us to be happy with what we have without expectation.

If you react to something in an inefficient or unhelpful manner, stop. Examine your internal processes. What triggers your reaction? If you can sit back and observe yourself being triggered, you can locate how you create this feeling. Once you understand how you create these inefficient feelings, you can change them. In most cases, once you realize something inside you that does not serve you, it will fade away. Your awareness is key.

I hope all of you have a terrific day!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Series Sunday – The Character Trait of Detachment

Tags

Attachment, Contentment, Detachment, Emotions, Letting go, pain, Suffering

“Everything is temporary; emotions, thoughts, people and scenery. Do not become attached, just flow with it.”—Anonymous

Detachment is the focus for this month. So, this month I’ll continue to work on discrimination, tolerance, forgiveness, and contentment. Each month I add one more character trait I want to work on, just like Benjamin Franklin did in his time.

Detachment relates to a practice of letting go. We live in a reality of constant change. Our health changes, our appearance changes, our situations change, and our relationships change. Tomorrow, you could lose everything. Detachment allows us to live a better life because it frees us from the emotional upheaval we experience when we lose something. Attachment in a constantly changing world is painful. Everyone around us will pass away at some point. Our pets will pass away. Our relatives and friends will pass away. We will pass away.

Detachment doesn’t mean we live an unfeeling life. Detachment means we live life to the fullest, appreciating what we have when we have it. It means to cherish what you have at the moment. Living a detached life allows us to be content with what we have and helps us avoid the lingering pain that occurs when we attach ourselves to something. Detached people, express pain for their loss and get on with their lives. It is not emotionless; it is realistic.

I hope all of you are having a great Sunday! Today is my do-nothing day. I’ll be relaxing, playing games, and doing what I want today. How about you?

Until next time…

Dave