Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Your path, is your path.

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Belief, Dedication, Harold Klemp, Path, Religion, Spiritual Saturday

Very often, we are confronted by people who want us to pray their way or colleagues who want us to think their way. We must remember to maintain our individual relationship with God. We have the shining light of Soul, and because we have it, we also have the wisdom of God.

—Harold Klemp
The Language of Soul

I’ve been an ECKist for over 50 years. My religious path is called ECKANKAR. One of the things that has kept me on this path is our lack of proselytizing. We make the public aware of us, but we don’t push it on anyone. One of our core beliefs is that each of us finds the path that is right of us.

Whether you are a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Agnostic, Taoist, Atheist, Buddhist, or any other religion or belief, that’s where you are supposed to be. It is the path right for you. I find comfort that anyone I meet is right in their choice of religious path or belief system.

A few years back, I pursued a detailed look at the religions of the world. It was a fascinating study. What is most fascinating is how each religion came about, and how it has progressed through history. If you have not done something like this, I highly recommend it.

Whatever your religion or belief system, pursue it. Do all your path requires of you. Be the best you can be on the path you have chosen. It is worth it.

I hope each of you is having a terrific weekend!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Reaching an Accord

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Challenging People, Dreams, Harold Klemp, Karma, Past lives, Reaching an Accord, Soul Travel, spirituality

One of the biggest lessons we can learn in life is to do everything possible to reach an accord with the individual we are having trouble with.

—Harold Klemp
The Language of Soul

Human beings are social creatures. We enjoy interacting with one another, making friends, and hanging out. Every once in a while, you run into that one person that just rubs you wrong the moment you meet them. Have you ever run across someone like that?

If you believe in karma, you already know the reason for this disagreeableness. Karma does not pertain only to this lifetime, it spans lifetimes. So, whenever you run across someone you immediately dislike or a person who dislikes you, this is typically the culprit.

How do you solve a conundrum of this sort? Go into prayer, meditation, or contemplation, and ask: Why is this happening? Then pay attention to what comes during your period of prayer, meditation, or contemplation. You can also pay attention to your dreams. The answer can come through there too.

The problem associated with karma is when you earned it with another person. Some of it you earn during this lifetime. The rest of your karma comes from previous lives. Once you know what’s going on, you can work with it.

For those of you who don’t believe in this sort of thing, that’s ok. There are numerous articles online you can read that can help you with challenging people.

If this topic intrigues you, here’s a book you may want to read. It’s called Past Lives, Dreams, and Soul Travel, by Harold Klemp, the author of the quote above. You can get the Kindle version for $8.49.

Well, that’s it for today, folks. I hope you are having a terrific weekend!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Be Grounded in Something

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Doing your Best, Expertise, God, Grounded, Harold Klemp, Paying attention, spirituality

“Become an expert in something. You need to be grounded in something. When you do something for God, for the highest principle, you do each step until it sings.”

—Harold Klemp, The Language of Soul

When I first joined the Army back in the early 80s, my first few years were tough. I was going through the motions, doing all I could to stay out of trouble, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was in this organization 24 hours a day and wasn’t really doing all I could to do my best.

I thought about that one weekend and decided to change things up. I said to myself, “You’re here. You might as well make the best of it and do the best you can at anything the Army asks you to do.” It was hard at first.

Then, as I began to gain some pride in myself, I began feeling good about my uniform, my room, my equipment. I began to put even more effort into the service. I began reading military history, started exercising in the base gym, began reading regulations, field manuals, anything I could get my hands on. You know what? My life in the Army transformed. I actually began to enjoy the service I volunteered for. The remaining 18 years was a joy.

I’m not sure if other veterans can relate, but I’m pretty sure that a great many followed the same path I did. They realized that they were here, anyway. Why not do your best with the time you have?

That lesson led to many other experiences and taught me something. It’s better to do the best you can on any job, than half-ass it. You feel great when you do a good job. You feel great when you develop expertise in something. The people around you notice too. They will approach you to help them. They will ask you how you got good at it. They will notice.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy learning. I enjoy programming. I enjoy exercise. I enjoy my spiritual path. In each of these areas and many others I do my best. I do the best I can.

The moral of this posting is this: We can all be lazy and do the bare minimum. That’s easy. If this is you, try something different. Try putting all you have into each task, whether it’s making your bed, folding your laundry, or taking out the trash. Take your time, do the best job you can do. Then, when you’re done, take a minute and think about how you feel. It’s a great feeling when you know you did your best. It feels even better when you decide to do your best for God. Then, it takes on a whole new meaning.

Do everything until it sings.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Life is a Celebration

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Blessings, God, Grateful, Happy Halloween, Harold Klemp, Life, Thankful

“So few know what a love for living means. They’ve put a web around themselves and called it spiritual. Life is a celebration. Some will read that as wanton living, but true celebration is loving God and Its own.” – Harold Klemp – The Language of Soul

This quote struck me today as appropriate for today, because we are celebrating another Halloween. If you do not celebrate today, cool. We celebrate by passing out goodies to the kids that come around to the house. I enjoy watching scary movies and we enjoy the many costumed kids that come to the door.

Halloween marks the beginning of the holiday season for me. When Halloween hits, there’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day and then we’re off to a new adventure. It’s also nice because my wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary is in December too.

I love life. I really do. I enjoy what I do every day; I feel great physically and mentally, and it is a true gift to spend time with my folks in their senior years. Yeah, as a family we have our days, but for the most part, it’s great fun. My Dad likes telling stories about his childhood and my Mom does too. We eat most of our meals as a family and we are all readers, spending most of the “bad weather” days inside combing through our books.

My love of life is spurred by my gratitude. I try to find gratitude for all I do and receive. I am grateful for my family, friends, colleagues, siblings, and God. It is a wonderful feeling to wake up every day knowing that God loves me and every moment I am here is a blessing God has given me to gain experience and learn how to love and serve others. This is simplicity itself.

Happy Halloween! (for those that celebrate)

Have a great Thursday, the last day of October, and get ready to attack November.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Gratitude

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experiences, Grateful, Gratitude, Harold Klemp, Little Moments, memories, spirituality

Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay 

“Sometimes it’s important to just stop and be grateful for the blessings that you already have.”—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Think about the things you have right now. It’s highly likely you have a place you call home. You have a bed to sleep in. You have people in your life you call friends and loved ones. You may even have a pet. When I look back over my life, the times I was truly happy were when I was satisfied with what I had. I was grateful for those little moments you hold close to your heart. Laughter at a birthday party, knowing smiles between you and your lover in a crowded room, enjoying a cup of coffee or tea while you read a good book, or walking in a park or along a beach with your dog. All of these little moments collect in our boxes of memories where we visit them again and again.

As I have mentioned in numerous postings on this blog, a gratitude journal assists you with staying in perspective. Yeah, we all want a new car, a nicer home, or more toys to play with, but when it really comes down to it, most of us have all we need to live. Why are the feelings we get when we buy something new so fleeting, while the little moments I mentioned above stick with us throughout our lives? It is because these little moments in time are more important to us than a new car, home, or toy. These moments we take with us. They stay with us forever. When we are called to our final resting place, leaving this place, this reality behind, all we have are our experiences. The cars, the homes, the toys, the bank accounts, will not go with you. Neither will your loved ones. You will leave this place with your character, your memories, your experiences–nothing more.

This is why I think our little moments stay with us. We know inside that this is what is important in life. The times you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe, the times you felt love from your friends, significant other, or your pet. The times you felt peaceful and satisfied and everything was right with the world. These are the moments that stick with us and what we take with us when we go to our next place. I am truly grateful for all the experiences and little moments that have blessed my life. Life is a privilege. It is something to be cherished while you have it. Don’t waste it on jealousy, anger, lust, vanity, or attachment. Instead, be grateful for every moment you have.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Self-discipline

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Balance, Harold Klemp, Holy Spirit, Key Areas, Love, passion, Self-discipline, spirituality

Self-discipline is an absolute necessity if one is to have a productive spiritual life. Replace old tastes and preferences with new, better ones. But do it in the name of the Holy Spirit, with love and a sincere heart, or nothing will come of this experiment.

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Self-discipline is nothing more than doing what you agree to do. These agreements can be about your exercise routine, your diet, planning your day, and any other topic you can think of that requires effort. A person who can evaluate themselves and come up with a game plan to improve weaknesses or bolster their strengths are powerful people. They can do anything because they are willing to commit and stick with it.

Change is difficult. Evaluating yourself is difficult. Holding yourself to a new standard is also difficult. Self-discipline enables these and more.

So many people just ramble through life. They occupy their time with meaningless activities with no forethought. Think about all the people who literally live on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or Pinterest. What are they accomplishing?

Are you happy with your life? If so, change nothing. Keep doing what you are doing. It’s your life. If you’re happy and fulfilled, why change anything. This article is for the rest of us that are not happy with our current circumstances. We want to lose weight, get in better shape, eat better, and build skills that will garner us the ability to make an income throughout our lives.

Where do you start? This is probably the hardest thing to do—decide. We only have so many hours in the day. What will you spend your time on? Do you want to write a book, start a blog, or create poetry? Do you want to learn a new language? Do you want to start an exercise program? Do you want to start a business? What other things can you do each day that will contribute and build?

I started my search online. I wanted to know what I could do to improve my life, make lasting change, and build skills that would provide me with an income as I pursue a third career. I chose specific areas of my life to look at. These areas are Physical (eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercise), Mental (reading and learning every day), Social (staying connected with friends and family and make new friends and connections), and Spiritual (daily meditation, religious readings, attending spiritual events and retreats).

The areas I want to learn are two-fold. Write books (nonfiction and fiction) and learn how to write computer programs. Once I began my investigation into these areas, I found all kinds of resources to help me on my quest. These are now daily habits that I dedicate my time to. I write every day for this blog and work on my books. I also code every day. I have made great strides in both areas because I do a little each day to add to my abilities.

I need a little discipline in these areas because I love both. I love writing and I love coding. They are closely related because a programming language has rules and a whole new language to learn to enable my code to work. Book writing is a combination of actual writing every day and learning the craft. I try to read a writing book daily and find courses online that can teach me the various aspects of writing whether these classes are on grammar, style, or the specifics of writing a book. There are books on plot development, world building, and character development. The learning never ceases.

What are your passions? What would you like to do with the rest of your life when you retire? Do you want to keep working? Do you want multiple streams of income? Take time on a weekend and think about some of these things. Once you have discovered what you’d like to do, add that to your day. Do a little on these areas each day. How long does exercise need to be to be a benefit? How much writing do you want to do each day? What can you fit into your schedule after your workday is done and you’ve attended to your home responsibilities?

When you start out, put in a half-hour or so to each thing you’d like to try. I would recommend grabbing one item you’d like to add to your day. Then, once you’ve solidified your newfound habit, add another and another, until you are hitting all the things you want to pursue. You’ll be amazed how many things you can do by chipping away a little at a time.

Well, folks. I hope you are having a great Saturday! Enjoy your weekend. If anyone is interested, comment on this thread. I am more than happy to give you some ideas to help you move forward.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Divine Spirit Steps In

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Assistance, Dao, Divine Spirit, God, Guidance, Harold Klemp, Help, The Universe

You do what you can to make your life right. And when you have done 100 percent of everything you can do, Divine Spirit steps in with the miracle.

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Have you ever had this happen? You work your tail off on something. It’s coming together but you need another person or another thing to come into place for your pet project to take off. Then, out of nowhere, you get exactly what you need.

I am a firm believer in persistence. I believe when we set ourselves to a project, we’ll get ideas for making it better. These ideas come from divine spirit, God, the universe, whatever you designate the higher power I believe exists. Our reality is about creation. When we create something, it aligns us with divine spirit, which is also a creator. This alignment opens us to divine spirit, which provides what we need, when we need it.

For some, this may be a little outlandish. For others, this is common knowledge. In my religion, we call divine spirit, the ECK. You may call this divine spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Dao, or many titles. The ECK is pervasive, eternal, and exists in matter, energy, space, and time and without these lower world phenomena. The ECK, like divine spirit is the communication medium used between God and Soul.

Like all things, the mind is our filter. We need the mind to live in this reality. Whatever your mind believes, you are right (Henry Ford, paraphrased). So, if you believe in God and divine spirit, you are right. If you do not believe in God or divine spirit you are also right. This posting is not designed to change your mind about these things, just my humble explanation of what I believe to be true.

Keep your eyes and ears open when you engage in something. You could be solving a problem, pursuing your dreams, or taking on a big project. Watch what happens when you really put yourself into these things. The right people will show up, the right ideas will reach you, and you’ll take the right actions to accomplish it. If you make a mistake, you’ll think about how to correct it, learn from it, and keep moving forward. Everything will fall into place. Just keep pushing forward. There will always be one more door to walk through, one more step to climb, or one more bit of polish to add. If you keep progressing, divine spirit will keep sending you ideas, options, and new avenues to take.

I hope all of you have a terrific Wednesday! I’ll be working on writing, reading, learning, programming, exercising, and meditating. See you at the finish line!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Doing Your Best

Tags

Doing your Best, Effort, Harold Klemp, Love, Meaning, Purpose, wisdom

If you make a meal, put love into it instead of the frustrations of your day. Because whatever is put into the food is a reflection of what you have inside yourself, and it goes out to your family, it goes out to your friends. And it makes a very real difference.—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

This quote advises us to put love into everything we do. Love builds. Love gives meaning.

I remember my first few years in the Army. I thought I had made a mistake, shortly after I arrived at my first duty station. I was going through the motions. I did what I had to do to avoid getting into trouble. I realized one night that this was not working for me. I put more of myself into the job. I read field manuals and regulations. I put extra effort into my uniform and appearance. I put in more time into exercise. My Army career changed for the better. Instead of biding my time, I embraced my career. This made all the difference.

Love what you do even if your current job is not a perfect one. You will find, like I did, that the more you put into the job, the more rewarding the job becomes. Your job will have more meaning. Love is active. Love is doing. Love requires you to give your best. What you give to the world returns to you.

Do the best you can in every situation. Take the time to do things right. Give everything your best effort. You will find what I have found—the more you give, the more you get.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Saturday.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Choose Laughter, Humor, and Happiness

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Happiness, Harold Klemp, Humor, Jumping the Gun, Laughter, Rush to Judgment, Spiritual

“This is how we work with Divine Spirit. We try to look at life and find the laughter wherever we can, whenever we can, because laughter is the healer.”

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Happy Saturday, folks! It’s 16 degrees in Michigan this morning and I am enjoying some soothing music and a cup of coffee.

In today’s crazy world, it is so easy to get riled up and upset with what’s going on in any country. Scandals, crime, disaster, are all the talk of the day. If you go to Twitter, it comes at you lightning fast, spreading, in some cases, rumors that have no basis in reality. Take it easy. Relax. Wait for a story to unfold before jumping on the first tweet or online article that hits the wire. So many people in journalism jump the gun to get the scoop without the necessary fact checking and due diligence, then have to walk it back when the truth comes out.

The same actions can be taken with our lives. So many of us are blind-sided by things. We get bad news and we lose our minds over-reacting. We make assumptions and run with them without knowing the facts. We are all moving at such a fast pace that we forget to take the time to really think about what has occurred.

Take your time, evaluate, look at all of the things you can do to fix the problem or make your situation better. When you take the time to think through things, instead of quick reaction, you’ll start to feel better. Yes, there are real tragedies that hit our lives, there is no way to argue against that. Even these tragedies have a silver lining in most cases. Think. Evaluate. Plan. Execute.

When the reality of your situation is out of your control, you have a choice. You can be pissed off or you can find humor in it. It’s going to be there regardless, so why not be happy with your situation and move on? Laughter makes us feel better. Humor is the antidote to hard times. There will always be challenges in our lives, tragedies, and just outright bad luck. Life is not about what happens to us. It is about how we react to the things that happen to us. You have a choice. I choose happiness.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Harold Klemp, Mental Habits, Problems, Self-discipline, Surrender, The Language of Soul

Every problem contains a solution. The key is self-discipline and surrender of the mental habits to the Holy Spirit.—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Do you remember any problems in your past that took a while to solve? What solved the issue? Did you change something? Did you realize that the “problem” wasn’t really a problem? Did the problem resolve itself or did you have to do something to solve it?

Problems come in all shapes and sizes. Some of our problems arise because of a mistake in our thinking. Some problems arise because of personal neglect. Some of our problems involve people. Some of our problems involve things.

We have problems with our health. We have problems at work. We have problems with the stuff we own. We have problems with other people. How do we solve these issues?

I have solved problems by changing my mindset. This is what Harold refers to with mental habits. Some of our problems are literally caused because we want our world to be a certain way. These problems tend to fade when we look at our life and world differently.

I used to have a lot of focus on money. When I realized that I had more than enough to survive and thrive, my money issues disappeared overnight. I have also had problems with people in my life. When I realized that other people’s problems were none of my business, they faded from view.

Self-discipline can eliminate a lot of problems in life. If you exercise, eat in accordance with your body’s needs, and get enough sleep, many of the ailments that we suffer from will disappear. When we detach ourselves from material things, outcomes, and our egos, many of our problems fade away. When you adopt the belief that everything is in its rightful place in the worlds of God, our expectations no longer cause us problems because we begin to accept things as they are.

People are a source of problems. You may have a disagreement with a loved one. We are all human and these problems will arise. When we realize that everyone has problems they need to work through and that these problems are theirs not ours, life smooths out quite a bit.

Problems can also cause a lot of worry, particularly those problems we do not see a solution for. When we realize that problems are given to us to solve and grow and learn from, they tend to evolve into lessons. There is a solution to every problem we face. What I have discovered is once we solve a problem or a set of related problems they tend to stay away.

We all have problems. They arise, we change, we take action, we adjust. Problems are a reality. None of us will exist without problems arising in our lives or the lives of our loved ones. Problems arise for us to solve. They are not done to us. Be confident that problems have a solution, they will go away just as easily as they arose, and that you will be a better person when they are gone.

Cherish the problems in your life. They are what make life interesting and exciting. Problems are not really problems in the end. They are merely communications from God to alter our way of thinking and doing. Nothing more. They are teaching us how to become more patient, loving, and spiritual.

Until next time…

Dave