ATTACHMENT IN WORK AND MEDITATION (Essay)

Spiritual life has many paradoxes. Action or work is one of them. Depending on how we approach it, work can be a great obstacle to spiritual life or a way to liberation. Why is that? Because work is a major area where attachment is a problem... Read more.

THE IDEAL OF SERVICE

The ideal is to serve humanity while simultaneously meditating on the divine nature that man truly is. And even if you think he is not divine, serve him anyway. You will transform yourself in the process―from a self-centered to a selfless human being for whom the realization of God, and of all Truth, will then become inevitable.
 

WORK: A PRIVILEGE

To work we have the right. It is a privilege, therefore we should act with the idea of service, of giving―always this.

We shouldn't think we are helping the world. The world does not need us! It is we who benefit by being able to serve others.

Give always―then the burden of karma, the bondage of egoism, and the delusion of ignorance will all be broken.

GOODNESS

No matter how good we are, we have to act in the ways of goodness for a long time to come to make the goodness permanent, to make it no longer subject to temptations to be not good! 

Goodness and virtue are in our hands to attain. Spirituality is not; it is a result of goodness―unselfishness, morality, virtue―accepted as a way of life. Then it is the way of life that perfects us and turns the goodness into spirituality, into essence, into Truth.
 

WORK AND RESISTANCE: A PATH TO FREEDOM (Essay)

All resistance is good―every problem to be solved, every negative force to be overcome, every low desire to be checked—because:

·          Anger checked produces tolerance and kindliness.

·          Greed checked produces generosity.

·          Hatred checked produces compassion.

·          Lust checked produces purity.

·          Selfishness checked produces unselfishness.

·          Attachment to work checked produces nonattachment, power, freedom.

Let us not  work reluctantly, or out of a sense of duty alone but, rather, happy in the knowledge that work can free us and make us what we truly are, can rouse up the sleeping spiritual giant in the depths of our psyches ... if performed in the right spirit. ... Read more.
 

KNOWING VS. DOING

We all know what to do―we simply don't do it.

Therefore, the problem is a matter of doing what we know we should, rather than of knowing what to do.
 

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Note: All "Words of Wisdom" are quotations from Paul Hourihan, unless otherwise noted.