Spiritual Life

In spiritual life we attempt to keep our perception clear, discriminating* and true.      

* Discriminating what is real from the unreal, what is true from the false.

Liberation and the Mind

Liberation requires a serious and steady mind. If the mind is not steady, it cannot receive ideas that will free us.

              - from this month's Feature Article: Mostly, We Talk to Much  

Our Role

The Lord with all His power cannot get through the locked gate of our self-will.

But with thoughts such as the Lord is Everything and we are nothing, that we are helpless without His grace, the unlocking begins.

Character is Destiny

    ... Let us shape and forge our characters so that they will inevitably give rise to the destiny that will
    lead us to the bliss of enlightenment.

                                              - excerpt from Character is Destiny by Paul Hourihan

Detachment: The Soul's Proper Garment

Detachment is the proper garment for a soul. Are we souls? Greedy men, sensual men, angry men, ambitious men—none are detached!

But sages, wise men, men of truth—the image we have of them is of many things, but Detachment is always present. God is detached. If you wish to resemble God, practice Detachment!

                                                          - From the article, Thoughts on Detachment by Paul Hourihan

Spring, A Time for Renewal

"We loiter in winter while it is already spring." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Spring―the year's rebirth. Will we have ours? Winter has died. When will our winter die? The slowness of this spring, the long winter.

Spiritual seekers look to the spring as a symbolic enactment of the regeneration they hope for. For them the prolonged winter is a prolongation of their ongoing life of endurance through so many times of overcast psychological weather! But the light of spring is there. Meditation and other spiritual practices help the mind get used to new possibilities of spiritual reality in our lives.

Dissatisfaction - The Prerequisite for Spiritual Life

Why are some drawn to the spiritual search, and not others? Dissatisfaction—discontent with the world and with oneself. We must disintegrate (break down our conditioned thinking and behavior) before we can integrate. We must know great conflict before peace, great passion before serenity. We must want and need the Truth; otherwise we do not find it.   Read more.

Desirelessness, The Ideal

Desirelessness is the Ideal.

Know the Ideal―and meanwhile eliminate harmful desires, those that absorb our being, taking us away from ourselves and from the Divine.

Obviously much good can be achieved by wholesome desires, such as the desire for transformation and liberation, or the desire to be of service to others.

Why should we desire anything whatever, when within us we have everything already?

Spiritual Life and Personal Development

Imagine the idea of continuing as we are even into eternity! NO-O!

Even in this life we grow through many stages: childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity, middle age, old age.

It is true, though, we tend to settle at some point―all too early, usually by the time we are thirty―into a mould in our development.

Spiritual life―the inward life―is offered to us as a chance to break the mould and continue the process of change, growth, development ... indefinitely.
 

Prerequisites for Transformation

First, we must inform and reform ourselves,
then Spirit will transform.
 

The Spring of Our Lives

Spring has finally come. New life pulses in all of Nature's manifestations―will it pulse in our souls at long last?

Spring comes to remind us of the year's renewal and to symbolize for us our own rebirth. For the time is always now, and the place is here―now or never is our Eternity.
                Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6: 2)
 

Spiritual Transformation

                                                              The holy person has transformed:
                                                                      Wildness into Wisdom,
                                                                      Sensuality into Spirituality
                                                                      Egoism into Selflessness.
 

Clarity of Mind

Most people do not know and do not understand what they want—they are always changing from one thing to another. It requires great clarity of mind, great objectivity and introspection―in other words, Wisdom―to know what we really want.

Most of us need guidance. Clarity of mind is very rare.
 

The Resisting Mind

For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
                 ‑ St. Paul (Romans 7: 19)

The mind will not lose its identity in mystical experience; rather, it will find itself. But the mind doesn’t know that―as it gets nearer to this experience it resists by trying to maintain the status quo.

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Union with the Divine is possible only to the unified.

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The Past

The past is not fixed. It is what you think it is. As you change, your power of perceiving changes. As that changes, so will the past.... All the past is beautiful. It is God's idea. The pain is promise of bounties to come. Suffering is necessary for growth. You cannot love unless you learn what is not love. You cannot be forgiven unless you have first forgiven others.

The past is beautiful. It has brought you to where you are now. The sacred past. Love, accept, and forgive it. Conflict is the road to Enlightenment.         
 

Living in the Present

Sages speak out of the eternity of the present.

If we could live in the present, we would be perfected. As it is, we can only live in the present moment for a short time—a minute or two at the very most. We should try to practice this as a discipline, as part of our spiritual life.
 

Grace

It is the nature of the Deity to pour grace into us. Our responsibility is to remain open to that grace.
How? Through unselfish attitudes and actions, and selfless meditation. Then, we are changed.
 

Problem of Character Change

Our experience of a settled character, seemingly impervious to change, leads to feelings of frustration and defeat.

But: Defeat leads to the desire to change; desire to determination; determination creates will; and will overcometh.

The Essentials

Study, discipline, meditation, self-recollection, good associations―these are noted as essential for spiritual life in Vedanta as well as other spiritual traditions. Otherwise, the tendency of the mind on a day-to-day basis is to sink down into its previous habits and attitudes.

New conceptions, revolutionary attitudes, must be maintained by a steady and persistent devotion over a long period until the new reality is actually established. Not to be aware of this pattern of the mind is to invite failure.

Life's Challenges

Each new challenge provides an opportunity for change! (The Chinese symbol for challenge and opportunity are the same.)

Challenges provide an opportunity to forge a new character, despite the many lapses we may experience. Remember, only a Master acts perfectly.
 

The Age of Passion

The time we live in may be called the "Age of Passion," which generally can be translated as the age of self-will, and assertiveness.

But the signs of self-realization are freedom from passion, and an ever-present tranquility of mind.

The sage is free from passion except for one―the passion for God or Truth, which swallows up all the others. 
Buddha's passion was compassion.
 

Necessity of Calmness

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalms 46: 10)

The calm mood is best. Calmness enables us to be compassionate as a matter of policy, not mood.
Come to regard all your crises as mere exercises, as tests to see if you can retain your calmness.
Being the pure soul now, it becomes mandatory to be calm! In so doing you manifest the Truth.
Thus calmness is a dynamic, profound and powerful state.

Ways to develop calmness:                  
                  - Deliberate quiet times
                  - Non-attachment
                  - Yoga Exercises
                  - During illness, which compels us to avoid agitation
                  - Meditation ... naturally.

From Death to Life

For a seed to bear fruit it must die in the soil of its destiny. The seed of self must die in the soil of our karma, our struggle, our growth. The lesser must yield to the greater―this is the law. The lesser must die, that the greater may live. I must decrease, He must increase. The caterpillar dies, to give birth to the butterfly. Jesus submits, yields, dies, to give birth to the Christ. We must die every day, as St. Paul says: "I die daily."

That night under the Bodhi Tree Siddhartha dies, to emerge as the Buddha.
 

NO PROGRESSION WITHOUT CONTRARIES (Essay)

The Contraries are equally true. All are necessary. The Tiger completes the Lamb, and Being proceeds beyond both. Yin and Yang make up the Tao, the Way, the Reality, the Godhead. Or, rather, the Godhead is perceived, manifested, made accessible through the Yin and Yang, through the Contraries. Being itself is beyond all Contraries. It is that which is. But is-ness is experienced through the play of the contraries, through overcoming them, passing through them, and then forgetting them in the light of Self-Realization.

We crave Life, but Death is not only part of life, but necessary to it.... Read more

Our True Nature

Our true nature lies in God, not in ourselves. It lies in essence, therefore in the formless. Our bodies, our faces, are only masks. This concept shows us how we must live, think, speak, meditate. Be like God! That is:
                  Detached ... All-Accepting ... All-Forgiving ... Gentle ... Without self ...
                  Existing only in others ... in Life.... Loving, Calm, Peaceful ...

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5: 48)

The Bliss of Growth

The Bliss of Growth―there's no joy like it!

Disciplines bring pressure, tension ... but lead to JOY―the churning brings Joy!

Joy of the Struggle. Struggle, then!

Know Thyself

If the soul exists, then you are that. Discover, then, what you are ... and you won't have to wonder about the nature of God.

In other words: Know Thyself.

Silence

               "Be still and know that I am God!" (Psalms 46: 10)

A Hindu sage was asked by a student to expound the nature of Brahman, the Supreme. The sage kept silent. The student entreated him: "Teach me, sir." The teacher remained silent, and when addressed after a second and third time, said: "I am teaching and you do not follow. The Self is silence."

Practice silence.
 

Spiritual Awakening

                              The Lord initiates spiritual awakening, but also provides desires
                              to conflict with it, and the power to overcome them!
 

Cravings

Why do cravings torment the heart? Because we already have everything―we are the Atman, the Soul. Desires subtract from what we are.

Ego and Maya

Ego and Maya―they stand for the eternal power in the world, in life, in man himself, which opposes his best interests, which together produce that sense of misrepresentation of appearances, that misconception of values which in Hinduism is called, as the primal fault, ignorance, and, in Buddhism, as its equivalent, delusion.

Disciplines that attempt to pierce through the barrier of Maya (illusion):

• truth-telling

• silence

• non-attachment

• unselfishness

• surrender

• seeing your neighbor as yourself

(All of these reverse the propensities of the merely natural man or woman.)

Everything is Within!

We create our own temptations and our own ways out of them―the drama of the Self. Everything is within! The outer world only provides implements, materials, occasions, people, for the inner reality to enact itself.

Desire

The past is made up of desire, attachment and aversion―that is why we have come back and why we feel in the grip of so many forces militating against our yearning for freedom.

Give up the past! Give up its mind, its psychology, its reality, its truth, its persuasions. "I AM hath sent me"―the Eternal Now.
 

Desirelessness

When you are alone, in a peaceful mood, practice desirelessness. This was Gandhi's goal. But how unnatural to us!

The illusion here is that craving brings happiness! Rather, freedom from craving brings us ... ourselves. What was there all the time but hidden from our vision by ... desires!

The desires referred to here are those that harm, that absorb our being, taking us away from ourselves, and from the Divine.

Wholesome desires will supplant those and in time will easily yield themselves up, lacking as they are in intensity and fierceness!
 

The Joy of the Struggle

The Joy of the Struggle―would we want to miss it?

 Nature does not struggle, except to survive. Most do not, but spiritual seekers do struggle with themselves!

The Lord is the struggle-maker!

Nothing is coincidental. Maya―that perverse power―is the Lord's tool to enlighten us. Our own soul instigates our tension and anguish so that in melting them we melt our whole personality toward the Soul itself!

How else could a life that is ego-based, sensual, forgetful, deluded, as ours is, ever attain the goal?

"Forbear! Forbear!"
 

Spiritual Growth

There is a process going on in our lives: a new mind forming, a new consciousness emerging, a new being experienced.

Thought―intuitive thought―changes us when we wonder if anything ever will.

Spiritual life is not a beautiful foreign country we discover―it is our own country. The foreign country is our ordinary state of consciousness.

The World is Changed by Thought

Note down your good thoughts. Do not let them escape. They may not return.

By thought the world will be changed for you, one way or another!  By thought life is revolutionized, the universe is conquered. Guard and cherish your good thoughts!

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In the winepress of spiritual life, we tread out the past.

Rejoice!

Rejoice when you discover a weakness. For it cannot be removed until you clearly know what it is.
 

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                   Religion must be caught, not taught.

                   The religious teacher must be an exemplar rather than an instructor.
 

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.*

But knock fervently, ask repeatedly, seek hungrily, thirstingly.

And seek the Divine ... not powers, ego-gratifications, esoteric knowledge, and the like.

Seek that which will make YOU divine.

* King James Bible, Matthew 7: 6-8.

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Freedom is our goal. To BE ... not to DO.

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