KNOWLEDGE AND FEELING

“Every thought is made up of two factors, knowledge and feeling.” What do you believe? We all believe in all sorts of things. Ford is better than Chevy, Yankees are better than the Red Sox; my grandkids are cuter than yours are all examples of thoughts/opinions based heavily in feeling rather than knowledge, except the one about my grandkids of course. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, Hawaii is an island, two plus two equals four are all examples of knowledge with little feeling/passion attached. Heated discussions have and will take place concerning the former, yet possibly never concerning the latter.

What do you believe and why do you believe it? Few take the time to truly get to the roots of the things they believe, especially when there is a great deal of feeling attached to them. In many areas of life this carries minimal consequence, but spiritually it is deadly. When belief in God is based mostly in the mind, intellectual belief, with little passion or heart, life’s difficulties approached clinically, when they fail to demonstrate spiritually it is because of the vagaries of living, never because of a lack of any real faith. Conversely if their belief is based almost exclusively in feeling; especially when holding that they are right and everyone else is wrong, they blindly follow anyone who has a little charisma who parrots their feelings of exclusivity, often with tragic results.

Clearly without passion nothing happens. Living on the Spiritual Basis is a passionate way of life, tempered with truth. Not someone else’s truth but our truth arrived at by scientific prayer and meditation. Read with your eyes but study with your heart. Listen with your ears but hear with the Divine Presence within. Do not mortgage your future on any one teacher or interpretation. Jesus taught that we are all connected to the Father, not requiring any intermediaries to establish this bond since it is ours by right of birth, a teaching that turned the world on its head, and forgotten by many religions. Read spiritual books and study teachers that strike a cord in you, but keep your own counsel in the “secret” place in your heart. When questions arise seek out those who have touched you and consider their words in meditation and if you find their counsel just, incorporate it in your life. The right answers will come if our own house is in order, which requires us to remain willing and open to all spiritual experience, “for the realm of Heaven is roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding.”