Living In Spirit

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Realizing Our Spiritual Perfection

What is perfection? A child’s laugh, a spring day, the family gathered together for the holidays, a content cat, chocolate, all of these things and infinitely more may be perfect but only in the most subjective way; i.e. in the “eye of the beholder.” Forms of non-subjective perfection; a “perfect” game in baseball, a spade royal flush, prime numbers or scoring a “100” on a test come to mind. Descartes held “existence itself is perfection”, which extrapolated could lead one down the path of “everything” being perfect. So clearly perfection can be often perfectly obscure.

So what then is “spiritual” perfection? And what flawed individual could ever hope to attain it? No one among us has lived or is living life perfectly. Spiritual perfection is not living perfectly but holding to the perfection of God. I can’t, but He can. Living on the Spiritual Basis we have learned that all are connected in spirit, the eternal spark of the divine existing in each of us regardless of station or circumstance, all equal in His eyes, Our Father’s love, perfect; beyond time and flesh. So by a wholehearted commitment, day by day, to grow in understanding and service to Our Father we approach “perfection.” Though this flesh, this life, will never be perfect our pursuit and demonstration of faith, though often trembling, can be.

The Secret, Wayne Dyer, ACIM, Serenity, Enlightenment, Zen, Emmet Fox, How To Be Happy, Golden Key, Pope Francis, Chopra, Jesus, Healing Path Recovery, Einstein, Marianne Williamson, Sayeh Beheshti, AKUA

Monday, August 17, 2015

Our Spiritual Garden

When we first begin our spiritual journey in earnest specific and ritualized spiritual practices are important fundamentals. These set times and forms provide a foundation and the necessary discipline on which we build. In good time, as we become more adept, many of the simple guidelines and structure we began with will naturally fall away. This happens with no thought or conscious effort on our part. A simple guide: if you are asking yourself if it’s time to change your process, don’t. When it is time for change it will happen naturally, if we are asking the question, then we are attempting to hasten the process, which is not possible. Think of it this way: when we plant a garden would we expect the plants to grow and mature to our time table? Of course not, nor would we dream of harvesting the crop before it was ready. Water, sunlight, food, pests and the diligence of the gardener most of all, affect the health of the garden, the timing and size of the harvest.

Our spiritual growth is just like all other natural growth in that it is affected by numerous factors. So we tend our spiritual garden diligently but refuse to concern ourselves with timing, focusing instead on the work before us this day. In time the fruits will present themselves at exactly the perfect moment of awakening.

Our spiritual garden, unlike other gardens, is eternal and will continue to give forth nourishment unabated as long as we keep our eyes on God, the true source, avoiding the temptation to pull our crop up prematurely to check the roots for signs of progress. As time passes we find that our understanding and demonstration has reached new heights, our garden seemingly taking care of its self as we cultivate still greater faith and service, becoming closer, day by day in thought and deed to Our Father, the demonstration of our true coming of age spiritually.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Spiritual Bureaucrats

Regularly unfortunate stories appear where someone has suffered because a simple clerical mistake occurred resulting in untold grief. If you have ever dealt with a bureaucrat, someone who quotes the “code” but seems bereft of common sense, you know how hard it can be to rectify what appears to be a simple mistake or for them to even consider a commonsense approach that fails to meet the “letter” of the law.

Living on the Spiritual Basis we have learned that Spirit (our relationship with Our Father) is what is important, the law (formal forms of worship) merely a tool to be utilized to assist us in Spirit. The law may and does change as our perceptions mature, but Spirit is eternal, inviolate. Unfortunately many individuals follow the letter of the law, spiritual bureaucrats if you will, at the expense of the Spirit, assuming the self actualizing moral high ground of self-righteousness and spiritual pride.

To avoid the bureaucrat’s trap we keep our focus on Spirit, our demonstration of His love and guidance and utilize formal forms and rituals simply as aids to this end, never as a substitute. A simple prayer delivered from the heart has the power to move Heaven itself, where as rituals performed by rote, sans any true emotional content, is merely the exercise of religious bureaucracy. To be vital our faith must be lively, fluid, unbounded by secular thinking and limits. Additionally we must pray for the stultified spiritual bureaucrats of the world, for even though they trouble us, being children of the same Father, they need our compassion in Spirit.

When we know, who walks beside us, on this path we have chosen, our fears fall from us.