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, so 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 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.

© Vincent Lee Jones Living In Spirit All Rights Reserved

The Secret, Wayne Dyer, Recovery, Addiction, Zen, Emmet Fox, Opioids, NA, Four Agreements, Chopra, Heroin, Einstein, AA, McRaven, Healing Path

Spiritual Bureaucrats

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 negative 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 are in dire need of our compassion in Spirit.

© Vincent Lee Jones Living In Spirit All Rights Reserved

The Secret, Wayne Dyer, Recovery, Addiction, Zen, Emmet Fox, Opioids, NA, Four Agreements, Chopra, Heroin, Einstein, AA, McRaven, Healing Path

 

The Spiritually Superior Trap

The Spiritually Superior Trap

The pitfall of self-righteousness has trapped and pulled down uncounted individuals. In most endeavors in life when we reach the top (think any politician, sports star, billionaire, The President etc) there is a natural sense of awe surrounding the individual and their accomplishments. Accomplishments however do not elevate one spiritually “above” anyone else, regardless of how much money, power, fame or titles they may garner. Additionally the destruction wrought by self-righteous entitlement thinking on those who were born into wealth and position would be cliché if its effects on them and those they touch was not so heartbreaking.

The greatest and most heartbreaking falls occur however when an individual garners a sense of superiority from the spiritual work they have done. Though they began with good motives, they succumbed to the trap. When we grow spiritually, unless we stay ever vigilant, we can lose ourselves in self and begin to “look down” on those seeking guidance from a self constructed tower of superiority to the point of even becoming unwilling to continue to experience new spiritual winds, losing sight of our role as messenger, our demonstration of spiritual principles the message. Entitlement thinking may be the dubious luxury of the rich and famous, with or without personal accomplishment, but spiritual entitlement thinking is deadly.

Living on the Spiritual Basis we demonstrate the spiritual precepts we have learned in our daily life, for we cannot transmit that which we do not live ourselves. If we are attempting to teach a lesson we do not practice we will ultimately fail and fall victim to the dictum: “do as I say, not as I do” which is the golden gate of self-righteousness. We avoid this by staying vigilant and when spiritual entitlement thinking begins to make its self known, for it will, we turn to God and thank Him for knowing Him better, for keeping us “right” sized, our lives the demonstration of the new basis of living.

© Vincent Lee Jones Living In Spirit All Rights Reserved

The Secret, Wayne Dyer, Recovery, Addiction, Zen, Emmet Fox, Opioids, NA, Four Agreements, Chopra, Heroin, Einstein, AA, McRaven, Healing Path