512.  

Spiritual


Into the arms  

After all your mental gyrations
after all the conflicts in your head
after all your silent conversations
after all the sides you've considered
after all the reasoning you reviewed
after all the questions left unanswered
after all the answers leading to questions
after all this and  more of this
throw yourself into the arms of God.

435.  Past

Spiritual

Spiritual Principles

Oneness, identity

My notes were not fully clear, but the following is what I think I meant. The singer Paul Robeson Jr. made an effort to learn about black heritage.  It seems you have to know your identity before you lose it.  My ex-wife attended services at a universal church where “oneness” was taught.  Oneness refers to what is universal and underlies all religions and beliefs.  Later, raised half Protestant and half Catholic, she converted to Judaism.  She felt this was her true identity and heritage.  Again, she became rooted to her spiritual heritage.  In a sense we have to delve into our heritage (adopted or not) before we lose it.

Some of us find a universal truth before we have our past identity.  Still, it seems afterward we still have to connect with our roots and know where we are from.

In either order seeking the truth and realizing where we are from have to both be dealt with.

434.


Spirit

Leading to the light

Lately, on a few occasions, a train of thought will pass through my mind and lift me into the light of the above.  There might be three or four or five steps taken in this line of reasoning.  I don't prompt or force this to happen.  It just does.  One logical thought leads to another thought and then another and maybe another and at the end I've landed in a new space.  Movement and thinking stops for the moment and I feel as if I'm where I'm meant to be.  I'm left with a desire to have everything lead to this special place.

429.  Past

Spiritual

Belief

Lost

When young I was lost.  I could argue all sides of an issue, but I did not believe in any side.  Somehow, I came to believe there is a maker.  There seemed to be certainties around this belief.  With time all these certainties were tested and did not stand.  Every certainty I thought I had did not stand.  I was left where I was when I was younger and lost.  I wasn't lost in the same way, but I still wasn't sure of anything.  I still strongly suspected there is a maker, but nothing else was I sure of.

420.  Past


Theology

Spiritual

Steps to the spiritual life

There are certain steps to the spiritual life.  This, of course, implies that there is a way to live a spiritual life.

First, one becomes awakened to the fact that there is something more than this natural world.  This becomes refined until one accepts that there is a person like being that is in charge.  After this awakening, one often falls into an acceptable religion or system that offers some guiding rules of behavior.  Often it is full of dogmas, some of which are practical and useful.  For a time one conforms to their rules, thinking doing so is righteous and good.  However, this conformity falls apart after a time.  Acting righteous just lasts for so long until it exhausts you and no energy is left.

What one is left with is the knowledge  that there is a maker.  However, any religious system emerging from this knowledge is suspicious.     An intimacy, a one on one is sought and realized.  All manners of reaching out to the maker are tried, including communication.  Some things are tested and discontinued, some things work and then don't work.  One persistently looks and sometimes finds.

412. 

Spirit

Another question

Is life reaching upwards towards what is above and finding and refining better and better ways to do it or is it more of a gradual letting go and a dissolving action until all that's left is what is true?

410.

Wrestling with an angel

354.  Past

Spirituality

It is not enough

Nothing is enough anymore.  It’s not enough to be motivated or balanced. It’s not enough to survive.  It’s not enough to be good.  Pleasure is not enough. It’s not enough to accept yourself.  Nothing is enough.

The psychologies don’t know why.  The scholars don’t know why.  The great religions don’t have the answer. Metaphysics, physics don’t have the answer. They might come close and cast shadows that resemble the answer, but they are not the answer.

In these times, maybe more so than ever, when things can’t fully be trusted, from within us or from without, there is only one skeletal answer, one skeletal realization, one place to be.

The place is where there is a presence, an above, a maker.
   
Somehow, this has to be seen.  If this is not so, there is nothing.  If it is so, there is something.

There could be more following, there could be hope from this, there could be promises that emerge, but this has to be fully grasped and accepted first in its simplicity.

Your own internal troubles, the worldly external chaos; the shaking and the reeling, are prompting you to see this, and to see this in its pure form.  This is not about religion or spirituality.  Forget everything you know on the subject.

There simply is a maker and to realize this, is the first step in the direction you must take, with or without reward.

338.


Spirit

Duality

We’re in a fix down here.  In one sense we are drawn to life, its uniqueness, its specialness.  Even the maker is jealous and lives vicariously through us.  Here we become attached, we engage in action, and we spend ourselves. We experience loss and the sadness of this, but we “experience” in this land of the temporary.

On the other hand we are drawn to the timeless, which is beyond and forever. Our incompleteness churns in our insides and we have to look to the other side.   We make preparations for this by gradually preparing and saying goodbye to what and whom we know and knew.  A fullness, wholeness, completion awaits us along with answers to all our questions.  It is all we could ask for even if we are not sure.

We are caught between two worlds; the uniqueness and specialness of living in “time”, and the “forever” where our yearnings and emptiness become satisfied and filled and more.