Modern Myths - About Spirituality

I am often in contact with " spiritual " people, or persons trying to become so. I've noticed that in many cases people have a tendency to link spirituality with religion, church, and a concept of God as some sort of Old Man in the Sky. And they take themselves so seriously. It is as though spirituality were a burden that these folks have to carry through life, instead of the basis of our existence. Everyone is spiritual in some form or another. Evil sprits abound in our world; do they not? What follows is a concept of spirituality that I find most satisfying, enjoyable, and productive.

That state which we refer to a spiritual is basically intangible. The Spiritual Realm, underlies all material Reality. A thought is a spiritual entity; it occupies the mind but is unrevealed without some action to bring it into material form. It's the relationship between thought and action, and these thoughts and actions are governed by feeling. And the feeling that most, if not all, humans experience is hurt. All else stems from that and from nothing else! But by and large, most people opt for what they believe to be the opposite of hurt: pleasure.
Don't get me wrong,pleasure is nice, feels good, but too often it's the source of that pleasure that determines the spiritual fitness of an individual. How many times have you heard something like this; "I trusted Helen and she let me down; I'll never trust anyone again for the rest of my life!"
The rest of your life can be a pretty long time, too long to be affected by a single reverse. But if the hurt is severe enough it can end up affecting the rest of your life. A man I met while incarcerated many years ago had just murdered his wife's boyfriend. I don't know how long this man had been planning his desperate act, but in commission it took only a few seconds to pull the trigger. A few seconds that were to determine his fate; twenty years in prison, or a lethal injection.
Was this a bad man? No. There are no bad people, just people who are not spiritually fit to deal with the life's situations. A woman told me a while back that, "Life occasionally throws you a curve ball." I replied with the observation that that is a good opportunity to learn how to hit curve balls. But where does it begin?
Try childhood.

Infants of our species come into the world prematurely, and are completely helpless. Their bodies, the beasts their spirits ride through life, are totally foreign to them and they get by mostly on instinct, a decidedly spiritual faculty. Gradually, through experimentation, these little people learn to use their faculties, to move their arms and legs in deliberate actions, and then to face the first major challenge of life: learning to walk. Most people can't remember that first step on shaky legs, a couple of flops before getting it quite right. Then walking, like the many other mechanical operations we master, becomes automatic. Don't have to think about it any more; they are assimilated into our beings and we just...well...walk! Or tie shoelaces, or perform the countless simple ( and some not so simple ) actions we take without giving the slightest thought. This is spiritual growth in the sense that the mind is freed at each juncture to think about other things; and the world has plenty of things to think about; sex, money, power, fame, war, and a hundred other distractions that the Evil ( Real ) world offers to hinder spiritual progress. In the end, when the curtain of deceit is finally parted, those who suffer the toils and trials of life to the gates of insanity or death finally turn to God. Or seem to.
There is an Evangelical pastor with whom I have many debates over the Bible; we agree that it is the Word of God but, as is said, " The devil is in the details." One point on which we disagree is the Presence of God. I hold that God is All Things Everywhere, my pastor friend believes that God is not everywhere, but only where [He] chooses to be. He can't explain why God chooses to be in one place and not another, and this is typical of the belief system he follows: state a belief, then be unable to justify it beyond the mere statement. " It's just God's Will," he tells me, and that ( as far as he is concerned ) is that! Faith of this kind is but a veneer that hides an ugly, crumbling wall: looks good, but the wall is still there. I advocate tearing down the wall!
But what do most people do? Why they assume an identity that they feel will get them where they want to be, like a spiritual wallpaper, a pretty design, rich vibrant colors, but the wall it covers is cracked and crumbling. Eventually ecven the stoutest wallpaper will crack and peel, like the Cristian woman. A onetime relative by marriage she was the model of faith - until her husband died suddenly, at which time this woman, in tears cried, " There is no God! "
But there is. God is just not the Lord of the Spiritual Feudalism that fundamentalists ( like my friend the pastor ) believe. This reworked Zeus figure is the one who is only where he chooses to be, does whatever strikes his fancy in the moment, favors some and denies others, causes war, famine, and a host of other unpleasant evens to occur so " people will turn to [Him]. " Then, there's Jesus.
As the story goes, [God] sent Jesus ( a Roman knickname: his true name was Yashueh ) to die for our sins in a most unpleasant way. What kind of God is this? [He] has a remarkably human odor about him; priests of all religions that called for human sarcifices invariably didn't sacrifice themselves, it was always someone else. But the man himself asked, " What father, if his son asked him for bread would give him a stone or it asked for a fish, would give him a serpent. " The idea here is that if no human father would treat his son that way, how can anyone believe that the Father, who is so much better, would do any less.

The Evil ( Reality ) of the world lies in the distractions it presents to the striving soul. Religion stands in the forefront of this muddle and its failures are legion. Jesus said, " By their works ye shall know them,"; the works of religions have been to divide into countless denominations, sects, cults, and covens; to ostracize any who do not agree with them or, as " Mother Church " was wont to do, torturing those whose thinking was " in error " and killing those who would not recant their heretical ideas. What kind of God would approve of such atrocities?

The idea here is very simple, so basic in fact that many cannot see it: there are only two ways to go, the Way of God or the way of the world, and this choice is ours every instant. Let's look at the way of God. How can we know what that is? Paul tells us in Romans[1:18-21] that the wonder of God is all about, clearly seen by the eye of reason ( New English Bible ). This is more easily understood if we have a true understanding of what God is: the Spirit of the Universe, not some whimsical tyrant who rules from on high and who " chooses " to be here or there, to reward or punish according to some esoteric formula. Such a God cannot be counted upon as [He] may either " choose " to answer prayers, or not. The Spirit of the Universe answers every prayer.
Perfectly. Never fails!
The Spirit of the Universe is a passive power the mind of which is Natural Law. According to natural law everything operates on a Cause-and-Effect basis; press a button and a bell rings, an elevator appears, or a city of millions is swept up in a nuclear holocaust. The effect is always perfectly concistent with the cause; if the outcome is bad then the action that brought it about was wrong.It doesn't matter how much time you spend on your knees begging for the laws of nature to be temporarily suspended; go out in the rain, you get wet; stay in the sun too long, you get burned; stick a fork in a light socket, you get shocked; spend money carelessly, you go broke. Pray yourself hoarse, till your hands are fused together, and you knees lock into a permanent bend, and nothing will change. Change you attitude, your thoughts, and your actions, and things will change!
It's that simple!
There is a saying: " What goes around, comes around. " Perhaps it would be better undertsood if rephrased: " What you send around comes back to you. "; express love and love is yours, perhaps not immediately perceived but ultimately a treasured additon to your life. And loving people isn't hard; it's just about seeing the good in them. Jesus told us not to be concerned with the mote in our brother's eye but the beam in our own. Is it not true that what you despise in others is nothing more than what you hate in yourself? It is, and no amount of thinking differently can ever change that fact. But acting differently can, and will produce miraculous results. Try it: you might like it. You can change your life, but this change can only originate within you, in your Heart of Hearts, your Secret Place of the Most High, where all your fondest hopes and dreams lie dormant. Let the Father in you " which doesth the works " help you bring these bright imaginings into full and splendid reality.
What have you got to lose?