Just Visiting
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."· Ram Dass (a.k.a. Richard Alphert, Ph.D.)
Everyday Spirituality – Discovering real moments with yourself
In our search for self-knowledge and spiritual truth, many of us are, I believe, looking in the wrong direction. We have separated the spiritual from everyday living, and thus separated ourselves from experiencing everyday spirituality. The spiritual has become associated with Sunday church services, or the Sabbath, or yoga and meditation, or a trip to India, or a tour of a famous European cathedral.
We think praying is more spiritual than riding a bicycle, reading religious literature more holy than making love. We are living secularized lives and yet wondering why life often feels so meaningless and devoid of purpose. The search for real moments and everyday spirituality must begin with a return to and embracing of the human.
Everyday spirituality is not an escape from your usual life in search of some special, exalted experience, but a surrender into the fullness of every experience.
It is not a path that leads you away from the human to the spiritual, from the Earth to Heaven, but rather one that leads you back into the ordinary and everyday, and invites you to find the spiritual within it. It begins and ends where you already are, right here, right now. There's nothing else to look for, nothing else to acquire. You already have everything you need.
Embracing Your Humanness
When I became a seeker, I began what I called a "spiritual path". In my longing to know God, I turned away from worldly things. I practiced meditation for hours, sometimes days at a time. I spent whole years in retreat and in silence, living in the mountains, seeing only other meditators. I viewed my physical body as an obstacle to enlightenment, my human desires as impediments to achieving a pure, spiritual state. And I looked at my life on Earth as some sort of prison sentence I was serving that kept me from going back "home" to my Divine origins.
I had many beautiful and uplifting experiences during those years, but I could only be happy when I was doing my "spiritual practice." After searching and searching for answers to my dilemma, I finally had the important realization that all of human life was a spiritual practice--I was supposed to be practicing being human!! And thus far, I hadn't been doing a very good job. In fact, I'd attempted to avoid being human entirely. No wonder I was so miserable: I was in the water, but trying not to get wet!
Since that time, I have worked on embracing my humanness, not running from it, and looking within it for the very same spiritual experiences I used to seek elsewhere. I know now that my presence here on Earth is not a sentence - it is a gift; that being human is not a loss of spirit, but an opportunity for spirit to enjoy itself on the physical path. I am here because I am loved.
Learning To Recognize Everyday Holiness
In order to experience everyday spirituality, we need to remember that we are spiritual beings spending some time in a human body. We are not separate from spirit. This would be impossible. We are simply spirit disguised in human form. In this way, we are connected to all life. The flower is spirit disguised as a flower. The tomato is spirit disguised as a tomato. The rock is spirit disguised as a rock. We all share the same source. We are all made of the same invisible particles of matter. We are all One.
When we separate the spiritual from the everyday, we limit our opportunities for real moments. We miss ordinary miracles and wonders because we are looking for something flashy, something that screams, "I am special, I am holy." We are so distracted by our search for the extraordinary that we don't even recognize the sacred when we encounter it.
Real moments of holiness happen when we experience moments of wholeness with ourselves, our environment or another person. As you go through your day, look for holy moments and everyday miracles --the hug your child gives you for no reason at all; a flock of birds flying past a cloud; the beautiful array of fruits and vegetables the earth has produced that are waiting for you at the supermarket; the song playing on the radio that gives you just the message you've been needing to hear; the lone yellow dandelion bursting through the crack in the concrete sidewalk.
Finding Holy Moments and Everyday Miracles
When you stop and pay attention to holy moments and everyday miracles you will start living with awe and wonder, and participating in a Divine love affair with God.
Yesterday, approximately 200,000 people throughout the world died. Their time on earth is over. They did not wake up this morning. They did not feel the sun on their face, or feel the wind on their skin. They did not hear laughter, or singing, or birds calling to each other. They could not eat an apple or drink a glass of water. They were not held or kissed or smiled at. They cannot see the stars twinkling in the sky tonight. They cannot gaze at the moon.
You are alive. You are here now. You have another day. That is a blessing. Enjoy the ordinary everyday miracles that make up your life....They will be your most sacred real moments.
- Barbara De Angelis, one of America's foremost experts on relationships and personal growth. Her New York Times bestselling books include How To Make Love All The Time, Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know, Are You The One For Me, Real Moments, and most recently, Real Moments for Lovers. Her award winning television infomercial Making Love Work airs in hundreds of cities each day and is the most successful relationship program of its kind.
You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.
· Irish Proverb
I may be just visiting in this body and on this earth, but showing up for the party is only halfway to accomplishment. Give a painter a brush, an easel, paint and canvas – no matter what else may happen, until the painter employs the creativity, skill and imagination he possesses, and begins the act of painting, all he has is a potential masterpiece!
I have experienced my life in various modes of education: one mode prepared me for direct self-preservation; one prepared me for indirect self-preservation; one prepared me for parenthood; another, for citizenship; and still another that allowed me to obtain miscellaneous refinements of life. The majority of these modes of education allowed me to “get on” with my life, the last only improved the depth and diversity of my experience.
But, self-preservation and accumulation (translation: Materialism, in the strictest and broadest sense, which destroys all higher ideals when used as a focus for one’s existence) is not all there is to life! Nothing so shrouds the Higher Self in mankind as selfishness, and this is the reason why so few individuals possess a direct perception that what is true, is True, and that what is false, is False.
My religious upbringing taught me to look after the salvation of my own soul, and this in the face of the statement that a very large proportion of the human race will eventually be utterly lost, or damned, for all eternity! Science teaches that only the longest tooth and sharpest claw are given the right to survive, and that struggle is a necessary condition of all improvement. Religion offers Faith, with its system of rewards and punishments, and encourages Charity (often simply interpreted as giving to the poor and destitute), but it does not teach me unselfishness or self-conquest. That wasn’t part of my Catechism. There is so much “conventional wisdom” that passes for knowledge, but it has never been part of my makeup to simply accept things without questioning them. Simply learning moral precepts without applying them does nothing to improve or transform my character. Religion does not give me True Knowledge, but a thorough study of religion was nonetheless necessary in my quest to become an intelligent, well-rounded, whole individual.
Scientific studies, not just the calculation of distances, the analysis of compounds or the labeling of species, but a search for that rational order which pervades the universe also rounds out a liberal education. It also teaches the methods of inquiry and testing of theory by means of hypothesis, leading me from discovery of lesser truths to those that are greater, still without providing concrete answers to my own purpose for being. This acquisition of knowledge was nonetheless another part of a well-rounded and liberal education in life and living.
In this process by which knowledge is acquired – always by experience – I eventually become that which I know; that is, knowing is a progressive becoming. What am I becoming?
Life is not just a problem to be solved. There is no way that certain things I memorized in the process of my education can provide all the answers. There is more; there must be. What will set my feet firmly upon the road to higher evolution, to greater power over my life? If, in fact, I am created in the image of my Creator, then I must already have some divine attributes! After understanding my relation to the ordinary affairs of life (staying alive, dealing with others who are trying to do the same) I must then go in search of Higher Knowledge, of Greater Truth – I must seek to understand the nature of the soul, the process of its evolution, and to hone those divine attributes, those finer instincts, senses and faculties which are latent in me.
Realizing that I have a soul, comprehending its purpose, listening and following the intuitions, hunches and subtle feelings that come is, perhaps, the last mode of my education, the final part of my knowing and becoming. Recognizing and utilizing my inherent divine attributes, a process of aligning my personality with my soul, constitutes authentic empowerment. Humbleness, forgiveness, clarity of purpose and choosing love as a first response – these are the dynamics of true freedom in my life, these are the foundations of my authentic power.
What, therefore, is the real measure of an individual? What am I “just visiting” here to learn? Authentic power! My personality is the brush, the world is my canvas, my life is the easel, and my choices are the paint that colors my reality. Like you, I am but a potential masterpiece.
Michael
email: Michael@N-Spire.com
