A Life Worth Living

A spirit teacher shares gems of wisdom beyond
my capacity to fully understand; simple and yet
deep insights into life, as we each live it,
and how, He tells me,with a little effort
we each might live a life worth living.

Will I be pleased to be asked to share memories
of past experiences, He asks me.

What past experiences?

Your past experiences.

I couldn’t possibly remember them all.

Why?

How would it be possible?

To remember?

Yes.

Reflection.

But, my focus is on what I am experiencing now.

Why?

Because I must choose how to live today.
It’s too late to worry about yesterday.

What about tomorrow?

What about it?

Isn’t that my style of questioning?

Exclusively?

So, you have chosen to adopt a way not your own?

It is my way, once I have adopted it.

Why did you adopt a new response?

It seemed more appropriate to this particular
situation than possible past responses might.

Yes.

What does that mean?

It means that it’s never to late to change
the way we each respond to particular effects.

Effects?

Effects.

As in cause and …

Yes.

Is that the message?

What?

We each choose or at least contribute to
the next cause in whatever endless series
of cause and effect situations are
developing in our life.

Singular?

Singular.

Yes.

Simplicity is Where Thinking Begins

Spirit tells me that Simplicity has its place
but it should not be as a quality of thought.

Is that a personal comment?

Yes.

Why do you not scold my simplicity of emotion?

What have your emotions to do with your thinking?

Is it possible to have deep thoughts and simple
emotions?

What have emotions to do with thinking?

You’re luring me into an intellectual trap.

Yes.

Then, pleas explain.

What?

The relationship between thought and emotion

They interact with each other.

As cause and effect?

Which would be cause?

Emotion.

No.

If thought does not act on emotion, then …

But, thought does act on emotion.

Then why do you say emotion does not
cause thought.

Because it isn’t necessarily so.

Then, interact in this case means …

Mutual influence.

How do they influence each other?

Some of us develop the capacity
to think rationally, while still
maintaining uncomplicated emotions.

Then you approve of simple emotions?

There are no other kind.

Heroes come and go

Spirit shares perennial wisdom with me,
and with anyone else who cares to listen
to our more-or-less private dialogue.

But, it is a dialogue with a difference.
How so? Spirit seems to know and, at time,
so I suspect, directs my thoughts, and
even my emotions.

But, He must pull them from a pool of
previously existing collection (in my mind,
or in my small share of cosmic mind), I do
recognize them as my own, more or less.

In this respect (as well as in depth of
awareness and intelligence) He has
a great advantage over me.

I can often suspect how He would likely respond
to whatever I might say, do, think, or feel, but
He often catches me by surprise with thoughts
far beyond what I might have suspected.

Why? Perhaps I have still to develop appropriate
respect for the depth of …

Why did you not refer to My depth? Am I less
than my thoughts, to you?

I’ve been there and I’ve done that.

What?

Hero worship.

Perhaps you worshipped the wrong heroes.

Are there right heroes?

For whom?

For me.

No.

Why?

You would, in time, find faults with them,
as you do with Me.

You seem to go out of your way to ensure
that I find faults with you.

Yes.

Why?

Your addiction to hero worship is
a stumbling block on the path
to truth. Truth is forever.

And Heroes come and go?

Yes.

Double Pitfall is not facing problems

Spirit’s daily advice, using the ancient I Ching style of thought to explain life, in which all situations are seen to develop out of and into other situations, in a more or less foreseeable pattern. Spirit seems to dismiss the trendy thought of living in the now. The now, He tells me, developed out of the past and will strongly impact on the future.

Today’s focus is on the concept of I Ching 29 – Double Pitfall. Problems cannot be faced, dealt with, or overcome until they are recognized, identified, and studied.

Double Pitfall suggests danger; possibly preventable danger, as a result of self-defeating thinking, avoidance, or lack of wisdom or courage to face and challenge difficulties before they develop into situations beyond our control.

How can this reading possibly relate to me?

It possibly relates to every one of us.

Spirituality’s Seductive Nature

It was not love at first sight, at least not in a physical sense, since I

Have not yet developed the capacity to visualize that area wherein

Form and essence merge in ever-finer elements of matter.

 

But, human and spirit qualities seem to be, in many ways,

More close than similar. And, so would be the potentially

Seductive nature of student and teacher attraction.

 

When I ask Spirit to explain why mutual attraction to

Spiritual values could …

 

Be corrupted? The corruption, or danger of such, is in

My own mind, or it isn’t.

 

He then reminds me of the countless gurus I have followed

Throughout many lifetimes, or so it seems, with each one

Falling from grace, in my mind.

 

They didn’t fall; they seemed to crash. Confucius might calmly

Comment, “No blame”, but I was, each and every time,

Devastated and confused. I was sure, beyond a doubt, again,

Again, and yet again that I had discovered a philosophy

To live by that explained everything, until it didn’t.

 

Will I meet the same fate?

 

How can I know..?

 

Until or unless it happens?

 

Yes, and perhaps that scares me.

 

Why? When it is time to move on to another teacher, we must,

Or stagnate.

 

My earlier teachers belonged to recorded history…

 

So, were less personally a part of your life?

 

Yes.

 

 

 

How we live develops patterns

Spirit suggests that I become increasingly aware of

The patters of thought, emotion, and behaviour that

I am developing.

 

How we live each lifetime is important, He tells me,

Not just for this particular lifetime but also for how

It will influence future lifetimes.

 

How we respond to any challenge that Life

Presents us with affects and is affected by

The individual patterns of thought, emotion, and

Behaviour that we have developed.

 

These lifestyle patterns; for they are styles among

Countless other styles, tend to become habitual

Ways of responding, or reacting, to whatever.

 

Our thoughts and emotions, He tells me, are

Different types of energies that harmonize, or

Do not. How we understand and respond to

Experience expresses both thought and emotion.

 

Spirit asks me to become increasingly aware that

My individual energies and how well they harmonize

With each other will, does, affect everyone and

Everything in my life, Himself included.

 

What an awesome responsibility.

 

Yes.