Tag Archives: response.

To Know Requires Faith

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, Life-long learning continues, simple spiritual insights

A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.
He tells me that knowing is not a matter of faith, and yet
there can be no knowing without faith.

What has faith to do with knowing?

How do we learn?

Through experience.

Yes, but not through experience alone.

We reflect on past experiences and use what we
have learned from them as foundations for future …

Future what?

To guide us in our responses to future challenges.

And if what experience has taught you differs from
what others would claim to be the way to live?

This is developing beyond intellectual concepts.

Yes.

Then please explain.

Knowing is awareness.

Awareness of what?

Awareness of what seems to be true, for us, if for
no other.

Where does faith come in?

We each, in time, develop faith in our own knowing,
or awareness; of our own truth.

Awareness is not an End in Itself

Posted on by under developing awareness, Spirit shares words of wisdom

Spirit tells me, as if to console my aching heart,
that letting go was never easy
for anyone who ever felt they needed to be
connected to whatever or whomever, until
there didn’t seem to be an acceptable alternative.

The interconnecting energy relaxes on its own,
or will if we will let it.

It didn’t seem to need permission.

We need to learn to allow ourselves to feel
connected as long as it seems to make sense
to be so, and then, the bonds of relationship
relax, gently or otherwise, to facilitate
adaptation to newly developed awareness.

Close relationships will always be close,
unless …

Unless what?

Unless they seem …

To become more or less close?

Yes. Are you aware that you are aware of
a change in certain relationships?

Yes, and yet not as an observer of
outside events.

Yes. We can become increasing aware of
our inner feelings and rationalize
about them without denying them.

Yes, and self-awareness seems to be
non-judgmental.

Yes. It accepts that what is, is,
for whatever reason.

So, where do we go from here?

From where?

From accepting that we feel whatever
strength of whatever emotion about
whatever situation or relationship.

Then it’s time to think and rationalize
about where to go from here.

Feeling has served its purpose?

Yes. Now it’s time to choose
how to act on our awareness.

Then, awareness is not an end it itself?

Never. The price of awareness is responsibility
for whatever response we choose in whatever
situation.

We Develop Abusive Habits

Posted on by under developing awareness, simple spiritual insights, Spirit shares words of wisdom

A Spirit Teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom
as it applies to human nature in every situation and in every
culture; past, present, and future.

How can wisdom be timeless?

Because human nature is also timeless, in that it is grounded
in emotion.

That may be true, but …

It is true.

How does timeless wisdom apply to abusive behaviour.

Timeless wisdom inspires healthy emotions, thoughts, and
actions. Abuse of others or self is neither healthy nor
life-sustaining.

Should we forgive those who abuse us?

How can abuse be forgiven? That would be an unhealthy
response. What good purpose would it serve? None at all.
In fact, it might even encourage more abuse.

Abuse, He tells me, is unhealthy behaviour regardless of
who is abusing whom, or even whether the one being abused
accepts ill treatment. That would express self-abuse.

How then can we respond in a healthy way to abuse when
we can’t protect ourselves from it?

We make choices and perhaps past choices helped to create
the abusive situation.

Why do you speak of an abusive situation and not of
an abusive person?

There are none.

Please explain.

We develop abusive habits or we don’t.

An an addiction?

Yes.

All stress is a response to experience

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that all stress is a response to experience, but

Experience itself does not necessarily create stress.

 

How we choose to respond to experiences that Life

Provides us with, and we seem to respond differently to

Similar situations at different times, determines how

Stressful each experience will be.

 

I have a problem with that explaination.

 

Yes.

 

Choosing suggests rational thought.

 

Yes.

 

But, how can we choose an emotional response?

 

Why would you choose an emotional response?

 

Surely an emotional response is a more immediate and

Natural expression of how I experience whatever situation.

Doesn’t emotion have to come before thought?

 

Yes.

 

Then?

 

Emotion may be triggered by experience, but thought

Would determine how to respond.

 

Always?

 

Always. even when thought allows emotion to have its way.

 

 

 

 

 

Awareness comes before response

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that awareness always comes

Before response, however limited or distorted

That awareness might be.

 

Knowing that it’s raining outside may inspire us

To dress appropriately for that particular

Weather condition, before we open the door.

Or, we may choose to remain indoors until

The rain decides to stop.

 

We adapt, each in our own way and to an

Individual degree, to whatever situation

Life presents us with.

 

We choose how and why to face it, or not to,

Or, at least not yet.

 

Is one of us stalling for time?

 

Yes, you are.

 

 

Alone or in a Crowd

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that individuality does not necessarily mean

Exclusion from oneness.

 

We each are as we each are, alone or in a crowd. We can

Never not be what we are, but we can pretend, for

Whatever reason or reasons.

 

However, the danger of pretending to be what we

Know we are not arises when we forget that we are

Pretending.

 

Our response to any experience is a very individual one,

Regardless of how many others may share that

Experience with us. Our personal response changes us,

Sometimes at a very deep level of our existence, our

Being, our essence.

 

This, Spirit tells me, is the purpose of experience:

To help us become aware of who and what we are,

As individuals and as one with Life.

 

 

 

The Soup of Life

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that repetition of

Similar experiences is not always

Enough to teach us the lessons

They might have taught us if

We had reflected or meditated on

Their cause and consequence, and

Considered how a different

Approach might have had

A different result.

 

Perhaps, He tells me, if we had

Put less salt into the soup, then,

A richer flavour of the soup’s

Contents could have been

Experienced.

 

Whether altering our approach,

Our response, can never be known,

For sure, until we try.

 

Experiment with your life,

He tells me, but in an

Intelligent way.

 

Memory of a Summer Morning

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I sat in contemplation, among my much-loved potted vines, shrubs, perennials and colourful annuals that surrounded me, or reached down to attract my attention and appreciation of their beauty. And they were beautiful, each in their own way. Did they know that they provided me with much more than pleasure, or at least pleasure and more? Their profuse foliage screened me from the world, or so it seemed.

The day began, or at least that portion of it when I took coffee, water, books, pen and notebook out to meditate – not every meditator focuses on her navel, or emptiness.

It was a misty, moist morning and yet, even as I recorded this fact, the reality changed. A flat, transparent, almost soft grey blanket of cloud, giving a faint hint of blue sky beyond, gradually transformed itself into a soft, lace stretching across a baby-blue sky. The cloud lace stretched ever more thinner and became tattered, as a beloved old shawl might seem to be by strangers.

I asked Green Maple, close to my patio, and his young friend, Red Maple, what they thought of such a transformation in the sky.

We don’t think at all, they seemed to smugly respond. or, at least we try not to. What purpose would it serve? We accept what is. Why don’t you?

Why don*t I just accept?

Yes.

It’s not possible, at least not for me, not if acceptance is as , case closed. I just can’t seem to be able to do it. I can accept almost anything, if acceptance is a step that requires developing understanding of why, and even then, why, too, must lead somewhere toward progressing beyond even awareness of the why, to a ‘where do I go from here’ question.

Spirit is listening to all of this and suggests that I could learn to live a simple life.

How is that possible, I ask, when Life refuses to be simple?

He drops the pen. Our connection closes. Why?

No response.