Tag Archives: simple

How to Live and Why

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit guide shares a precious gift, higher education, intelligent spirituality

Spirit shares gems of wisdom.

Spirit tells me that to live in such a way that brings
a sense of satisfaction and pleasure requires us
to seek to serve others, because in serving others
we also serve ourselves.

Survival of oneself depends upon survival of others
and upon the survival of the environment which
sustains us all.

But, He continues, we cannot care for anyone if we
do not first care for ourselves, because if we have
no love for ourselves then we have no love to share
with anyone or anything else.

It’s as simple as that.

A Personal History Book

Posted on by under A spirit teacher tells me that, developing awareness, Finding our unique way, intelligent spirituality, Life-long learning continues

Spirit shares words of wisdom with me that seem so deep and yet expressed in words simple enough even for me, a simple seeker
and slow learner, to almost understand.

He tells me that knowing is not a matter of faith. We know
that wounds hurt for we have experienced their pain, both
physical and emotional wounds.

Physical pain is felt through our physical senses while
emotional pain is a mental state and is often learned and
developed through habit.

How do we learn emotional pain?

It’s a socially acquired skill.

If you offend me and I feel distressed, then I have learned
to feel distressed, and you’re not the cause?

Yes.

Who taught me?

You taught yourself.

Then, everyone would feel offended for the same reason?

Not necessarily.

Why?

You couldn’t offend me.

Perhaps you’ve developed immunity to offence.

There are other labels.

Such as?

Tolerance, patience, understanding, compassion, …
The list goes on.

You didn’t include awareness.

Yes.

Why?

The examples I provided each require a certain depth
of awareness.

The problem with that approach, or at least one problem,
is that it would seem to require a certain detachment
from the emotional state of the offender, as well as
from oneself.

Why would that be a problem?

It would suggest a certain lack of sensitivity.

Not necessarily so.

Please explain.

As we become increasingly aware of the path, then we can
listen to what some might call offence, calmly, and feel
compassion for the distress of the other. As Confucius
might say, “No blame”.

How is that possible?

As we develop an ever more clear vision, we can see in many
more directions than one.The present arrived from the
past and we each are as a personal history book that
those who have eyes to see can read, and we all can and
will develop eyes that see, sooner or later, and from
a unique perspective.

I’m not ready for that quality of insight, yet.

Yes.
aught me? urs

A Life Worth Living

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, higher education, 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.

Where do Expectations Come From?

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

Spirit tells me tht we deprive elderly people
of the simple pleasure of self-care when
we do for them what they only require
assistance doing for themselves.

They become the object of our care and then
they begin to lose the sense of self-worth
that self-care allowed them to experience
and express.

What if they are unable, even with assistance,
to care for themselves?

When they are dead?

Not physically dead.

Emotionally?

No. Not that either.

Then?

You’re setting me up.

Yes.

Then, please explain.

Explain what?

I have been a care-giver and have
personally assisted clients with
bathing and home care, but
I have never, as far as I know,
been anyone’s first experience
in receiving paid care from.

What has that to do with anything?

Clients have expectations of what
to expect from paid caregivers.

Where do their expectations
come from?

A social worker would have
assessed their needs and …

How?

By testing their performance level
of activities of daily living.
The results would be recorded
on a scale of from very well
to not at all.

The results of the assessment
would determine what assistance
the person being tested required?

Yes.

Have you ever personally known
any client assessed as requiring
partial assistance cleaning
her kitchen or bathroom?

It’s quicker for the caregiver to do
the job alone and the time she
or he is allotted to any one client
is limited.

Then, the client becomes the job
that is objectified;?

That sounds impersonal.

In today’s so-called health care
system, client care has become
very impersonal.

So, how can we improve it?

We can learn to care.

How?

The only way possible.

Personal experience?

Yes.

Simplicity is Where Thinking Begins

Posted on by under developing awareness, simple spiritual insights

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.

When Chaos Rules

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

A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.

He tells me that there was a time, not very distant into the past, when children everywhere learned to understand and to speak
a particular language at a very young age, and the language they learned to understand and speak became their language, and more, much more.

From a child’s perspective, language is a means for sharing his or her world with other people, their people.

Also, many of us learned to believe in a particular religion
at a very young age. Whether we were aware of it or not, we also learned social rules specific to that religion, as separate from legal or traffic rules. The religious rules we learned served as a social code, to guide the way we would learn to live.

Many of us no longer live in a community where we all understand and speak the same language, or accept the same religion and the specific social rules that specific religions teach. 

Perhaps even the same traffic rules may not apply to all communities?

Yes.

When does chaos rule?.

Chaos never rules except as a transitional force between one set of rules and another, or between individuals or groups of individuals adjusting to the larger realities of life, and learning to understand that no rules are necessarily acceptable to all people in all places, or for all time unless they serve and make sense to all people.

All languages and all religious social customs or rules serve, or did serve a purpose, when societies lived separate from each other. They provide or did provide a sense of community.

Today, for many of us, it is the language, religion, or social customs of others, not our own, that contribute to disharmony and conflict in our relationships within a world community.

Our attitudes may invite Chaos to rule, when simple respect
would serve to unite us.

udes invite Chaos to rule, w would unite us.

Awareness of Reality is Progress

Posted on by under developing awareness, I Ching, Uncategorized

Spirit reads I Ching 53 – Gradual Progress.

 

Gradual Progress develops from Mountain (53) and moves toward

Marrying (54).

 

Spirit explains:  Mountains can seem to be as barriers, challenges,

Or as just part of the environment. They can be as beauty, in the eye

Of the beholder, and a pleasure to climb, or as an obstruction

To ignore, if possible.

 

How we see anything or anyone determines, or at least influences,

To some extent, our relationship with it or with them.

 

Awareness of this reality is progress along the way of enlightenment.

 

Where does Marrying fit into this picture?

 

We commit ourselves to Life, or we do not. It’s as simple as that.

 

If that is simple.

 

Yes.

 

Relationships provide a sense of connectedness

Posted on by under developing awareness, grass-roots ethics, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that relationships serve to provide us with a sense of

Connectedness, whether the connectedness is real or imagined.

 

What kind of relationships are we talking about?

 

Any kind.

 

Such as?

 

Intimate, personal but not intimate, casual, neighbourly, professional,

Physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, whatever, or a combination

Of some of the above.

 

Think about it? He asks me. How? What? and whom do I relate to? and

In what way?

 

Also, He adds, bear in mind that not everything or everyone I send my

Vibrating energy waves to, by choice or otherwise, is tuned into

Receiving them, or would care to tune in, if they were not now.

 

What made me think that relationships were less complicated than that?

 

A simple outlook on the outer world.

 

Are relationships with the inner world less complicated?

 

For whom?

 

Me.

 

No.

 

 

 

There is no choice if we choose well

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

Spirit tells me that I am a unique expression of Life.

 

If I am, I ask Him, then how can I live my life in such a way

As to express this uniqueness, within the limits of my

Potential, or within what I believe are the limits of my potential.

 

The answer is simple, He tells me, if you choose well.

Simply be yourself.

 

Now, If I only knew how to do that.

 

Not all apples are alike

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

Spirit tells me that I must learn to judge people as I would

Fruit at a market. Not all apples are alike.

 

So it is with people. We do not choose produce according

To how we would like it to be, but by how it seems to be,

Now. Quality is more or less self-evident.

 

We may be more or less than we once were, and we may

Become more or less than what we now are, in whatever

Aspect of our being.

 

But, for now we are as we are, or seem to be. So it is

With everyone.

 

Those who have eyes to see are, at least to some extent,

Responsible for what they see, and, for how they respond

To what they see. It’s as simple as that.