Tag Archives: spirit

Stay Between Doubt and Belief

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, higher education, intelligent spirituality

My Spirit Teacher shares gems of wisdom with me, but

It isn’t always easy for me to tell a gem from a rock.

I’m almost persuaded, a thousand times or more, that

He’s leading me on; setting me up to believe something

Is so because it seems to be so.

And then, as a master trickster might, almost without my

Noticing how, He reveals a fatal flaw in my thinking.

My mind’s comfort zone of smug awareness is suddenly

Shattered; my physical, intellectual, emotional, and even

My  spiritual worlds collapse together into a state that,

As some might say, you could peel me off the floor.

How does He do it? I don’t know, but He does, and yet,

Somehow I always seem to recover, after limping  as

From a field of battle, licking my wounds as an injured

Dog might, into solitude.

And, then, when I almost don’t care to ever believe in

Anything again, I seem to slip back into thinking certain

About something.

And then, once again; surely I would have learned by now,

That Spirit is watching and waiting, and almost luring me

On, fully prepared to set into motion; to launch yet

Another attack on my vulnerability to believe in  absolutes.

Challenges Raise the Bar

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, higher education, intelligent spirituality, Life-long learning continues

A spirit teacher shares timeless wisdom with me,                   but it seems to require never-ending intellectual,       emotional, and spiritual development. I obviously              don’t have what it takes to absorb what He seems                     to think I can. I struggle, as many others surely do,                  to live within constraints not entirely of my own        choosing.

Spirit claims that I do choose and am trying to avoid
accepting responsibility for choices I freely make.

But, how free are we to make choices when often
the choice I seem to need to make is the lesser of                   two or more unacceptable options?

Spirit is unimpressed with my whimpering. It                  doesn’t move Him. Constraints, He tells me, are          necessary to future progress in any discipline or                 area of human development, including spiritual,     intellectual, or physical, in that they provide                challenges to our present level of skill, as well as            serving to soften our ego’s otherwise smug sense                     of satisfaction in the moment of victory.

Challenges that we have struggled to face and            overcome, He claims, seem to whisper in our inner              ear, “Perhaps we should raise the bar”.

Compassion Expresses Care

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, intelligent spirituality, Spirit shares words of wisdom, spiritual intelligence

A spirit teacher tells me that, at a grass-roots level,
compassion is as sophisticated a way as any to express
genuine care.

Gentle words of love and caring serve a need, both to
the giver and to the one receiving; but only when the
words are supported by caring deeds can they, at least
be seen to be genuine expressions.

Compassion is a beautiful word that expresses a deep but
simple emotion; genuine care for someone or something.
But, saying it is never enough. We need to support our
caring words with caring actions.

I could still be pretending.

Yes.

To Tolerate Ignorance is Disrespectful

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, developing awareness, intelligent spirituality

A spirit teacher shares gems of wisdom with me, and I share
some of what He shares with me, with you. No charge.

He tells me that to tolerate ignorance, and other base
qualities in oneself or in others is disrespectful of those
others and oneself.

It is counter-productive as it slows spiritual development,
and so is also disrespectful of our future.

Then, how to respond?

Compassion is the answer and is the only way to achieve
peace of mind. Pity is arrogance pretending to be
justifiably superior.

If I pity the wretched conditions of others, then I am
not one of them, and, Spirit claims, to be with them and
not of them is impossible, as there are no faults of others
that we, ourselves, do not, at least potentially possess,
if only hidden at some level of our soul or psyche. How else
could we recognize the qualities of others without awareness
of them?

I know you, He tells me, because I know myself.

Unlimited Degrees of Love

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, A spirit teacher tells me that, developing awareness, higher education, spiritual intelligence

A Spirit Teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.

He tells me that we each express love by caring for and respecting
those whom, or that which, we claim to love.

But, there may be unlimited degrees of quantity and quality of care
and respect.

Yes, and there are unlimited degrees of love.

And quality?

Our capacity to love expresses the quality of our soul’s development.

Can we control love?

No. What we don’t express, we don’t have to express. Love is limited
only by the personal restrictions we put on ourselves. We each possess
the potential to love unconditionally.

Then, why don’t we?

We fear losing control.

Any and All Relationships Express a Way of Life

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit guide shares a precious gift, intelligent spirituality, Life-long learning continues, self-transcendence

A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.

He tells me that our dreams are worlds of parallel reality to
our so-called awake world, and are designed to teach us of
potential for illusion in our everyday experiences.

While dreaming, the dream world seems real, even though it
may not be in many or any ways similar to the world we live
in, upon awakening.

How can it seem real if it isn’t?

One thing we are aware of during a dream is our own existence,
even if it is experienced as no more than an observer. We
Relate to the drama. It seems to make sense to us, at the time.
We don’t stop to question its authenticity.

So, the dream could be telling me something totally unrelated to
the scenario in the dream itself?

Yes.

Then, how do I make sense of it?

When?

After I wake up.

Do you wake up?

What do you mean?

To wake up is to become aware that human existence itself is
an illusion.

But, I’m living a human existence.

Yes

Why?

To develop awareness of the power of relationship.

Singular?

Yes.

In that any and all express a way of Life?

Yes, the only Way.

Where Does Chaos Rule?

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, developing awareness, higher education, 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, at a very young
age, to understand and to speak a particular language, and
the language they learned to understand and to 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 particular 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 our life.

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 same specific social rules that specific religions teach.

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

Yes.

Where 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.

Where

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.

Serving Life is Not an Option

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, intelligent spirituality, self-transcendence

A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.
He tells me that serving life is not an option and that
we each serve; some more and some less.

At some level of awareness, we know it. But, we may be
too grounded in physical and material illusions
to consciously consider, or very much care about,
our degree of impact on those with whom we share
our environment, or possibly the environment itself.

Many of us fail to see that we may be part of
the environment, from the perspective of some others,
if they are even aware enough to notice us at all.

What about personal relationships?

What about them?

Are they no more or less than a part of our awareness?

Outside of oneself?

Yes.

No.

I hesitate to ask about what seems to be suggested.

The non-dual nature of reality?

Yes.

Why hesitate?

I’m not ready to deal with it.

Yes.

Abusive Habits Become Addictions

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, developing awareness, higher education, Life-long learning continues

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 of self is neither
healthy nor life-sustaining.

Should we forgive those who abuse us?

How dan 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.

As an addiction?

Yes.