True Willingness: The Key To Spirituality

Several comments from readers about last week’s message suggested they believed that a change in perception was a simple matter of will power. I think that is partially true, but there are different levels of perception. Let me explain.

There is a saying: “Change the way you look at situations, events, or people and the situations, events, and people will change.” This, I believe, is true on two levels. One level that this appears to be true is what I call the one-dimensional level. The second level of this adage is on a spiritual level.

On this one-dimensional level Felix (my ego) will try to force a different way of looking at things. This will work with a modicum of success.  Then, quite often, Felix will try to manipulate this new “trick” of his into getting what he wants.

However, when I am really hurting (frustrated, exasperated, disappointed, angry, etc.) I’ll finally ask the Holy Spirit, or the Voice for the God of my understanding, to show me another way of looking at situations, events, or people. All I have to do is be willing to listen for His Voice. It will always be the quiet whisper amidst the other voices that I’ll hear.

I have two “selfs” according to A Course In Miracles (ACIM): an egoic mind-self and my True-Self. Within my egoic mind-self I have a lower self and a higher self or a lower mind and a higher mind. My lower, egoic mind (Felix) cannot will itself to become my True-Self. Neither can my higher mind (or self. Either is like trying, with all my might, to truly lift myself up by my own bootstraps. It is impossible.

However, my higher mind can comprehend that something is really wrong with my perception of the world. It wants to change (which scares the bejeezus out of Felix) but cannot of its own volition. But, unlike Felix, it can be truly willing to see things differently. And ACIM teaches that is all that’s necessary. Be willing. Truly ask for the Voice for God to help you see things differently and you will be answered.

When I ask for a different way of looking at things, I begin to see glimpses of another world – another level of True Existence – the spiritual. This reminds me of an earlier message I wrote [July, 2012; “Staying In The Is-Ness….”] about Australian Aborigines and their “Songlines” and concept of “The Dreaming.”  

From the novel, The Dreaming, by Barbara Wood, Random House, Inc., 1991, pages 429, 431: While discussing various Aboriginal tribal practices and ideas, “[t]he more complex concepts had been less easy to understand, such as the way Aborigines regarded time. Everything revolved around the Dreamtime, which Joanna had discovered, occurred not only in the past, but also in the present and the future. They had no words, in fact, for past, present and future – all was Dreamtime. And the clan had no separate words for yesterday, today and tomorrow, just the word punjara, which simply meant ‘another day.’ (p. 429).

“… Joanna saw the powerful bond between the various female relations and the other generations. She saw with envy the stairway she had imagined long ago – the descent of women from great-grandmothers to daughters. The smallest child could look at a white-haired woman bent over her digging stick and see the generations through which she had descended. Perhaps, Joanna thought, that was why these people had no need for words meaning past, present and future. They were all here now.” (p. 431)

These simple Aboriginal peoples, whose oral history dates back over an estimated 50,000 years, had already nailed it! “They had no words, in fact, for past, present and future – all was Dreamtime.” With all my smarts, education, technology, and gizmos, why is this so difficult for me to grasp? Why do I persist in planning, worrying, fretting, and beating myself up for perceived future problems or issues?

“Well, Donnie, it’s an indication of maturity. It’s a predictor of success (whatever that is). It’s the wise and prudent thing to do.” I guess that’s why I persist.

But it makes me miserable. I don’t enjoy life on Mother Nature’s terms. I get angry at bugs that eat my okra leaves. I get frustrated at a 5-week drought that really stresses my yard. I get really irritated at the deer and/or rabbits that eat my Joe Pye Weed plantings. I get saddened at my trees that are uprooted or snapped off from high winds and heavy rain.

Notice all the MY’s in that paragraph. Yep. My perceptions of events are simply unreal projections of my mind. They only exist in the universe that resides between my ears. Yet, they ruin my enjoyment of life as it unfolds. Because my perception is active, I can always compare what’s happening now to what I thought shoulda/coulda/oughta be happening. It’s never a pretty picture. It’s rarely happy resulting in contentment.

I have a sense of ownership – I possess therefore I am. I have a sense of being responsible for what I have. A sense of having – and then needing to worry about keeping and maintaining. The unspoken premise? There isn’t really enough. Maybe all that’s what takes the edge off simply enjoying the Now – living in the “is-ness.” I am trying to de-clutter my mind and get back to where the Aborigines have always been. They are supposed to be ignorant, uneducated natives who just happen to be happy and at peace. Yet, I am supposed to be smart and sophisticated and competitive and forward-thinking. But I am stressed, worried, and can’t sleep many nights.

I also attempt to apply the principles of AA to my spiritual growth. An AA adage states: “Just for today, don’t drink, go to a meeting, share openly and honestly, work the Steps, talk to your sponsor, pray, and the rest of your life is none of your business.” Within the structure of ACIM’s wisdom I can apply a similar approach: Just for today, read and practice the daily lesson in the Course Workbook, read a passage from the Course Text or the Manual for Teachers, remember that I am not what I think and I don’t have to believe everything I think, remember that I am responsible for not paying attention to the chatter in my mind, remember I am not upset for the reason I think, and remember the Holy Spirit will always give me another way of looking at people or  events, if I truly ask, am truly willing, and then listen for His whispered answer.

With practice, a little discipline, and perseverance perhaps I can become a 21^st Century Tennessee Aborigine – spiritual, simple, focused, happy, joyous and free.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 Apr 2017

Copyright 2017

PS: I’ll be out of town for several weeks. Messages will continue, but not for a while.

Understanding The Whole Helps Understand The Parts

There seems, to me, to be only several over-arching principles in virtually every spiritual tradition I have come to know: The Oneness of all humanity; The interconnectedness of all Life; The significance of stilling my mind or observing myself and recognizing that the universe I perceive exists only between my ears (or, put another way, discovering the power of my thoughts and my responsibility to manage them); and the growing perception of the one true spiritual Reality – the power of Love.

These facets of my spiritual development have little to do with traditional cerebral dogma – but everything to do with experiential faith. These are elements of Spirit that I know to be true for me simply because I have experienced their reality even though, on most occasions, I cannot express that reality in words. The difficulty in Finding The Right Words to use to express my spiritual reality was, in fact, the title of one of the chapters in my book, How the Bible became the Bible (Chapter 9).

I’ve written before in these messages about sensing the mystery of life as I cleaned muck out of my wet-weather creek or as I watched a wary meeting between an ant and a spider. You have listened to me describe my growing connectivity to my Tennessee environment – the hot, the dry, the frigid, and the icy – as I notice myself responding to the weather as the animals, birds, and plant life do. It has become the easiest way I experience the NOW. It has been therapeutic for me. It has connected me to my environment.

It helps me understand the small “pieces” of reality I’m witnessing by having, first, understood the “big picture.” Perhaps that’s just the way I learned to think. Perhaps it’s an important lesson in itself. I don’t know. It’s just the way I have always processed information. Example – there is a great quote from a small book I’ve read entitled Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing, by Robert Wolff [Inner Traditions Publishing, 2001]. In the book (p., 192) he quotes Ursula K. LeGuin: “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the [single] part as the whole.” [from her publication: Four Ways to Forgiveness].

How true that statement is for me!

I might add to LeGuin’s observation: Once I have understood me in terms of the larger whole, no longer can I go back and see me and my perceptions as all there is.

The author of Original Wisdom, also wrote the following, when discussing our “Western” ways of treating our natural resources [from page 68]: “We may think that our resources are the rewards of our efforts, our productivity, but in the earth’s closed ecosystem when we use resources (trees, oil, ores) much faster than they can be replenished, we destroy.

“ If we destroy life to save life, our civilization is doomed to extinction, as the plant and animal species are doomed when … the harmony of the whole [is disturbed].

“Aboriginal people of the world will be as extinct as tigers will someday be. Tiger tissue may be frozen in the hope that future generations can re-create these animals. A few tigers may be kept alive in zoos. But only a Westerner could think that a tiger could exist apart from his own unique environment and still be a tiger. The belief that we can save tigers by freezing some cells is the very belief that is destroying the tigers’ habitat: the belief we are separate. A habitat is more than an environment, something to be exploited. In fact, the tiger and the jungle are one; each cannot exist without the other.”     

All I can add is that I have experienced the power of understanding I am but a part of my environment not a user of it. That simple recognition has profoundly impacted my life and my perception of it. If I’m outside in colder weather and get chilled, I don’t run inside my heated house. I simply get up and go put on a sweater. If it’s hot and humid outside I don’t escape to my air-conditioned house, I put on a more appropriate shirt. If I sweat, I relish the sun and the breeze fanning me knowing that’s how my body keeps me cool. I have come to realize how much electrical and gas energy I have used to keep me impervious to what’s happening outside – allowing me to ignore or overcome my environment. What a waste.

People will approach me, while in line at a grocery store, and say, “Brrrr! Man it’s really cold today.” I’ll reply, “It really is. You’d almost think it was February in the mountains. Oops. It is February, isn’t it?” They always smile.

Take what you want from this message and leave the rest. Oh, and embrace the weather today. It will enrich you.

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

I will be out of town next week, There will be no message.

Don

#3 Feb 2016

Copyright 2016