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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

So How Do You Measure Your Spiritual Progress?

*** A few thoughts about our spiritual journey and how to gauge our progress, especially for empathic people.




From Denny: Once you grow past the baby pablum spiritual food most commonly available in society, you begin to reach out for something more substantial. Then it's on to establishing yourself firmly planted on the intermediate spiritual level. The intermediate level of spiritual growth involves a lot of stopping to measure where you are as well as who you are now as separated as from who you were - or even who you thought you were.

If you are an empathic type like me you know that last part of the statement is a real mind-bender. Society and various cultures expend a lot of energy into demanding people fit their molds even when they don't. Empathic people often get pushed and shoved into categories that are not good fits just because other people are afraid of the indefinable. People even try to bully us into remaining if they were successful enough at trapping us there for a while.

That's the thing about Spirit, and the coordinating empaths, for as a pairing we are indefinable because Spirit is everywhere and everything. An empath is someone who is keenly aware of Spirit and the ebb and flow of the spiritual realm. That can be a real challenge for other people not so inclined or sensitive to Spirit. Then their fears and rejections often become a challenge for empathic people.

Empathic people tend not to hold onto ego issues as strongly as others. That is not to say developing empaths do not require dealing with their egos in relation to effectively following Spirit. It's just part of the growth process for everyone. It's a challenge to learn to pair our egos with Spirit, to learn to flow effortlessly with the moment and truly fear nothing. It takes time and training.

No matter who you are, where you have been in life, or where you are headed, it's always a helpful idea to take a measure of how your ego is doing on the spiritual journey. The more you gain your Life balance the more your ego is getting comfortable with Spirit and the world and is choosing to get in sync. Your ego is choosing to trust Spirit for - and about - everything.

When your ego is calming down you will find that Life is no longer like some fire drill, where everything is a big drama and has to be addressed immediately and with great flair. While emergency situations will always exist, and certainly require immediate action, you will do so with far more calm and deliberation. Your ego will have learned to act rather than react. Acting with methodical, calm deliberation rather than reacting with fear, chaotic action and emotions bouncing off the walls in all directions.

The spiritual journey we are walking is to retrain our egos. Our egos were trained by our immediate family culture, our religion and our country's culture. What Spirit does over a long period of time is retrain us to once again get in synchronicity with Spirit. It is so we can gain our balance and better understand how to flow through this life. In the end, toward maturity, our egos finally merge back into harmony with Spirit. And that's when Life gets really interesting...



Quotes

Kabbalah quotes (Jewish mysticism)


* The worst manifestation of egoism is arrogance and conceit. - Talmud

* Faith cannot manifest itself in a person without being accompanied by fear, for egoism bows only to fear. - Talmud, Shabbat

* An individual need not despair when, as he studies and works on improving himself in an effort to attain spiritual elevation, he comes to see himself as being in an even worse condition than prior to studying Kabbalah. The true nature of egoism is revealed to a person whose level is higher than that of others, and for this reason a person becomes worse in his own eyes, even though he has actually become better. - Talmud, Megillah

* The most important aspect of a person is his aspirations, rather than his achievements, because it is egoism that requires achievements. - Talmud, Yavamot; Talmud, Sota


Funny ego quotes from Oscar Wilde:

One of the world's best social commentators, that involved the struggle of the ego in the world - was playwright Oscar Wilde. It certainly is an amusing way for the ego to realize to lighten up and get serious about the business of developing into a partnership with our Spirit:

* Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

* Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde


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