Chapter 05
My spiritual life
PREFACE
As a child, I went to Church; initially it was something that I was forced into doing—not because there was a family belief system that was being indoctrinated upon me, but rather I was told that I had to go in order to get into a better school (if I didn’t get into the grammar school). After a while, I willingly went to church—indeed two different churches—one in the morning the other in the evening. I read the bible and I studied the New Testament whenever I could.
For a while, I lived my life according to the New Testament, or at least I very much tried to, but then as an adolescent, this all came to an end and I became quite resentful of the church. Indeed, I was so resentful that I refused to talk about religion or even set foot in a church for several decades.
And that’s what I thought spirituality meant. I thought, essentially, it was about religion—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, etc. (yes, I know that Buddhism is a philosophy or a moral code rather than an organized religion, but you get my point.).
And so, when I began to write this section it was difficult because as an atheist, I didn’t consider myself to be spiritual at all. I started by trying to expand upon the classic cliché that spirituality is personal (spoiler alert, it’s not, but maybe not for the reasons you are thinking). As I progressed with this chapter, I found it to be a real eye-opener. See for yourself.
PREMISE
Spirituality is intangible; Religion, on the other hand, is a system of collective beliefs with rules; it is passed down by ancestors—i.e., from parents and through our upbringing. Spirituality is my relationship with the universe (this is how I choose to define it). It’s not that spirituality is personal, which is perhaps how I used to think of it. But no, spirituality can’t be personal because it’s not about a person.
Spirituality entails the experience of “one-ness,” i.e., being one with the universe and with humanity (a.k.a. enlightenment). It’s unconditional love—it’s my vibrational energy. It’s not becoming one because we are already one but rather, it’s a recognition of oneness of all things, which is a much bigger premise.
When I talk about spirituality, the best that I can do is describe an experience, but the problem is that it can never be put into words. That’s the dilemma. It’s like the oneness is with the universe, but not humanity. The humanity is the time and space “dream” we are in. So, it’s almost like it’s the experience of oneness—being one with the universe. It’s not so much about knowing my place in the universe, i.e., knowing that I am this special puzzle piece and without this puzzle piece, then the picture would be incomplete. No, it would be more knowing that I am the universe, and I am just an expression of the universe.
True spirituality is the felt and lived experience of inner peace. Spirituality doesn’t come from staying centered; instead, staying centered comes from spirituality, and oftentimes, this comes from meditation.
My purpose in life is to align myself with the truth of myself—the presence of love or the real experience of joy; the purpose is to really have the direct experience (not our personhood because that’s an invention), but the experience of the consciously aware presence that I am. When I do this then, automatically, everybody around me, and even way beyond me is going to automatically benefit. If the purpose of life is anything other than that, it’s going to be egoistic in some way—including how to be a better person kind of thing.
The thing that I want to look for is what’s in the way of my experiencing the real Truth (with a capital T) of my being. And when I do that, I’m automatically going to be doing the highest and best for everybody around me and the world.
Spirituality is the direct experience of deep, real inner peace. Without inner peace, I can’t have the best possible Quality of Life because it’s going to be fear-driven somehow.
I don’t need a higher mission to make my life significant or worthwhile. My life is the mission. I want to be able to look back at any point—today, ten years from now, or on the last day of my life—and say that I lived my life to the fullest . . . experiencing the most possible happiness, joy, passion, adventure, and fulfillment.
If I were to say that I want to live a life of significance and accomplish important and worthy goals, that would be moving back into the ego realm of things because the ego mind has no idea what a really worthy goal is. It’s always going to be its own enhancement or success in the world and so that type of statement doesn’t belong in what spirituality is about. Once I am more and more tuned into what we are, then everything becomes amazing, and the idea of am I significant? Have I accomplished things? These just fall off the radar screen—but that doesn’t mean I won’t; it means that it’s a byproduct and not the goal.
Of course, spirituality may incorporate contribution, benevolence, charity, kindness, giving, being thoughtful toward others and able to offer empathy. But these kinds of words actually refer to behavior within my dream world—i.e., this is what a good person would do or what a person who’s trying to be in touch with his own loving inclinations would do.
This is known as self-actualization (The realization or fulfillment of my potential—being a better person or walking a higher and more enlightened path.) and not experiencing oneness. Contribution, benevolence, charity, etc. are adjectives that would describe my behavior and choices as a person and whilst the result of doing these can aid in becoming a better person, they are not, in themselves spiritual.
VISION
This category is about self-awareness and being able to fully experience that I am one with the universe. The difficulty is that it is impossible for the finite mind to wrap its head around it and so I cannot understand the universe because it can only be directly experienced. I was taught that in my world, I must learn things to get ahead in life, or learning is how life works (like I am going to learn chemistry because if I don’t, then I might blow something up in the lab). But that is impossible in this instance because I can only experience it.
If I can dedicate myself every day to inner peace and follow my intuition (they are a package deal) then all of this is automatically going to mean that I will leave the world a better place. Likewise, there is no way that I can understand inner-peace. I need to just experience inner-peace.
ACIM states, “There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness and perceive it open wide and welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin, in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think that they did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, ‘Would I accuse myself of doing this?’”
What are the processes of spirituality?
- Meditation is a process that can be very helpful in quieting the ego mind and getting it still enough that something else can make itself known. Meditation is a tool that I may call upon and in so doing, experience oneness—connecting to all that exists and experience peace, harmony, and belonging.
- Giving—The experience of contribution—is helping other people and making the world a better place. Whatever I offer to others, I’m going to experience myself—that’s just a law. This is the way it actually works.
- Forgiveness is the experience of becoming all that I can be—a better person or a higher path (but just being a better person or a higher path implies worldly stuff as well). Forgiveness is a release, not a pardoning. It begins with recognizing that I want to let go of the interpretation that I’ve placed on a situation and being willing to see it different. This real forgiveness is absolutely key and is essential to being spiritual.
It is important to recognize that I have put the whole situation there in the first place. In other words, it’s both correct and incomplete that I am interpreting it because I put it there and then interpreted it. It’s more complete than interpreting because that implies that I’m here in this place, doing the interpreting of something that’s out there. My goal is, therefore, to recognize everything that is out there I’ve placed out there—right down to the last dandelion growing in the backyard etc.
- Gratitude is the experience of inner peace—contentment, wholeness, and fulfillment. Gratitude and all of these other things are all a package deal.
I could say that it is important to know what I believe and why. Know who I am and what I am all about. Know why I am here. But whilst it’s certainly important to explore “the what” I believe and in the beginning of all this journey, it is always going to be wrong and it’s always going to be in the way, so to speak, and the knowing who I am—well it’s not so much to know who I am, but rather what I am—because the word who implies personhood.
To know what I am is actually an experience of all that is. Again, it’s way beyond language. Knowing what I am is out of the realm of personhood. But while I’m experiencing my personhood, then these other things about forgiveness and meditation and gratitude, etc. is what I would be about. It would be the way I would want to live this experience. And certainly spirituality, like everything, is about releasing guilt.
I was born perfect. I haven’t ruined myself; nothing has gone wrong. I’ve just driven myself insane by projecting my guilt. I must have another person to reflect back this guilt to me because so often I am carrying guilt that I am not aware of. Remember, I can’t jump back and forth between the conscious and unconscious mind and there’s so much stuff in my unconscious mind that the conscious mind doesn’t have immediate access to.
That is why sometimes out to the side—over there someplace, so to speak—appears a somebody that I don’t like, or a situation that I don’t like, but it’s usually a person whose behavior I don’t like. And the only reason I don’t like it or the only reason that I find it offensive in some way is because it is accurately reflecting my own guilt or something that I fear about myself. It’s so important to keep underlining that the guilt is never warranted. To be guilty would say that my words and deeds are so powerful that it overrides creation and ruins it and breaks it into pieces. That’s why guilt is incredibly arrogant—because it says this is what I have done. But that’s impossible and this is why I have a need to see it in another person or another situation.
It is essential to recognize the inherent innocence in everything and everybody, but this does not mean that their poor behavior is just fine. Everybody can agree that at the time and space level, which is where behavior takes place, that their behavior may indeed be terrible, but that’s at a different level than the reality that underlies everything. Any of us can go, oh my gosh, look at the behavior out there, that’s awful. But, and this is key, the immediate next sentence should be “but if it’s in my experience, then I have put it here. I have put that person’s behavior in my experience because it’s something that I fear about myself. Even if I don’t recognize it as being afraid of something in myself, it is ,nevertheless, the picturing of a kind of unmonitored stream of thinking.
If I were to go to a movie, then every frame of the film that’s projected on the screen for the second (or however long it’s on there—let’s pretend like it’s a second so that we have something to reference). The frame that went before has had to immediately disappear for the new frame to be able to display on a blank screen. My life is like that—in so far as that every moment is a brand new frame, so to speak. I can generically call this my state of mind. It includes all the things that I believe and what I want and what I’m paying attention to. There is that oneness between what I am “experiencing out there” and the train of thinking in here. The two are always going to be exactly the same. And they are also going to change moment by moment.
Now, if I were to hang on to a fixed collection of beliefs—e.g., this very second, I might think that the Republican Party is insane and the very next second I think the same thing—then it will seem to be coherent and consistent. Therefore, if I decide that I’m going to change my mind in this moment and I’m going to focus differently, then I’m automatically going to have changes in my outer life, not because I’m making them happen, but rather because each frame of my thinking changes the frame that’s out here.
In other words my outer experience is a result of the sum of my inner experiences and so, if I want to change the value of my outer experience, then I need to change the value of my inner experiences. To do that, I must simply change my mind so that my false beliefs are no longer there. This is equivalent to changing the frame of the movie.
I do not hate republicans, nor do I wish them ill or anything like that (and it doesn’t matter what the topic is about). There are really only two categories of thought. There’s a loving thought and there’s a fear-driven or hateful thought. It is black and white—I am either loving something, which means an “unconditional positive regard” as Carl Rogers would say, i.e., I totally put my arms around this, or I hate it.
Now I may say that I’m not a hateful person. I don’t hate this or hate that but there might be things I don’t like, or people I don’t want to be with, but I don’t hate them. And that is a big distraction because if I look up the word “hate” in the dictionary, it’s going to say: “to detest, loathe, to dislike or to wish ill or to shun.” Well then that means it looks like I have more hateful thoughts than I might have imagined because by just saying, “Well I just don’t like somebody,” it’s as if I’ve let myself off the hook but that’s just an artificial distinction.
Anything that I am judging against, even if it seems non-essential, the process of judging against it is hating it (let’s just call a spade a spade.). I was not taught to pay attention to the general tenor of that stream of thought; however, that stream of thought, just like the stream of frames in a movie projector, is causing the storyline to unfold on the screen. I love this and I hate this, and I love this and I hate this, etc. is creating the ongoing change of frames that make up the events, circumstances, experiences of my outer life.
Spirituality is not a “connection” because to connect says that I have two different things that I am somehow joining together. This is more seeing the immediate oneness of the train of thought—i.e., the moments that I experience in my outer life. There’s not a time lag or anything like that. Whatever I’m seeing right now is a function of whatever I’m thinking; it’s a function of wherever I’ve placed my attention right now. If I’m placing my attention in a way that is judgmental or hateful, then I’m not going to like the results in the so-called “out there” (which isn’t really out there; it’s all taking place in my mind.).
Spirituality releases me from guilt and guilt is the belief that I have somehow diminished myself. I was born perfect and am always perfect. There is nothing that I can do about that. I cannot change that. My behavior and words will not change that, and guilt is the idea that I am not worthy and am not perfect.
When I am triggered, it is me that is projecting that guilt on to another person. I cannot change by myself; I need another person to reflect it back to me. When someone is doing something that I find annoying or hurtful, it is me who is projecting that onto another person.
Therefore, spirituality may be defined as I’m either having a loving thought or I’m not; it’s either on or off and spirituality is having those loving thoughts. It’s also taking complete responsibility for my inner experience. Am I peaceful or am I upset? If I am upset, then all this does is increase the actual guilt of myself and strengthen it within myself. I have to instead understand that they are doing the best that they can and are not actively trying to upset me. That thing that I find annoying is the thing that I am feeling guilty about. If I cannot harm myself or remove the perfection from myself then neither can the other person.
Again, none of this is excusing bad behavior but letting go of the guilt is what will keep me from being upset because if I am not hanging onto guilt, then the only other meaningful option is for me to be extending my own love, my own goodwill, my own desire for the best for everyone etc. That is automatically going to keep upset from occurring because upset is always related to guilt and fear. It doesn’t just randomly come from nowhere.
When I do fall off the horse, then I must experience whatever upset I have created and let it settle again. That’s a time and space thing that I must do. But that begins to take care of itself more and more because there’s no such thing as an idle thought that doesn’t show up on the screen of my life, just like there’s no such thing as random frames in a real film—i.e., arbitrarily not showing up on the screen—because once it’s part of the movie, it’s going to show up.
Thoughts are very much the same thing and that’s why it is important to recognize the intimate connection between my own train of thought and the nature of the thought, I must also realize that there is no such a thing as a private thought because my thoughts are showing up as my world—and there is nothing private about it because there is actually no boundary between myself and anyone else.
Historically I have believed that “I have my mind like I have my own little coin purse. In my own little coin purse, I have some little coins and if I want to give someone some of my coins or take some of their coins (if they offer them), that’s fine. But otherwise, it’s like I have my own private little mind that I have all of my little thoughts in. Nobody knows it’s there unless I decide to tell someone what is in there.”
Well, nothing could be further from how things actually are. There’s only one big mind—one giant coin purse—and everybody’s thoughts are there. This is why deciding to be peaceful myself is helpful to say the people in Ukraine. It’s helpful to anybody anywhere that’s looking, whether they realize it or not,
I was always taught that I can just think in private and nothing and nobody is really going to know unless I choose to tell them. It’s hard to overstate how incorrect that is because everything about my life is showing up as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace or an inward and spiritual focus of attention. They just can never be separated. This takes a lot of determination, like I really, really do have to monitor what’s important, what I pay attention to what the nature of my thoughts are.
On a vibrational level, I manifest these instances; the universe gives me these instances in an attempt to show me what I must forgive myself for. Additionally, the ego divides the world into guilty victimizers and innocent victims. This is never the case. It is simply the universe showing me what I need to let go of in myself.
This is why forgiveness is about shifting from an ego perspective to a Holy Spirit perspective. It begins with recognizing that I want to let go of the interpretation I’ve placed on a situation and being willing to see it differently. Forgiveness is an illusion, but it is the only illusion that leads me out of illusion. On that deepest level, there is nothing to forgive because everyone, in truth, cannot be harmed. This is, of course, not meant to deny what is happening on the level of form.
I am not separate from the world but rather I am one with it. None of me can be destroyed and all of my suffering comes from the dream of separation. The name that is given to this entire illusory thought system of duality, separation, guilt, sin, and fear is the ego.
Forgiveness is basically releasing my own guilt as it’s being presented to me or mirrored to me by so-called other people. It’s true—there’s nothing to forgive because nothing has gone wrong and none of us are separate from the world, but rather one with it—because we have all created it. I am, therefore, not separate from it because I continue to create the movie.
The world I see is what I gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is not more than that, it is not less. It is the witness to my state of mind—an outside picture of an inner condition.
PURPOSE
Why do I need to practice my understanding of spirituality? What is it going to allow me to do for others and for the world—which will, of course, be mirrored back to me? My spiritual purpose is my purpose in life—which is to love my neighbor, love myself, and to be happy.
My purpose is to love and remember that love and connection are the keys. The spiritual purpose is not about creating the highest Quality of Life—because that has a worldly sense to it. But rather, my purpose in life is releasing guilt and in so doing this, it allows for more love. The automatic fallout of more love is going to be a better Quality of Life. Note this is a higher Quality of Life—not the purpose, but the result. My purpose is to follow my intuition, release guilt, and monitor my own thinking—so that my thinking becomes more loving and more inclusive.
Manifestation will automatically happen—just like when I’m standing in front of my bathroom mirror, my purpose is not to make my green shirt that I am wearing show up—that’s automatically going to be what the mirror does. In other words, I will achieve more excellence and maximize, not so much my potential as a human being, but rather maximize the experience of my own presence.
My Spiritual purpose in life entails:
- Achieving excellence in every important area of my life, thereby maximizing the potential of my own presence.
- Living according to having the goal of peace of mind and holding my happiness as my highest value.
- Seeing the essential requirement to embrace all the adventures and experiences that I have for the simple reason that I put them there. Doing anything other than to embrace them is to pretend like they just somehow showed up on their own.
Living ever more peacefully, in a beautiful way and following my intuition is the inspiration I want to provide for my son, my wife and others. It’s automatically just going to help improve the world around me. I must keep remembering this over and over again because I am in the unlearning process. I’m not helping to improve the world around me, but rather I’m constantly recreating the world around me and in so doing can offer better options for my fellow human beings.
STRATEGY
My strategy is to change my thinking and the focus of my attention, remembering that at any moment I’ve only got two things to choose between. I can choose between my own ego—thinking, for example, what can I do for my own self-promotion or protection—or I can choose to follow my intuition and allow myself to be guided internally . . . even if what I’m being guided to do doesn’t seem to make sense. Those are the only two things that I ever choose between. Changing my thinking and the focus of my attention will automatically change the behavior and all that happens—just like changing my shirt in front of the mirror. I don’t have to do anything to the mirror.
If I want to change an area of my life then I must change my mind about something, not do something (unless the doing something is to take a look at what’s going on and see where I have to change my mind about). “To do something” sounds more like acting and what I really need to do is change my mind and the focus of my attention—which, will in turn, change my behavior. With this change of thinking comes the change of behavior.
Spiritual Practices:
- This is the path to a lighter heart and to inner peace. Forgiveness is a release, not a pardoning. It begins with recognizing that I want to let go of the interpretation that I’ve placed on a situation and being willing to see it differently.
- Meditation—the quieter my mind becomes the more that I hear. My mind resembles a drunken monkey—jumping from tree to tree.
- Spending time in nature. It’s where I belong. I want to feel the sunshine, feel and breathe the fresh air. I can go for a run, kayak on the water, read, or work outside.
- Give/contribute—The more I give, the more I have.
- Self-acceptance—A good relationship with myself is vital. I need to treat myself with the same respect that I give to others. Practice gratitude. I can spend a small amount of time and look for pockets of negativity in my mind.
THE TWO PILLARS OF MY PURPOSE
The purpose in life is not to create the best possible Quality of Life for myself, but rather my purpose is to follow my intuition and to be as loving and open-hearted as possible. The results from that will be the best possible Quality of Life (there won’t be a best possible Quality of Life unless those other things are in place). This purpose rests on the two pillars of enjoyment and contribution.
Enjoyment: Enjoyment is just going to be the automatic result of following my intuition, which is always going to be loving. My contribution and purpose (which is to be loving and follow my intuition) has to do with finding guilt and letting it go. That will automatically be an inspiration to everybody around me because it’s kind of infectious, so to speak.
I am committed to achieving excellence in every important area of my life and to be happy. The best example I can set for my son and others is to live my life to the fullest. The life that Jennifer and I have put together should be inspirational and motivational to my son and to other people. If it is not, then I must change my thinking and focus of attention. I must follow my intuition—not my ego.
Contribution: My contribution is to be loving and to follow my intuition. My contribution is to find guilt and to let it go, to get to a place of inner peace. My contribution is to be a joyous inspiration to my son, my wife, and all around me.
Remember that I am always controlling the things that happen outside of me because I am causing the things that happen outside of me. The underlying implication of things just happening to me randomly—that I have nothing to do with them—is simply not true. The implication is that things just randomly happen and I don’t have anything to do with exactly why they happen, and that I just try to make the best of it.
It’s so hard to wrap my head around this because it so unlike everything that I’ve ever been taught. I was taught that the world exists on its own and it does its own thing and the only thing that I can do is to try to meaningfully manage or control it in some way.
What I have in the world is what I have put in front of myself because my world is my mirror. It is an exact replica of my thoughts and, therefore, my general state of mind. So that’s what my contribution is—recognizing that everything in my world I have put there.
Letting go of guilt is the most important job above everything else. Anything that that I might say is on the good side of the ledger—the happiness, the safety, the satisfaction—and is always a result of the innocence of letting go of guilt and the opposite is true.
