Experience As Teacher

We Americans are a people infused with curiosity.  And usually also very short of patience.  These traits lead us to continually wanting to know more, but also wanting to learn that new thing as quickly as possible.  With no mistakes made along the way.  And the way we are taught to learn – starting in early childhood through beginning adulthood – is very specific: sit quietly and attentively at a desk; listen to someone in authority tell you what you supposedly need to know; then read more about the topic in a book written by another “expert.”  Thanks to all that knowledge pouring in, you then know what there is to know.  Your brain is now full and properly trained.

We take essentially the same approach with our personal efforts in spirituality.  In our desire to be more spiritual, or to live a more spiritual life, we turn to teachers – a priest, rabbi, minister or imam – for instruction and spiritual knowledge.  To answer for us What is spiritual Truth and How do we achieve it?  We read books one after another, whether paperbound, e-books  or audio tapes.  We go to special workshops to hear featured lecturers, whether in-person, in videos, or on Webcasts.  We sometimes even echo the marketing lingo – “this (book, speaker) changed my life!”  The brain becomes saturated with all this information.  But yet we are not satiated.  We somehow do not feel as though we are “there” yet.  So we read one more book; we listen to one more speaker.  We think even harder about all that we have heard and read, yet our search continues.

Books are a wonderful thing.  I have many of them.  A truly inspirational speaker projecting love, wisdom and truth can impact us greatly, inspire us forward in our spiritual journey.  As a spiritual writer and teacher, I hope that I am contributing something worthwhile to someone’s spiritual journey, however small a part.  But in truth, is all of this continual searching, jumping from one resource to another, helping us find what is actually right in front of us?  Our brains feel full.  But what about our hearts, and our souls?

True spirituality is not a way of thinking.  It is a way of being.  The brain may sometimes open some spiritual doors for us.  But it is in the body and the heart, moving into everyday action, that our soul finds its spiritual home.  It is when we leave the spiritual classroom, and begin to live the spiritual truths, that we find our spiritual place.  We put the brain aside, because if we continue to try to feed it, we find its appetite unquenchable.  Instead, we must leave the comfortable familiarity of the books, and the teachers, and live God’s truth in the world all around us.



They are simple Truths.  Be kind to one another.  Be kind to yourself.  Protect and care for all that God has provided to us.  Revel in the natural overwhelming beauty that so completely surrounds us everywhere.  And just love God.

In the end, it is not about arguing dogma, rationalizing the logic of the brain, observing religious rituals.  Those are just tools, not targets.  It is simply learning the spiritual lessons from living the simple spiritual life.  We will never find our spirituality in our minds.  We will only find it in the awe and embrace of the unquestioning heart that sees and accepts the majesty that envelops us.  Hence Jesus’ challenge: to be reborn spiritually so as to see the world as from the innocent, trusting, and believing eyes of a child.  God, the most complex entity that exists, is just that simple.  We can only know that by our experience of it.

“I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember.  I do and I understand.”      (Confucius)

©2013   Randy Bell

Being As Purpose

In the formal Mission Statement of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, CO, it says, “The monk’s life is based more on how he lives than on what he does, and how he works more than what that work is” (italics added).

We all wear many hats and hold many labels simultaneously during the course of our lives.  We rush about everyday trying to find the necessary time to fulfill each of these multiple roles.  We struggle to determine the proper manner in which we will realize these roles.  We often work to find worthwhile meaning in these roles as regards our well-being and self-satisfaction.  And when we fail to find sufficient self-satisfaction, we typically simply take on even more roles – often without discarding any old ones.

Underneath all of this frenzy is a continual search for Purpose in our life.  We sense the nagging feeling of Why Am I Here in this life?  What am I supposed to be doing with it?  What is my Purpose and Calling for my time on this earth?

In our search for answers, we usually focus on What we do, trying to find that “one, specific, overriding thing” outside of us that we should be “doing.”  Most of the time, it is an elusive search.  Elusive because the answer to our Purpose is not in the “out there doing.”  It is to be found in the “within of being.”

“Being” is about how we live, how we think, how we act towards others and to all of creation around us.  Being is how we feel, and how open we are to experiencing those feelings.  Being is having a connection with all that which surrounds our life, regardless of its seeming pleasure or discomfort in the moment, and having a full participation and engagement with it.

When we have quiet clarity inside of us about our Being, then the specifics of what we select to do in the outside world is less important.  How busy we are is less important.  How “successful” we are by traditional external measurements is less important.  Rather, success is realized by how grounded we are in our true self.

Our purpose in Life is simply to Live This Life.  To experience it however it comes to us.  To learn and to grow by life’s teachings.  And then to use that learning to give back to Life.  God does not generally care what we do for our “job” or “career” as long as we are learning and growing well by our experience.  No job is too mundane or beneath us if we do it properly.  No role within society is more exalted than another.  All work is both our teacher and our gift to others.

Instead of agonizing over trying to find our Purpose and Calling, we should instead look to live in simple openness and responsiveness to the calls that come to us.  To seek out many doors, knock on them, and pass through the ones that open to us.  Our life is a trial and error existence, a constant experiment, always fluidly in motion down a curved path not a straight one.  So we choose to move through Life as it comes, as God sends it to us.  It is in that movement itself that we find both God and our True Purpose.

©2013 Randy Bell

The Dark And The Light

Dark.  The word itself often triggers a sense of apprehension, of dread.  It suggests the things that go bump in the night, the scary creatures hiding under our bed.  It is a covering blackness that hides the potential danger and evil that threaten our well-being.  It calls up the shroud of the grim reaper, the time when the evil-doers work their destructive havoc.  It represents the dark corners of our mind, the black holes that live in our hearts.  Yet in the dark we also obtain some relief from the never-ending demands of our working hours.  It is in the dark where we find our rest.  The rest necessary to sustain our bodies and calm our minds.  The fuel to recharge our creativity.

Light.  The brightness in our life.  The force that dispels the totality of darkness that would otherwise envelop our life.  The light awakens our mind so that it can fulfill its creative purpose.  The light gives warmth to the body as well as comfort to the soul.  We arise with the morning rising of the light, and then rest with its evening setting.  Yet with too much light we can suffer sunburn – or worse, skin cancer – so even the positive energy generated by the light still needs limiting.

The dark and the light need each other to mutually define themselves and give purpose to each other.  In the dark, we know our world by touch, smell and hearing, envisioned by the imagination of the mind.  In the light, we know our world by sight, envisioned then by the rational thought of the mind; touch, smell, and hearing diminish as tools for our “knowing.”  In the dark, we create.  In the light, we try to understand.

In a battle for supremacy, the light usually wins.  The dark requires the totality of its being to accomplish “darkness.”  But light dispels that darkness by the mere flicker of a small candle.  A sliver of moon in the sky.  The flame of a single lit match.  Though surrounded by darkness, that candle, moon or match flame will break through the dark, expose our surroundings, and show us all of the directions that are available to us.  Where we may have been hesitant to move in the total darkness, a simple burst from a small light allows us to move on to the next place in our journey, without fear.  We see where we need to go.

It is perhaps thusly that “the light” plays such a prevalent role in the ritual of our spiritual traditions.  Spirituality has a great affinity for the stillness of the dark, because in the dark there is calm, there is rest.  And it is in the calmed and rested mind and spirit that one can best hear God and connect to God’s Universe.  But it is in the light that we can then see best our direction out of the blindness of our dark.  We need not the full light of day for the rational logical mind to guide us.  We need merely the small light of the candle to allow the trusting, intuitive mind to move forward appropriately in quiet humility and confidence.

In the dark we are enveloped by the incomprehensibly vast existence of the Universe.  In the small candlelight that penetrates that dark, a spiritual path is illuminated very narrowly.  And we see our narrow individual path that we follow to God.

©2013 Randy Bell

A Bow To Bowing

What a marvelous little thing a well-placed, properly-intended bow can be.  There is the royal bow, the deep bending at the waist or the full curtsy to bended knee.  But these are intended as a sign of subservience or allegiance that acknowledges a supposedly superior one.  Those are the secular expressions of separation that some people incorrectly ascribe to all forms of bowing.

But then there are the bows not of separation and subservience, but of unity and equality of being.  The bow that, for a moment, returns us to the desirable state of proper humility.  Because arrogance is one of the greatest hurdles to insight and internal peace, and humility is a key to opening that spiritual door.  In this context, the small humble bow can make such a large impact.

The Buddhist and the Hindu place open palms together, with fingers pointed upward, in front of the heart.  The separate parts (the two hands) join together into one wholeness (the form).  She bows slightly from the waist to another, or to nature’s creations, not out of inferiority but in equality.  This gesture can be for one to honor and appreciate the other: the teacher honors the student who honors the teacher.  Through this simple gesture, she can express, “The Divine Light in Me honors the Divine Light in You.”

The Muslim can drop to his knees and touch head to ground.  By this action, he can also reaffirm a lack of personal arrogance or superiority – another form of expression of personal humility shown before God and all humankind.

The Catholic can genuflect before the image of Christ in the sanctuary (or elsewhere).  It can be an intended “interruption” and refocus as she mentally hustles mindlessly from current task to the next to-do item.  The genuflection can remind her to always stop and remember God and the spiritual in the midst of one’s earthly travels and distractions.

The Christian, both Catholic and Protestant, can bow his head, using only a slight movement of the body.  That slightest of motion can be a historical protest to the old royal subservient bow, while subversively acknowledging instead a power far greater than any royal.  Combined with the joined palms of the hands, he can come quietly into prayer – a prayer not of request, begging or supplication, but of communion and connection – the unity of the hands acknowledging the unity of God and God’s creations.

The bow, however specifically performed, is intrinsic to most all branches of spiritual expression.  Done mindfully and intentionally, it can be an expression of outreach to one’s God / Nature / Universe.  To all living things.  To one’s self.  It says to the object of our attention that, “I see you.  I acknowledge you.  I respect who and what you are.  And I give thanks to and for you.”

When we bow to honor another person or thing, we simultaneously bow to honor ourselves.  Namaste.  Gassho.  Amen.

Religious Radicals And Terrorists

There are many tragic stories that have come out of the recent Boston Marathon bombing.  Stories that cause us to quietly contemplate the numerous events such as this, and whatever larger lessons we need to draw from their occurrence.  Lessons in the positive power of government and law enforcement working in cooperation, demonstrating public service at its best.  Stories of selfless heroes, rushing into potential harm’s way to help strangers in need.  These are the good stories we etch into our minds and speak of to others.

Then there are the other things we say that betray our real intentions.  I have written before that “words matter.”  They matter because words create images and impressions either for ill or good – depending upon the degree of thoughtfulness and the intentions of the speaker.  One of the worst of the thoughtless use of words is the media’s and public’s overuse of the terms “radical Islamist” or “Islamist terrorist” as they speculate on the bombing perpetrators’ sick motives.

Islam is a religion.  Islam is not a person.  Just as Christianity and other religions are a religion, not a person.  One who follows Islam has a different name – i.e. “Muslim,” one who “surrenders unto God” (as we all might well do).  Just as a follower of Christianity is a Christian but more appropriately a Methodist, a Baptist, a Catholic, an Episcopalian, an Evangelical, etc.  These are the actual people.  People who interpret and practice what and who they believe across a wide spectrum of words and actions regarding themselves and their fellow human beings.

When we accuse someone who makes extreme statements, or takes violent actions against innocent people, as being an “Islamist radical or terrorist,” we inherently (and inappropriately) confuse the religion with the individual.  An individual who has perverted an expansive religion into a misrepresented personal belief.  Islam did not call for those bombs on Boylston Street to be set.  Rather, two young, disaffected men compensating for their self-perceived inadequacies struck back to make a public, attention-getting statement – as is the case with virtually all terrorists and mass shooters.  But when we paint them with a broad “Islamist” brush, we betray the message of love and peace in the Qur’an nearly as much as those two men betrayed it.

For whatever reasons of history and cultural bias, we seem to find it easy to incorrectly link the religion of Islam with its disaffected radicals.  But we are self-servingly reluctant to apply the same reflex to disaffected Christian radicals and terrorists.  We are quick to criticize Muslim fundamentalists, even as we willingly accept Christian fundamentalists all around us; yet both are extremely rigid interpretations of their core religious teachings.  But what else can you call a North Carolina legislator who recently proposed that Christianity be declared the official state religion?  Or the callous Westboro Baptist Church members who picket funerals of innocent victims and servicepersons as being “an affront to God?”  Or the several Christian shooters and bombers who have killed supposedly “to save lives” from abortion doctors?  Or the Catholic Oklahoma City bomber who killed adults and children as a protest against the government?  Or the bigot who indiscriminately killed peaceful Sikh worshipers in Wisconsin?  Or the small-time minister in Florida who burned the Qur’an to protest Islam and incited ill-will the world over?  Or the Fox News commentators whose continual anti-Muslim rants – done to bump up their ratings – fall just a hair short of being legally classified as “hate speech.”  These people claim a Christian affiliation, purporting that their acts and statements are done “in God’s name.”  But theirs is a God most of us do not recognize.

If we insist on speaking of “Islamist radicals and terrorists,” then let us similarly label the many “Christian radicals and terrorists” who live among us.  Let us at least be consistent in our verbal slandering of good religions and good-hearted people because of the inexplicable and despicable acts of miscreants.  Or better yet, let us just leave religion out of our terminology altogether, and simply call all purveyors of hate what a Muslim acquaintance called the 9-11 perpetrators several years ago: “These people are just a bunch of thugs.”  No religion has a monopoly on thugs.

Doer Of Good Deeds

In the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” the Tin Man laments that he has no heart.  Just a hollow, empty echo results when one taps on his metal chest.  To compensate for that and grant him his wish for a heart, the Wizard gives him a heart-shaped watch as a Testimonial recognition to his being a “Doer of Good Deeds.”  Good deeds are what a good, warm heart does.

This is a message echoed fully in most all religions.  Be generous to the poor.  Support the widows and the children.  Assist the labored with a relieving of their heavy load.  Give to charities.

The payoff for all these good works of the heart comes in the next life, or the afterlife.  In Islam and Christian teachings, we are given the image of the heavenly ledger where our actions – our good and bad deeds – are recorded through our lifetime.  If the “net balance” of good deeds outnumbers the bad, then the door of heaven will be opened for us.  Similarly, for the Buddhist, good deeds accumulate “merit,” resulting in good karma from this life transferred to our next rebirth into a higher, more realized form.

But is the doing of good deeds enough to warrant such future rewards?  I think not.  It is very easy to put a check to a favorite charity in the mail.  To volunteer at the hospital, AIDS clinic, or museum for a day and then return to the protective safety of one’s home.  To be a tutor or mentor to a schoolchild, particularly for an orphan.  Or to set aside your own personal ambitions in order to give a greater opportunity to your child.

All of these actions, and similar others, certainly constitute being “good deeds.”  But if they are done, or given, without the packaging gift of the heart, then they are a hollow gift.  As hollow as the chest of the Tin Man.

Good deeds given from the heart means that we are truly connected to the recipient of our action.  They are not a nameless, faceless being to us.  Even if we do not know them personally, we create a representative vision of them as we drop the dollar bills into the Christmas red bucket of the Salvation Army.  We give of ourselves without a need, or even a desire, for acknowledgment or recognition.  No need to sign our name over the door of the new building or the memorial plaque.  As the Taoist says, “do your work quietly, and then step back again.”

We do our good deeds with no expectation or demand for an equal return.  There are no IOUs in truly good deeds, no reciprocal contracts.  As Jesus explained to us, a large gift made with no sacrifice means less than a small gift of great sacrifice.  Good deeds are a one-way gift, with no chains of obligation attached.  The gift of “freedom” is always embedded in a good work.  Yet we also know fully in our hearts that “we reap what we sow.”  That “what we send out comes back to us many-fold.”

Good deeds are not deposits made into our heavenly salvation accounts.  They are not design fees for shaping our rebirth.  True good deeds are simply expressions of what is already perfect in our own heart – the very Buddha-nature that already resides in each of us, waiting to be realized.  They are simply the ways that we find to express our best feelings toward one another, towards all living things, without keeping score.

Good deeds are the way we emulate God, through realizing that piece of God that is already in us.  In our generosity, truly good deeds are the gift of our expression that we give to ourselves.  So that when we tap on our chest, we do not hear the empty echo of the Tin Man.  Rather, we hear the warm gong of God’s voice speaking within us.  To us.

The Words And The Messages

There are four great Master Teachers who have most extensively influenced religious thought in this world: chronologically, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad.  In each case, I find it beyond “coincidence” that none of these four wrote down their own teachings.  Moses and Buddha were each raised in royal households; Jesus spent formal study with rabbinical teachers in the synagogue.  These three Teachers were clearly literate and their lack of writing is presumed to be by deliberate choice.  Muhammad was an uneducated trader, though his wife and family had benefit of literacy.  His non-writing was structural, not chosen.

The result is that, in all instances, their great teachings come to us as a recaptured oral history, written down by their followers as remembered details.  In some instances this occurred hundreds of years after the fact.  As important as their teaching mission for God was, why were these teachings left to such chance, such potential for ambiguity and therefore misunderstanding or misrepresentation?

Language is an imperfect art, and is anything but a definitive way of accurately communicating a thought between two people.  Communicating a thought accurately in written form, without benefit of inflection, body language, tone or immediate give-and-take feedback is even more difficult, creating even greater opportunities for mis-communication.  Virtually all of the written teachings from each of these four Masters came as notes from their public talks, not from meticulously thought out creations of the scholarly written word.  In public discourse, these Masters could rely on all the verbal nuances to accompany their teachings.  In such settings, they knew that their listeners would be focusing on the comprehensive purpose, finding the overall point, of their message, not analyzing and agonizing over each tiny word particle and its many potentially shaded meanings.

Which is just what we see happening today.  Academic scholars, religious school instructors, and clerical leaders spend untold hours debating word etymologies and arguing over “precise” meanings and their diverse interpretations.  It is as if one particular word or phrase – likely translated through multiple languages several times over – is thought to hold the key to ultimate spiritual meaning.  Meanwhile, the real point of simply “be kind to one another” gets lost in the analytical exercise.  These Master Teachers spoke of spiritual forests; people today often fight about religious trees.  Which is why those Teachers avoided the temptation of the written page, knowing that such exercises would be best left to their followers to come.

When we do reading meditation, we avoid such limited wordsmanship.  We return to, and hear anew, the original lessons these Teachers spoke to us.  We read slowly, deeply, and repetitively enough so that we give up the words.  Instead, we listen to the sentences, hear the paragraphs, and then finally understand the meanings that these Teachers gave to us.  Words are the gymnastics of the mind.  The paragraphs are the messages of God.  Listen for the real point.  Consider that point deeply.  Thereby, walk a step closer on the path to being as One with God.