Letting Go of Memories

We love our good memories. We think positively of people who have been strong influences on our life’s direction. People who have been greatly helpful in teaching us about survival, values and happiness. People who have been with us at significant times and places. We remember special situations that nourished our mind and body with sensual treats, impossible to adequately describe later to friends. And we remember unique experiences that made us feel fulfilled, encouraged, challenged or loved.

We also love our bad memories. We think negatively of people who harmed us, thwarted us, led us astray. People who taught us fear, separation, and distrust. We remember situations that assaulted our senses, overwhelmed our capacity for understanding and forgiveness. Experiences that left us physically or spiritually hungry, discouraged, unmotivated, alone or unloved.

Loving our memories may seem an appropriate way to describe our feelings about “the good times,” but an inappropriate way to describe “the bad times.” But such a distinction exists only on the surface. When we look closely, we see that we experience our memories much the same regardless of content.

We apply significant portions of our time and attention to our memories. We usually direct ourselves to a consistent pool of specific memories rather than exploring the extensive image inventory of our mind. Feelings flow deeply from those memories, generating strong emotional responses rather than a simple cold, factual retelling. We are usually definite about their circumstances and details, even in the face of contrary facts and perspectives from others. Whatever lessons we may have learned from these memories are accepted fully and lived  rigidly, reinforced  by frequent retellings to ourselves and others. We instinctively sense that we would be someone other than who we are if we lost those stories. Which is why we love those stories so much – because we believe they define who we are, why we live and think as we do.

The greater concern is that every nanosecond that we spend in memory is time not spent in today. Time not spent moving us to tomorrow. Life pulls us into today via our daily responsibilities, yet it is our choice whether we fulfill those responsibilities in yesterday’s memories or today’s fresh thinking.

Memories can serve us well when we keep them in proper perspective and of limited duration.  We can recall good memories to maintain a positive direction and to reinforce a  balanced perspective of many good blessings received. We can recall bad memories as a way to avoid repeating bad choices because we have learned otherwise. Problems arise when we chase trying to recapture good times long gone. When we fail to recognize new opportunities emerging out of past seemingly familiar circumstances. When, in our imagination, we futilely seek to undo old mistakes made long ago. When the ill-treatment we received blinds us to the ill-treatment we have given. In these instances, we are hanging on to a life already lived rather than embracing our life where it is and could be.

In meditation we often talk of “just letting go.” Myriad thoughts are continually fighting for our attention, and many of those thoughts are reflections of memory. It can be tempting to reengage those memories, sink into the details, and relive their pleasures and pains. But in the quiet of that meditation, we put our emphasis instead on just letting the memories go. Acknowledge them, yes; indulge them, no. They were; they are not. We can love our good and bad memories. But to truly love them is to just let them pass into empty space. Thereby, we allow ourselves to pass into the new opening space that always awaits us.

©   2016   Randy Bell             www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Simplicity

“It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.”  —Henry David Thoreau

In the earliest days of humankind, our needs were pretty simple. Shelter from extreme weather elements; food and water to nourish the body; coverings to protect the body. In turn, the mechanisms for meeting these needs were likewise pretty simple: a rock cave, or a hut made of branches; abundant plant life, and implements to kill animal life, for food; animal skins and hair, or grasses, for coverings. Life was simple and in sync with one’s surroundings. But as we sought to make our life easier, paradoxically life became harder as we increased our sense of “needs,” thereby causing human beings to compete for resources to fulfill those expanded needs.

Today, there are many people subsisting on not much more than those original fundamental needs. Rarely is it by personal choice, but by the consequences of institutional decisions. People are huddled into tents in refugee camps, or hiding in bombed out homes, due to decisions of war. Others are struggling to provide for themselves due to adverse weather conditions, corruption by rotating politicians, or institutional structures that cater to only a portion of the populace, leaving the plight of these unfortunates near-invisible and unattended to.

That people in these kind of circumstances survive at all is often a near miracle. But in its own way, these most unfortunate remind us how basic life really is. How little is truly needed to exist, to survive, to potentially live happy lives. They show us that the creature comforts we think are so necessary really are not. Our blurring of “needs” versus “nice to have” creates a highly skewed perspective of life, and is the cause of so much unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the world. That dissatisfaction in turn leads to much questionable conduct – individually or collectively – as we pursue methods for meeting our expanded needs. Our moral judgments, our interrelationship actions, our career choices, our lifestyle pursuits all become colored by this continual push to “better” our lives.

There is nothing inherently wrong with achieving success with money, fame, and position. No reason not to enjoy a less burdensome and more comfortable way of getting through our demanding days. No cause to forgo the opportunities for beauty and joy available in this world. Yet we have MBA business programs, and religious movements advocating “prosperity theology,” that focus on achieving wealth as its own end. But how much is enough for us? Problems occur when we become blinded to the harm we cause ourselves and others in our desperate chase after our objects of wealth. Problems happen when nice-to-haves gradually become must-haves, even though they are not really “musts.” Problems arise when we lose the ability to appreciate the half-full glass of what we have, lost in a half-empty view of what is missing. Problems emerge when one’s sense of entitlement overshadows a recognition and appreciation for all those beings who contributed to making our good fortune possible. Perceived individualism notwithstanding, we do not accomplish anything solely on our own.

All steps forward entail some steps backward to properly chart our way. I have had to reset my life a number of times, resets not without pain and difficulty. Each reset involved a transitional return to a more basic existence, starting over once again, living a simpler life of reduced needs – times I describe as our “back to the laundromat” moments. In each case I have been reminded how simple life’s needs really are, thereby moderating our incessant demands for more. As we are able to accumulate our “things,” we appreciate them in their moment, but we also know that they are not needed to protect us, or define us, or trap us into a position we cannot freely walk away from. In that recognition is true freedom, an openness to unbounded creativity and joy. We may not choose to live physically in Thoreau’s simple cabin in the woods, but we would do well to create such a simple space to house our mind. Knowing what is truly enough is enough to know.

“There is no greater calamity than desire, no greater curse than greed. Know that enough is enough, and you will always have enough.” —Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, verse 46, Brian Brown Walker translation

©  2016   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Reflection

People are very busy these days, rushing from one appointment to the next, fulfilling various tasks and commitments, working within a set daily framework mostly dictated by others. We move from event to event, activity to activity, person to person; an unending movement which creates a life continually filled with personal experiences. By bedtime we are barely able to recall what transpired throughout our day; we wonder where our time and energy actually went.

The people and things that take up our time seem important to us. But in truth we typically pass through these events in an endless rote passage, with only minimal actual connection. Consequently, we miss much of the real substance and purpose of these many experiences we claim to be important. Conversations are only half-heard; interactions are only half-engaged; visual sights are only half-seen; people’s lives are only half-noticed. What we think we have seen and done by day’s end reflects only a portion of what these experiences could have been.

We have a longstanding tradition of making resolutions for change for an upcoming year. Fresh commitments about how we will live, what we will newly practice, what redirections we will bring about. All made with good intention; most sadly never fulfilled. Instead of tacking a well-meaning laundry list of additional to-do’s onto our existing commitments, perhaps only one new resolution is truly needed. A resolution to add the practice of Reflection into our daily routine.

In our brief moments of separation between one activity and the next, we can pause to think about what really happened in the immediate previous experience we just had. Rather than thinking about the next upcoming task, we can think about what we potentially missed hearing from the person with whom we just spoke. We can try to determine what that person was feeling, or was really trying to tell us, or how they needed our help to accomplish a personal goal that we were too busy to hear. We can try to determine what else was going on in that place we found ourselves, worthwhile things existing beyond the quick cursory glance we gave it. Did we notice? Did we care? What was there for us to learn about others, about how the world exists and operates, about our place within these things?

We are often lost in the blur of what surrounds us, searching for big answers to large, complicated questions. Yet many of those answers we are seeking are all around us every day, yet we choose to be oblivious to them. It is not enough to just live from experience to experience; they are only a part of our Life’s story. We need to pause and reflect deeply on the large and small events that happen to us, being open to whatever thoughts arise about those experiences – even if those thoughts are unexpected or uncomfortable. We need to see how these events connect together in a multi-directional set of linkages that we have progressively created. It is only through such thoughtful reflection upon our experiences that we find the true meaning of them in our life.

We spend much of our days like a passenger sitting comfortably on a train moving at 60mph, watching as we pass by the distant landscape that is visible but separated from us. Sitting on that moving train, we exist within life, but we are not truly connected to it. Yet each experience we have has a hidden dimension, an extra meaning, contained within it. It is through the quiet act of Reflection that that hidden significance is revealed, that our life becomes fully alive and engaged, that our experiences are transformed into knowledge that can lead us into Wisdom. May commitment to Reflection be our renewed resolution each and every new year.

© 2015   Randy Bell                 www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Spiritual Community

Virtually all organized religions include “community” as an important component of their makeup. Historically, the individual spiritual seeker gave way to informal gatherings of like-mined seekers. These loose-knit gatherings in turn gave way to a formalized local church / temple / mosque / sangha / monastery. These individual entities in turn gave rise to a collective institution of similar entities, which became our religious denominations, church hierarchies and structures. At which point the structural evolution turned and reversed itself, with the formal hierarchy taking control of the separate entities and dictating downwards form, ritual, organizational regulation and dogma.

For many, the form and content of their spiritual community fills a particular need in their spiritual pursuit. The fellowship, the resources, the personal support (spiritual and secular), and the sense of connection creates deep attachments and ongoing comfort. For others, the confines and demands of the institution through its understandable emphasis on conformity of belief and practice progressively weighs more heavily on the practitioner. For these seekers, the Church begins to become more of a barrier to spiritual attainment, a less-supportive element in the seeker’s quest for a personal connection with the Source of the greater Universe.

As an “unaffiliated” seeker, I have experienced two different sides of the calling of a spiritual community. There are times when interaction with a community feels very desirable, providing a sense of belonging, a lessening of aloneness and singularity, and a warm connection against the frequent coldness of Life. The community can offer encouragement, suggestions of direction, previously learned insights, and some renewed energy in those times when our spiritual drive falters. Yet in that unaffiliated space is also a great openness, where many paths are open, where many diverse communities can be called “home” in one’s travels, and nothing stands between me and the Divine. It is a place where commonality and orthodoxy ae permissible but not required; both are subservient to the continual personal discovery of one’s own Truth.

Increasingly in America, more and more people of all ages and backgrounds are following their individual journey, having determined that traditional religious institutions are inadequate fellow travelers on their path. Around 1/3rd of Americans do not identify themselves as Christian. In a recent Pew Research study, 23% of adults deny any religious affiliation at all, outnumbering both identified Catholics as well as mainline Protestants. Numerous writings abound about “the graying of the church pews,” as many congregations are failing to attract younger replacement members. Among the young Millennial demographic, 27% say they never attend a religious service, and 25% have “no religion.” Anecdotally, I recently attended a religious service at a small non-mainline church, and observed that out of around 100 people attending, there were no more than a dozen I would estimate to be under the age of 50.

Today, many struggle over their affiliation with their spiritual community, and that community’s teachings and approach. Given the strength and typically long history of that affiliation, the struggle is likely very deep and intensively personal. Some seek to change their community from within; others decide to take their leave and try something new: a different local community of similar form; a new denomination entirely; perhaps a solitary spiritual life.

For many people, the change is driven by a growing realization that too often our religious communities focus on our mind (thoughts, reasoning) and on directing our actions. But seekers looking to know and experience a union with the Divine understand that that union is beyond reasoning and outward actions. It is a calling to reach into a different place within, a free and complete surrender of ourselves to heart, feeling, and openness. It is a place of expression – music, movement, prose as poetry, art, voice, and stillness that touches us and moves our spirit. Out intellect can bring us to the door of our spirituality. Ultimately, though, it is experience, rather than intellect, that brings us into Oneness.

When we start from that place of union, appropriate thoughts and actions flow naturally from within, not requiring instruction from without. It is within us where the Divine Home on the Human Earth can most truly be found – the true community of the sacred.

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

The Guidance Of Silence

“God answers all prayers.  Sometimes the answer is no.”  Most of us are familiar with that old saying. But we often forget the truth of its words as we work through the frustrations of our daily lives. We spend a significant amount of our time thinking about our future, planning our next steps, and sorting out our priorities and choices. Sometimes the plans and the decisions come easily, with remarkably positive outcomes. Other times our direction is muddled, and we struggle with our next set of decisions.

Should I go this way or that? Which option should I choose? When do I have to decide? What will befall me, or others, if I make the “wrong” decision? The confusion of our decision is often as overwhelming as we feel the decision itself is.

Some choose to make their decisions by constructing a logical decision tree of “this therefore that,” led by intellectual reasoning. Others rely on gut instinct – what feels right – and then plunge full steam ahead. Still others flip the coin and march out to “see what happens.” And at certain points in the lives, some choose to ask for help – for Divine guidance.

Asking for such guidance requires no set format to follow, because the Divine meets us where we are, and when the time is right. But there are some pretty good guidelines worth observing. The request can happen in prayer, in meditation, or in reflection while sitting on a mountain rock, sandy beach, or a church pew. Our choice. It happens in our personal alone time and space that we create for just such times. We approach these moments being honest with ourselves about who we are and why we are requesting such guidance. We act in the humility that we do not have all the answers, and with a willingness to turn over our future to something (someone) other than ourselves. We trust the Guide, and the guidance we will receive, and we will follow the guidance given. All of this is a large commitment to make – the seeking, the listening, the follow-through. Without such commitment, we are wasting our time and the Divine’s efforts.

The Divine does not simply tell us what we would like to hear. The Divine is not our fairy godmother there to grant our wishes. Guidance is simply that: “go this way and follow this path where it takes you.” Where it will take us is where the Divine wants us to go, to a destination we often cannot foresee, to an outcome we may not have selected.  It will likely not be an easy journey. Hence we should consider our request carefully before we ask. Yet we proceed on faith, sustained in trust.

We may be motivated by a specific, particular objective. But the Divine will respond by guiding us to a much greater objective, one that may seemingly bear little resemblance to our original desire. We will likely be shown only the next step from a longer-range plan invisible to our view. And sometimes even that next step may wait for a long period while the Divine is invisibly maneuvering on our behalf. We may feel we are bumping into closed doors one after another. Nothing seems to open up for us; our request for guidance seems to go unanswered.

It is hard for us to accept that no answer is our answer – for now. Answers are not just about good judgments, but also about good timing. The Divine will ultimately give us our full answer, but at the right time when we are ready to truly hear it and the Universe is aligned to respond to us. So there is a need for the virtue of patience – a virtue missing in many of us who want answers now. But the Divine works on its own timetable regardless of our impatience. The job of waiting is on us; the job of hurrying is not on the Divine.

When we seek out the assistance and guidance of the Divine, and hear back only silence, we need to hear the Divine Silence. We hear that silence, and thereby we move slowly and cautiously. It is a Divine Silence I have heard many times. Listening to answers that may not have yet fully arrived, but are on route. So we wait for the Divine clarity. Wait knowing that “God answers all prayers.”

“Clarity is learned by being patient in the presence of chaos. Tolerating disarray, remaining at rest, gradually one learns to allow muddy water to settle and proper responses to reveal themselves.” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, #15)

© Randy Bell   2015                 www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Three Truths

Truth is a wonderful thing.  When we discover a new truth, it can be exhilarating.  Or it can be alternately devastating.  The Truth is unchanged in either circumstance.  It is only our individual reaction to it that is the variable, different from one of us to another.

Truth is a comfort because it is inherently a Certainty for us.  We can achieve understandings wiithin that Truth, and thereby remove dreaded ambiguity that makes us so uncomfortable and unsure.  We often prefer to arrive at Truth “scientifically”: by logical deduction validated by experience and confirmed by consistent repetition.  Such a process appears to give a weight, a seeming substance, to what is actually a purely intangible idea.  But sometimes we arrive at Truth by intuition, inspiration, an unaccounted-for flash of insight.  Those Truths can yield a Certainty as strong as by any other process.  Certainty is an expectation we have from our Truth.  But Certainty is found to be an illusion.

In actuality, Truth exists in three categories.  There are Absolute Truths: true in all times and in all circumstances.  We like to believe that all of our Truths (beliefs) are in this basket, because it causes less disturbance, confusion and effort in our minds and simplifies going about our daily lives.  But thus far I have encountered only a very few Absolute Truths.  One is that if we are born, we will thereby die.  I have thus far seen no getting out of that causal relationship.  A second is that all life in any form does not live in a vacuum, but exists within an interconnected web of energies, forces and circumstances far beyond the individual being.  We may give many names and descriptions to this web, and the details of it may be maddeningly difficult to define, but that does not negate the larger web within which we exist.  These two truths make up a pretty short list of Absolute Truths.

Then there are the Relative (Circumstantial) Truths.  Given a particular set of circumstances, then this idea is true.  But change the circumstances, then what is true also changes.  A lot of science started out believed to be Absolute Truth, but the more we learned the more we realized that cause/effect were highly dependent on a particular set of circumstances and conditions –  rendering Truth to a very narrow series of statements rarely universally applicable after all.  Space exploration has broken apart many former “laws” of physics.  So too with moral codes.  The absolutism of “thou shall not kill” becomes very relative when family members are threatened.  “An eye for an eye” quickly collides with the admonition to be merciful and forgiving.  As much as we might prefer otherwise, Relative Truth is where most Truths are found.  Such Truths ae hard because they require us to engage in continual qualifying discussions about the impact of Circumstance upon our supposed Truths, to acknowledge the inexactness of our beliefs, and to listen to and explore other perspectives.

Lastly there are Timely Truths.  Those conclusions based upon what was known (and knowable), and seemed appropriate, at a particular point in time.  So it became a religious Truth that the sun revolved around the earth.  A geographic Truth that the world was flat and fell into nothingness at its edge.  A medical Truth that leeches sucking out our diseased blood would cure us.  All were truths believed at a point in time based upon what could then be known, yet were ultimately discarded by new knowledge and experience.  As many of our current beliefs will shock our children a hundred years from now.

We depend on our Truths to help maneuver us through the day.  We cling to our Truths to try to stabilize an unstable world.  We often use our Truths as the very basis and explanation of who we are (“my beliefs”); taking away our Truths is to take away our very Self.  Yet we come to learn that our Truths do not define who we are; who we are defines our Truths.  It takes ethical courage, inner curiosity, and humility – all very spiritual traits – to pursue a genuine search for Truth.  A search that is led by opportunities from Life directed by God’s hand.  Certainty is the looming sinkhole in the road always lurking to defeat that journey.

Truth is always in motion, just like all else in Life, best held with an “expiration date.”  Truth is continually blown apart and reshaped by the curious, questioning mind working together with reflective thinking.  Ultimately we realize that there is no permanent Certainty, only transition.  That Truths held too deeply limit us by becoming a static human being.  Truths held lightly free us to arrive at our next level of understanding, and guide us to find the being we are capable of becoming.

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Living Within Ritual

We human beings love ritual.  A defined form for endless repetition within which we live and express our lives.  Ritual can be personal, secular, patriotic, or spiritual.  Ritual can make us far more efficient, because it eliminates the time and thought process of much decision-making.  We just follow the ritual, the sequential steps already predetermined for us, and our task is thereby completed and our goal is accomplished.

Most of us start our day with a daily ritual.  From the time we crawl out of bed until we begin our workday journey, everything in between is pre-laid out for us.  No think.  This is especially beneficial for those of us who crawl out of bed sleepier than when we crawled into it, whose brain is comatose and tongue is unable to utter a coherent sentence in the bright sunlight.  Neither brain nor tongue is required within the supportive web of our morning ritual.

Much of our workday follows a similar pattern of familiarity due to practiced work habits, the dictates of daily calendars, and the responsibility of recurring duties.  If such do not put us into mental numbness, our creative energy is then reserved for those few moments when we are called out of routine to express something truly “new.”  In which case we create something “new” – and typically then transform that new something into yet another ritual for us to follow.

Efficient?  No question.  But at a price.  Creating an environment with too much ritual creates too much non-thinking.  And non-thinking can become an easy trap to fall into.  In non-thinking, creativity is not created.  And without creativity, connection with our constantly changing and expanding world is lost.

A proper perspective of ritual is particularly needed in our religious practice.  All religions and spiritual practices incorporate ritual into their structure.  Properly so, because ritual can be very supportive in heightening our spiritual expression.  It can give physical expression to our mental thoughts.  It can guide us along a path of pure experience without the “interference” of decision-making: i.e. what do I say or do next?  It can be a vehicle for sharing expression among our spiritual community, invitingly welcoming strangers into that community.  It can honor, and give us a sense of timeless connection to, our ancestors knowing that we are practicing the same ritual as they performed.

But as with all beneficial things, there are cautionary notes and downsides that require our ever-present vigilance.  Ritual can envelop and guide us through a meaningful expression of our spiritual self.  But the valve that shuts off our creativity of personal form can also shut off the flow of real connection to our spirit.  In our mindlessness can also be our soulessness as we go through the steps, recite the words, not only with mind disengaged but with heart disengaged.  It becomes a rote performance of no meaningful substance.  Or we expend more effort on learning ritual than on learning to be spiritual.  Performance of the ritual can become yet another basis for competition and self-criticism.  Did I do it “right”?  Did I execute it “perfectly”?  As if God and our Spirit could really care!

As we follow our ritual, we have to simultaneously find ways to renew our connection and creativity within the ritual, lest it become dead in our hearts.  Every now and then, we need to turn left where heretofore we always turned right, just to reawaken our spiritual energy and awareness.  When the seeker asked Jesus to “tell us how to pray,” The Lord’s Prayer was not offered as THE way to pray.  It was only an example, a fallback if that seeker could not think of anything else to say in a given moment on his/her own.  It was not a mandate.

We follow our ritual most of the time.  But on occasion, we need to go outside of that ritual into the extemporaneous, the unexpected, the intuitive.  And in that moment of careless individuality, just say and do what we feel.  However awkward, however clumsy, however unpolished.  Honest expression of our Self and our Spirit is always polished enough.

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com