Trust your inner voice.

Somehow spirituality is seen as something mystical or woowoo when it really isn’t.  All spirituality requires is listening to your inner voice.  Some people call this listening to your heart.  There really is no trick to it.  Everything else in spirituality is designed to help you do that one thing – listen to, trust, and use your inner voice.

Being spiritual is not about having a lack of desires.  It’s about having those desires flow through you so that they do not control you.  You can then choose whether you want to embrace the desire or to let the desire pass through you and disappear.  If the desire does not flow through you then it either takes you over or resistance to the desire causes suffering.  By acknowledging the desire you remain separate from it.   The goal is for you to choose rather than for the desire to control. 

A corollary:  The reason that so many spiritual leaders remain celibate is because they have detached from their desires.  No person in the history of the universe has ever *needed* sex.  A species, perhaps.  But those who are so completely detached from their desire for sex that they do not pass along their genetic code are few enough to be no threat to the extinction of the species. If a worldwide shift were to occur enough people would still choose to have sex to propagate the species,  although the population may decrease.  

I added an "About the Blog" section.  I said some things that I wish would go without saying, but don't.

Not as good as a post, but still an accomplishment of sorts.

Worries

Worry has a purpose, but the purpose isn’t found in worry by itself.  Worry by itself does nothing except to provide an illusion of control.   Instead of continuing to worry, let the worry be a signal that something is wrong.  See if there is something you can do in relation to the worry.  If so, do it.  If not, see if you can accept that not all things are under your control.  Whether you leave it to God, chance or fate you will feel and be healthier if you can just let it be.

Bits and pieces -- a bit more confusing than usual

If there is only one thing that you learn from reading this book, I hope it is this: there is a light within you.  This light – if you follow it carefully – will lead you to everything that you need to know to be happy and successful.  Please note that I did not say that it would tell you what you need to know.  There is a lot of work involved, both in developing the skill to recognize the light and in following its lead.  If you follow the light it will lead you to do things that are good for you, but they won’t always be easy or things that make you comfortable.  It’s a process.  A process that I will explain in more detail in the chapters to come.

                

Trust the light and trust yourself.  It sound deep and mysterious, but it’s also practical.  Nobody is perfect, but it’s better to believe in yourself and fix your mistakes while knowing your decisions were your decisions than to turn over your power to choose to someone else.

One of the purposes of this book is to establish a possible, reasonable way of living that will lead you to happiness whether or not you are religious and/or spiritual.  I don’t think that a good person who believes in God should be acting any different that a good atheist.  True, the religionist will pray more, but (and this is despite the fact that I believe in prayer) I believe that prayer is not nearly as important as being a good person.

I believe in the freedom to choose, whatever I choose, so long as my freedom doesn’t restrict another person’s freedom.  Add to this the belief that all  people should live by the same code of ethics and you get one my main perspectives in life.   Live in a way as to increase freedom for as many people as possible.

Many philosophers do not believe in real freedom of choice.  That is, although they concede we make choices, we don’t really have a true choice – it’s an error to think that we could have made another choice under the same circumstances.  One argument for this is quite simple – everything is caused by something else.  You ate because you were hungry, you were hungry because brain was monitoring your stomach and told it to growl…and so forth.  Even if my sequence is somewhat inaccurate, you get the idea.

I believe that we have the freedom to choose, but my argument is based on observation.  An argument like this is called a defeasible argument.

Be detached, but not disconnected.  Be a star, but be the kind of star that makes all the players in your show better.  Don’t be a diva.

“Spiritual Atheist” is not an oxymoron.

Spiritual refers to a connection with your inner light.
Atheist refers to a belief that God does not exist.

The first is in the heart; the second is in the head.  Thus, there is no contradiction.