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.

Agency

The greatest gift that humans have is agency.  The fact that other humans will inevitably make choices you do not agree with does not change this truth.

Apologies

Apologies to anyone who might actually be reading this regularly.  I completed a new outline for the book (in a notebook) and got some pretty cool insights, but nothing I can post yet.  The work continues; I hope to have a real post soon!

Relax

Today's spiritual lesson (for myself) has been about relaxation.  I thought I was good at relaxation, but the problem I have is that I need to relax like a sprinter relaxes.  The sprinter is working hard but goes fastest when his muscles are relaxed.  Makes sense, right?  A muscle that is relaxed can move faster than one that is tense.  So, you can work hard and be relaxed.  Nice theory, huh?  Like I said, the lesson is for me.  I'm trying to learn it more than teach it.

Because it's about spirituality, but not a well-formed thought, I'm going to put it in both blogs.

Choose your feelings.

I don’t blame myself for your feelings about me, nor can I take credit.  If you like me, I appreciate it.  If you hate me, I accept it.  In neither case do I blame/credit myself for how you feel because your feelings are *yours*.  Perhaps your feelings about me are right, perhaps they are wrong.  But they are yours.  You choose how you feel about me and you choose what to do about it.

The same goes for me.  I choose how I feel about you and I choose what to do about it.

Some will respond “I don’t choose my feelings”.  Perhaps not, at least right now.  But choosing your feelings is a skill.  As humans we have the ability to be aware of our feelings.  From there we can increase our skill (learning, understanding, creativity etc.) until we develop the ability to choose our feelings.

I want to understand life itself.  And by life, I mean what it means to be human.  Can we be self-directing?  Is this the same thing as free will?  Do we have a purpose?  How should we live our lives? If there such a thing as ultimate truth?  If so, how can we know it?  Is there a God?  How do we know?

These questions obsess me.  The good news is that although these questions may not be answerable, I have come up with answers that I am comfortable with.  My book is an attempt to put these ideas in words, with the hope that the answers I present will be of help to others.

Perfection: Flawless or whole?

Trying to perfect yourself is good.  That is, if you don't define perfection as "without flaw".

"Flawless" is an impossible to achieve standard. Worse, trying to avoid mistakes (oh no, flaws!) can prevent creativity.

The correct standard of perfection is "being whole".  Think of a circle.  All circles have flaws.  Get critical enough, look at them under a microscope and you'll find the flaws.  Be a circle, be whole, and let it be enough.

Also, be the size you need to be.  A bigger circle is not a better circle.

Choice and conscience

I choose conscience and make conscious choices.

Follow your mind or follow your heart?  I find that life works best when both are in alignment.  Conscience connects us to others and hopefully to God.  Choice is an antidote to groupthink – whether in religion, society, or ancestry.  Combine them to create a personal path that will enhance every life it touches.  

More about choosing order.

I changed the intro from “a preference for order” to “a need for order”.   Too often a choice for order seems to come not from a conscious choice, but a deep psychological need.  This doesn’t mean we don’t have a choice. We make choices based on our understanding; better understanding leads to better choices. 

I see the need for order in:

Abused spouses staying with their abuser.

The explanation “It’s always been done this way”.

Avoiding a small loss instead of pursuing a large gain.

More pain from having a loved one that is missing than being dead.

Ignoring physical evidence that contradicts belief. (Religion yes, but law enforcement as well.)

The creation of myths to explain things not understood, e.g. the weather.

The tendency to resist change.

Some people are natural risk-takers, but these people stand out because they are the exceptions.

What should we do when we find the spirit taking us in a direction that we don't want to go?  Sometimes the choice is between what we want to do and what we should do. The answer is that you have to figure out a way to want the thing that you should do.  Then you'll be able to do the things that you should do.

Be the kind of person that people will find inspirational.  It doesn’t matter how many people you inspire so long as the work you do is capable of inspiring  people.  Inspiration is about quality, not quantity.  If you inspire only one person, that one person may use the inspiration to go and inspire millions.  But you might be the only one capable of providing that one person inspiration.  So the millions are just as indebted to you as to their direct inspiration.

It is a paradox of life that when you focus on the quality you are more likely to achieve the quantity, but if you focus on the quantity you are likely to get neither.

3 reasons we don't connect to the divine (within or without).

I hope that nobody expects that these topics will be in order!  One reason for this blog is so that I can write things down as they occur to me.  I also want these topics to be parts of the book, but it may take a while for the topics to have any kind of "flow".

I was thinking today about God and my religious beliefs.  I'm one of those people that believes we can have actual revelation from God and receive guidance that way.  I've also done a lot of work on listening to my inner voice and letting that guide me.  The thing I've realized is that although both of these sources are divine -- and ultimately one -- I haven't been perceiving them as the same.  I listen to both, but I don't perceive the connection.  There is a gap.  I don't know if that gap is ego or a lack of understanding.  It may be neither or both or something else.  I need to work on letting both sources flow into each other

I also realized that there are three major reasons people don't feel a connection with God and use it as a source of guidance.

1. Resistance.  Whether active or passive, some people block out the guidance that is given to each of us.
2. Ignorance.  Some people just don't know what God wants.  You might not have a solid connection or you may be at a point where God wants to figure it out on your own.
3. Confidence.  Sometimes we know what God wants us to do, but don't believe that we are capable.

As for myself, it's #3, #3, #3.  I've known for years what I need to do.  And until recently there have been aspects of #1 and #2 as well.  This blog is helping.  The best analogy I can give is that I've taken my first few steps on a long hike over difficult and rugged terrain.  Up until now, I've been packing and repacking my backpack, unsure that I'm ready to go.  The symbolic end of the hike -- or maybe just this part of the hike -- will be when I have a completed book that will have something worth reading.  I'm nowhere near that, but at least I've started.  Hooray for that!

There is a problem with the way we view chaos and order: the tendency to view order as good and chaos as bad.  After all, nobody wants chaos, right?  Nobody wants destruction or disorganization.  But what about creativity and innovation?  And everybody wants to be organized and clean.  But what about stubborn or inflexible?  If you have too much order you can't adapt; If you have too much chaos nothing makes sense.  A balance is needed -- you can't have too much order or chaos.

Again, a balance is needed, but this is not a stationary balance.  It's more like a pendulum swinging.  Sometimes it swings to the left, sometimes it swings to the right.

A new start.

I'm not quite sure why I've decided to start a brand new blog here on Blogger.  I know what I want to do with it: I'm going to be posting my ideas that I'm hoping to distill into a book.  Or rather I'm going to (I hope) start writing it and posting my efforts here.  I'm just not sure why I'm choosing to do that here, rather than at livejournal where I have my regular blog.

Anyway, here's an outline of my book.  It's not complete, but does give you an idea of where I want to go with this.

This book is an attempt to understand how the world works.  It starts with some observations about chaos and order.  It goes into rules that apply to any skill that we want to master.  It explores how these same rules apply to spirituality as well as practical skills.  It tries to develop a method for seeking happiness s that will work for both the atheist and the believer; the eastern spiritualist and the western materialist.  Finally, it shows that we have free will or, at the very least, it is reasonable to believe that we have free will.

This is a lot of ground to cover, I'll try to go through it step by step.

1. First, people often think of order as good and chaos as evil.  This isn’t correct.  Stubbornness, bigotry, and ignorance and problems with order.  Creativity, change and surprise can be good things from chaos.
2. Order and chaos can build on each other.   Think of a house being built.  At the beginning (trees, foundation, old house) there is order.  At the end (the new house) there is order.  In between, there is chaos. 
3. So…order à chaos à higher order.The building process proceeds through six levels: Awareness, Learning, Understanding, Creativity, Results, Maintenance.  In the case of the house, the first three levels would lead to the blueprint, the fourth and fifth levels are the physical building process and the last to keeping the house in good shape

I think that's a good start.