All Considering » Spiritual Growth

Giving yourself permission to rejoice in what’s good…

Katinka - Spirituality — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:39:08 +0000

In the Discovering Buddhism program it’s often repeated that we should regret our bad actions, words and thoughts, but that we can also rejoice in what’s good.

Rejoicing is not a part of our Western Culture, especially Dutch culture. The Dutch are very good at complaining, my mom even suspects that this is one of the reasons why the Dutch are so happy: they get the negative out of their system.

However that may be, it is a bit weird that it’s so easier to focus on what’s bad, than on what’s good. I’m sure that’s partly because the good doesn’t need fixing, so why spend energy on it?

On the other hand: one sure way of ruining relationships is to focus only on the bad. A naughty child will usually do a chore as well as a ‘good’ child and in being productive they will feel good about themselves and behave (usually only a bit) better in class. A child that thinks that it can only do things wrong will never try and rectify the situation or try and please the teacher or parent.

From a karmic perspective rejoicing really is the opposite of miserliness. If we’re able to rejoice in the good that someone like Oprah Winfrey does, we won’t have as much energy left over to envy her. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a better use of our energy to do the first than the second.

In fact, rejoicing is said to be the lazy man’s route to good karma: you don’t have to meditate all day to get merit, you can just rejoice in someone else’s meditation practice. You don’t have to give to charity yourself, you can just rejoice in how well other people are doing.

You’ll find though that this is not easy: rejoicing in something someone else is doing well that you might have done is very hard. Instead you’ll find yourself resenting that person, which is your psychological defense mechanism against feeling guilty that you’re NOT doing that.

In that sense it’s much easier to just rejoice in Oprah’s good works and good intentions: she does things with her money most of us simply aren’t able to do. We don’t have her wealth, nor her connections, so we don’t have to feel guilty for not joining in.

Still, even in that case it’s apparently not self-evident that we rejoice. When I was in the Chicago area a few years ago I was told that in fact many people did NOT like Oprah or admire her. Perhaps it had something to do with people realizing the folly of making a show like hers: I met some people who knew people who’d been on it. They’d shared just how puffed up everything was, how they’d been forced to tell their story in a way that was out of proportion to how it really was.

Partly that’s simply how the media work: they tell a story and when any of us make the headlines we become part of the story they wish to tell. It’s only the really PR savvy celebrity who manages to make sure the media tell those aspects of the story that they WANT to have told. And even in that case it’s about making sure it’s a story that the media CAN tell their audience. I think the Dalai Lama succeeds pretty well at that, for instance.

Let us rejoice at that!

Similarly in Tibetan Buddhism we have permission to rejoice in the things we do well. Did you just give some money to charity? Good – rejoice! You don’t have to be proud, you don’t have to puff yourself up thinking you’re so great, but you don’t have to pull yourself down either. Just rejoice in having done something positive.

Though this post is not written on Christmas Day I’m publishing it on that day, for the few of you who aren’t spending this day with family.

Perhaps because it is Christmas Day we can share things we rejoice at. It can be personal things, or people we admire, or things in our lives we’re thankful for…

Baby steps or big changes – about self control and habit

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:08 +0000

When I was 21 I decided I needed to work on my social skills. Instead of getting a hobby or something I quit university and decided to get a job. My parents weren’t amused and the result was that I went for a community college nursing class, which I was kicked out of within a few months (I wasn’t very good at washing elderly people and really only wanted to talk to them). Thankfully I had by then started tutoring math, which I was good at, so I went to teachers college. After a few years, having passed (almost) every test with flying colors I went on to teach at middle school after middle school – getting fired again and again, because dealing with teenagers took way more social skills than I had.

The lesson? Forcing yourself into something you’re not fit for will NOT work. On the other hand, I did learn a LOT. My social skills really are way better now than they were back then and forcing myself to face class after class of about 25 teenagers hour after hour for a few years definitely had a lot to do with that.

Looking back I think I was really asking too much of myself. I’m basically an introvert – even though few people will be able to spot that these days. Five years after my last teaching job it feels like the stress caused by forcing myself into that situation is finally out of my system.

I would NEVER recommend that people do what I did. Small steps are way more likely to be manageable and are less risky. I could have gone into IT, worked for a larger salary and learned decent social skills in a business environment. I might have stayed a bit more nervous in front of crowds if I’d done that, than I am now, but that’s just about the only advantage I see to the route I took.

The same goes for things like losing weight, starting an exercise regimen etc. Find a way to change your habits in a healthy direction one step at a time. If you do that, chances of having to go back a step (or all the way) and being discouraged are way less.

A couple I know are trying to prepare themselves for the Buddhist lay vows. Like most well-educated successful people, alcohol was part of their routine. In trying to cut back on their alcohol consumption they’ve already experienced several setbacks. Their main challenge is social situations where they’re used to drinking and serving alcohol. A while ago they proudly announced that they’re now down to one glass of wine a week.

Because they’re doing this as a couple they can use each other as checks. They can change their own home culture and face up to issues together as well. This makes it easier to change fundamental habits like that. Still, because habit is so strong a part of our everyday life it’s no surprise that they had to try again and again.

It sounds like such a small change: not drinking any more alcohol… at least, to me, no alcohol for almost 20 years, it doesn’t sound like a big deal. However, because of all the social trappings it’s a big habit to break.

Part of the issue is will power. The end of the year is coming up and goal setting and good intentions with it. We all know how unlikely it is that people actually keep their good intentions and reach all their goals. We’d like to ignore those stats when it comes to our own goals though.

The reason it often doesn’t work out is because it takes will power to overcome ingrained habits. As long as the new behavior isn’t a habit yet, the only way to stick to it is by having will power each time we stay away from those sweets, avoid that drink or go jogging first thing in the morning.

Unfortunately, will power is a limited psychological resource. If it takes will power to stay away from cigarettes there will be less will power left to also stay away from fast food. This explains why people gain weight after they quit smoking.

The good news is that once a new behavior is a habit, you can start working on another new behavior in your self-development plan.
More good news: will power CAN be trained, however while you’re training, do expect other aspects of your life to work a bit less well.

Some researchers even believe that one reason poor people stay poor is that it takes them so much energy to just get the cheapest groceries in the store, that they don’t have any left to better themselves…

There is one advantage to big changes though: big changes bring a change in context with them. That’s why people need rehab or go on retreat: a new context brings new behaviors with it as a matter of course. However integrating those new behaviors into your home life is a lot harder: old habits, old triggers (like the bar where you always meet your drinking buddies)…
The reason I’m not afraid of speaking in front of groups any more is that I was forced to face them hour after hour, day after day, week after week. It worked to change my circumstances drastically and since I kept at it long enough, it’s a skill I have at my disposal for the rest of my life. However, there is always a cost.

Regret, Guilt and changing your life

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:35:32 +0000

In Eat Pray Love (book and movie) by Elizabeth Gilbert we meet Richard, a western devotee of an Indian guru who chastises Elizabeth for every attitude she has, or so it seems – helping her deal with the issues of living in an ashram and learning to meditate.

The main lesson Richard teaches Elizabeth is that she needs to mourn the past and forgive herself.

It turns out that Richard is in fact very troubled himself: divorced after nearly running over his kid when drunk he has lost touch with his children and is trying to deal with nearly having killed one of them.

While I didn’t like the book much, I did enjoy the movie with Julia Roberts.

The lesson Richard teaches Elizabeth is the lesson he needs to learn himself – not because it’s not unforgivable to almost run over your child, but because life does go on and the only way to live it well is to mourn your losses and mistakes and forgive: yourself and others. I know it sounds sappy, but it’s the only way.

Once one has forgiven oneself the work is not done of course: it’s also necessary not to repeat those same mistakes again.

What remains when the guilt is gone is regret. In fact the distinction between guilt and regret is made quite explicitly in the first course in the FPMT Discovering Buddhism course (which is not quite an introduction into Buddhism course btw).

Guilt has a Protestant Christian connotation for many people – not for me, though. When I talk about guilt I merely mean that our past mistakes can be like a black cloud on our soul. Guilt is when we can’t move on, when we’re stuck in self-blame and self-pity.

Regret about negative actions on the other hand is simply the awareness of those mistakes and the conscious choice not to make them again.

Personally I think Jiddu Krishnamurti had a point when he said that the chances of avoiding a mistake are highest when we have a genuine insight into the causes of the mistake and just why it WAS a mistake. Buddhists would call that a realization: deeply felt, fully understood…

Still even if one does have a realization of how wrong something was, new habits need to be formed. The memory of the mistake, the consequences and regret combined help do just that: to develop new, more healthy, patterns.

I recently came into a position where I might have repeated some of the mistakes I made in my 20s. Thankfully I found it possible not to fall into those traps, in part because I knew just where they were. That felt good, however hard it was.

It probably sounds sappy, but moving from guilt to regret, it IS possible to change your life.

Please invent a pseudonym if you want to share your regrets.
How hard is it to avoid repeating past mistakes in your life?
Does insight into the problem, its causes and consequences help?

* The Discovering Buddhism course by the FPMT is given at local FPMT centres throughout the world. The online version is meant for those who want to turn to Buddhism as a practical path. Local teachers will usually adapt the teachings to their specific audience. However it’s taught the aim is to combine theoretical knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism with practical tools for personal transformation.

Certainty, uncertainty and spirituality

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:18:42 +0000

I have been in a very neti-neti (not this, not that) mood for a while now, in terms of what I share on this blog.

Not channeling, Not Krishnamurti, Not ideals…

If you add in the topics I’ve considered writing about there’s even more: not merely God, not merely Goddess…

But I’ve gone further: what if all our spiritual search is a search for certainty, an inability to find meaning in life as it is, a romantic illusion we cherish?

I don’t know. But it does explain why I haven’t been blogging here recently.

You are your Soul Mate, Rick Singer

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:51:07 +0000

[guest post]

Within your own house dwells the treasure of joy, So why do you go begging from door to door.
Chinese proverb

As human beings we are consistently involved in an endless search for something external to fill the void within us. We search for the perfect partner or our Soul mate, with the hopes of finding everlasting joy, happiness and true love. We look for a new partner to relieve our pain of the loss of another. What we fail to realize is that by expecting another human being to make us a whole person we are decreasing our own self worth and simply saying that we are not wholesome or complete as we are. What we need to realize is that we already have the precious gift of love and happiness deep within our own being and that our pain will always exist until we begin to trust and rely on the innate happiness within our own beating heart. There is no Soul mate out there; your Soul mate lives within you, patiently awaiting the day when you decide to reunite with the perfect love that exists and will always exist in the depths of your soul.
You are your best friend, lover and inspiration above all others, by loving your entire being you will gain unlimited capacity to share your love and kindness with everyone who crosses your path. Embrace the uniqueness of your being and begin to engage passionately in the admiration of your whole self. You have a specific meaning and purpose for being alive, thus it is your responsibility to honor your life. Before you can engage in any other intimate relationship in your life, you must devote love and respect for every aspect of your being. Learn to express compassionate and unconditional self-love. Allow the intuition of your soul to guide you to higher states of consciousness and be the recipient of the immense love that resides within your heart. Let the love, compassion and kindness exude from your being and touch all those you meet.
I offer you 6 suggestions to embrace and nourish your relationship with yourself and all other human beings you meet along your precious journey of life:
Practice mindfulness. A life lived mindfully is a life filled with peace, tranquility, joy, truth, bliss, ecstasy and compassion. Mindfulness is a form of meditation, involving direct participation in each moment as it occurs with complete awareness of your present experience. Dive into the harmonious and perfect rhythm of the universe and you will experience the true essence of life. Let go of the attachments of the past and the desires of the future and simply be, right now. These attachments always lead to discontentment, frustration and an inability to enjoy life. Free yourself from this bondage by first forgiving yourself, and then forgiving others.
Awaken to the truth of life. Do not allow your ego to manipulate you into believing that the melodramas of the physical world are a reality in which you must participate. Always reflect deeply within your being and allow your spirit to determine what is important in your life.
Accept change. Acknowledging change plays a vital role in our relationships. When we accept that others have faults and weaknesses, just like ourselves, we are truly in a position to know the other person and to experience their inner world. Rather than attempting to change the person to our ideal partner, we are able to witness and enjoy the growth of another human being.
Quiet your ego. Be still and know that you are not what your ego tells you and you do not have to react to what your ego thinks, feels, or believes. Stillness will help you to connect to that genuine part of yourself that doesn’t judge, manipulate, or harm. To live by your ego whether you are relating with yourself or others will ultimately cause conflict and confusion. Relating with your genuine self will emanate love in all interactions.
Acknowledge impermanence. Escape from behind the clouds of misunderstanding and gently surrender to the eternal present of your daily life. Accept and be one with the energy of the Universe. Nothing stays the same, yet everything remains perfect. To surrender to whom you are and to what is in each moment is the way to enlightenment in all areas of your life.
Embrace simplicity. This is the essence of spiritual life. To simply be, living devoid of all the chaos caused by external demands, is the path to ultimate liberation and pure joy. Implement enjoyment and humor in each moment you experience during your journey of life. Learn to laugh at yourself and the challenges presented to you. Smile in the face of adversity and know that this is the natural state of your genuine being.

About the author:

Richard A. Singer Jr. has written 5 books to help with transforming humanity. His newest book Now: Embracing the Present Moment is just out.
For more info visit www.EmbracingthePresent.com (warning: that site starts playing music the moment you open it, you can turn it off though).

Ideals, moral issues and psychology

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:47:13 +0000

Ideals are tricky things: on the one hand they help us aspire to being something better than we are, which is a good thing. On the other hand, when we can’t live up to them the result is not so good.
Because, if you don’t live up to your ideals you start feeling guilty, beating yourself up about it and that doesn’t make you any better as a person. Just a more bitter one, which in turn makes you probably less fun to be around.

I’ve seen people go from lively and fun to defensive and cramped. I think it was ideals that did it and it was a sad process to watch. What she got in return was community. I wonder: where is the line between a healthy devotion to a common cause and an unhealthy situation?

Don’t get me wrong: one of the things that I’ve always found oppressive about our current society, or rather the slice of Dutch society I grew up in, was the lack of idealism. I don’t know where I got it from, but in my teenage years I thought it was normal to shoplift. That illusion didn’t last long – in the end I reasoned that the shops would go bankrupt if everybody shoplifted, so I stopped. Helped by a friend who definitely did NOT think it was a normal thing to shoplift even something small.

Perhaps what I wanted were guidelines, some clarity and structure. Of course, as a teenager, I was also trying out the boundaries and I think I was disappointed at how hard it was to find where the boundaries were.

But I guess I’ve grown up a bit and now at 37 I’m finally starting to understand what made my Christian grandmother feel what was so oppressive about Christian Moralist attitudes. To explain: my grandmother, a minister’s wife, loves the church. She loves playing a prominent part in the community and did that well. She loves the stories and contributed her own only vaguely moral children’s stories to a liberal Dutch Sunday school magazine.

The problem with morals is that they take psychology totally out of the equation. On the other hand, moral relativism ignores the effects of what we do on other people.

I don’t smoke. I don’t eat meat. I don’t drink alcohol. But on none of these issues do I feel the slightest inclination to proselytize. Please let everybody do what they feel is best.

I wonder – is that a testimony to my self-confidence or to my lack of caring about other people? I don’t know.

Is the world objectively neutral?

Katinka - Spirituality — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:49:45 +0000

From twitter:

Paramhansa Yogananda
“Objective conditions are always neutral. It is how you react to them that makes them appear sad or happy.”

Right. Not. I doubt someone who is dying of hunger, because of rising food prices in Africa, feels that objective conditions are neutral. It’s of course true that life is what we make of it, but we start with the ‘objective’ circumstances we live in. Those ‘objective’ circumstances may include running water, electricity, wealthy parents, good education, affordable healthcare – or the lack of any of these. And when running water and adequate food are missing, a person runs out of options. It takes a very special person to be able to live happily in such circumstances.

Living in language? On the limitations of words…

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:15:26 +0000

I’ve been reading up on Western philosophy lately and one of the things philosophers of the last century have been concerned with is language: it’s limitations, how conversations are constrained by language, that language is the main foundation of culture.

Whenever I used to hear people say that we think in language, that we can in fact ONLY think in language – I disagreed. As a bit of a math whiz in high school (nothing like my dad, but still) I used to do a lot of thinking in images. I even pictured the fourth dimension to myself quite clearly in my early twenties. I even ended up combining the wave and particle aspect of physics in an object I created from paper and wire. My current understanding of physics tells me my interpretation missed the whole point, by the way.

So from experience I can affirm: yes, we can think in images. We do. The power of TV advertising is not in the words, it’s in the images and music.

When I started writing, say 15 years ago, I soon noticed that there were limitations to what I could write. I could only write about things that could be said.

That probably sounds pretty weird to you all. It had to do with a sense of understandings in the depths of me, seeking words, but not finding them.

I sensed a limitation of what people could hear, what the words might be permitted to say.
I still sense that border – a whole dimension of life that evades words, that just can’t be said.

But let me retrace my steps a bit and give an example of my point here: that the way we talk about spirituality is very much a cultural thing. Because that’s really what I’m talking about here: my deep felt sense of how language and culture are intertwined and limit what can be said, what can be imagined even.

Take ‘The Secret‘ for instance – it’s the ultimate optimistic creed. It states that if you can just imagine it, and do it, you can achieve anything, be anything. Whether it’s material success or health or enlightenment…
The dark side effect of that creed is that the negative, the hopeless, the need, the (literal) hunger gets pushed aside.

Yes, I’m talking about the economy here: I haven’t bothered looking up the latest stats, but roughly 10% of Americans are out of a job, something like 15% or 20% are on food stamps. Imagining a way out of that must be terribly tough for those caught in it. And yet, The Secret is right to an extent: daring to imagine another way of living is indeed the only way out. But the immediate message is one of denial: these earthly limitations aren’t real. And that denial of what IS is unfair.

It reminds me of my first steps towards becoming an author – I dare call myself that sometimes, now that I make a living online.
My first steps were taken 15 years ago or so, writing theosophical articles. Theosophical in the sense that I imagined a theosophical audience for them. Indeed: they were limited by the language and thoughts I had learned in the TS, though from the first I also used the language and experience of practical psychology.

I was too insecure as an author to insist on being published, or to ask why my articles were NOT being published. One article ignored and I thought I was just not good enough.

And what happened? I started publishing online, because there was this need to express myself and online I could find my own audience. I learned SEO and the rest is history as they say.

But the point of the story is that I never imagined the kind of success I have today. What I did was use the options open to me at any one point and move forward from there. My insecurities limited me, and instead of fighting them, I moved with them and found my own road.

Think back to the year 2000 – technology was very much in the air, so was the internet. We were worried about whether computers would survive the new millennium and at the same time the first internet bubble was not yet burst. The image of the internet as the place where people got access to porn was rampant. However, that was not the internet as I experienced it. I met Theosophists online, learned various perspectives on theosophical history.

I hadn’t the faintest clue I would one day make my living online. I still thought of myself as a teacher (of math and chemistry). My internet activities were a hobby.

Thoughts are NOT everything. Where I am today is the logical continuation of what I started DOING and LEARNING online in 1998.

But from a spiritual perspective the opposite question also arises: does it solve anything to go beyond language? To go beyond conditionings as Krishnamurti would have it?
Krishnamurti would never have wanted a ‘use’ to get in there. Still, he pointed to a path beyond conditioning. He had a point: that sense of mine that there is more to life than I can put into words is perhaps beyond conditioning. That force in me that pushed towards self-expression… certainly nothing to do with words, and only to do with conditioning if you include our conditioned emotions in the picture.
That’s the power of Krishnamurti’s teachings: his ability to show us that there IS more to life than culture, than thought, than memory. Yet all those things: culture, thought and memory are part of what IS.

For me, as an author, that Other, that Nameless Something is the source of my writing. However, perhaps it only starts meaning something when I CAN put it into words. When I succeed in integrating it with my life, with my experienced culture, with my context, with my emotions. It only starts meaning something when I find words to relate my experience to yours: my audience. And that’s something Krishnamurti would definitely NOT have said.

That would make a nice pointy conclusion to this piece, but it’s not quite fair. It suggests I don’t value Krishnamurti at all. I do – the very fact that I think he’s worth disagreeing with is a compliment to how much his teachings are part of my personal mental genealogy.

That is a philosopher’s way of dealing with this. It is sometimes said that the whole of Western Philosophy can be summed up as a dialog with Plato and Aristotle. Each generation of philosophers reinterprets them and finds new perspectives on what they taught. The fact that they’re still referenced today – whether to agree or disagree hardly matters – is testimony to their importance. Similarly my going against Krishnamurti is testimony to his influence on me. To the extent that we live in words: what we disagree with is as important as what we affirm. It’s how we position ourselves in our own mental universe.

[Inspired by Charles Taylor in Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays]

The tragic volunteer

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:36:47 +0000

I’ve been a volunteer for years. It was a way for me to learn basic human skills like working with people as well as a way to stay in touch with some aspect of society when I was out of a job. It looked good on my resume and so on.

So I’m not saying that there is anything intrinsically wrong with volunteer work. Society could not run without volunteers. However, there is a flip side.

The flip side is dependence. When we work for money there is an equal exchange: I do something, you pay me. If I don’t do it well, you fire me. If I find someone who pays me more, I ask for a raise. It’s the market in action, but it’s also a way of establishing my worth and making me independent: the money I make enables me to pay my rent, go on holiday, save etc.

Volunteer work on the other hand is dependence. Dependence on the partner who does make a living, for instance. It’s weird that it is so – after all, it’s also work that you can leave at any point. However, because you’re a volunteer, the organisation doesn’t have to invest at all in order to keep you. No money involved. It’s very easy to take volunteers for granted. And people who are taken for granted are not generally taken seriously.

I just quit my last bit of volunteer work because it no longer fit the ‘me’ I’m becoming. The weird thing is: there is a guilt about quiting, knowing the hole I leave in the organisation (though I’m still volunteering to train in anybody willing to take my place). However, that’s precisely the problem: why should I feel guilty about leaving a job that didn’t actually pay me a salary?

Do people feel guilty about leaving their job?

Why did I call this post the tragic volunteer? Because it seems to me that sometimes it becomes a career of sorts: being a volunteer. That’s great if it’s the sort of volunteer work where one has responsibility and grows on the job as it were. Not so great if you get stuck doing routine work that’s boring but needs doing – at least so the organisation thinks.

The presence of a volunteer for certain work can become a barrier to organisational change: Mary does that work, she would not stand the routine being changed, so let’s not install more efficient software just yet, or create more efficient work-routines.

I know people complain about reorganization: it generally doesn’t bring the promised rewards. Or rather, it does, but the down sides are usually not so easy to see in advance. The flip side of that is that in many cases change is necessary. How does one do this in a volunteer organisation? I’m sure there are people who’ve studied the problem in more depth.

I’m just saying: what would you do if you were Mary and you were aware of these considerations? Would you quit? Isn’t it tragic?

['Mary' is of course not the name of the person I had in mind when I wrote this.]

The push of experience…

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:33:04 +0000

Yes, that title is enigmatic and for the linguists among you: a bit double as well. It has to do, I’m afraid, with the limitations of the English language – or possibly of my knowledge of it. Though I do rarely run into that problem these days.

Anyhow – the question is: do you all feel pushed into having experiences? Like: the motive for meditation isn’t that you know it’s right for you, but that you keep hearing people talk about it?
The motive for going on holiday isn’t that you want to go, but that NOT going would be too much of a statement? Research shows that a substantial number of people actually aren’t happier on holiday than they are at home.
There are lots of fields in our lives this applies to. When you buy a new car: do you look at price, gallons per mile or whether that car ‘feels right’?

It’s all about experience. The experience of meditation. The experience of going on holiday (and coming back to talk about it and answer the question: what did you do on holiday?). The experience of driving the right car.

I certainly felt pushed to do meditation. I was like: I can’t afford NOT to meditate, because after all I write and lecture about spirituality. So I did for a few months. But when sciatica intervened a few months ago I decided that my physical health was more important and that getting out of the house twice a day was enough of a challenge. Since I don’t have a car any trip out of the house is actually exercise. Dutch public transportation makes this an option.

Do you feel pushed? I was talking to someone the other day who said: Being a kid was so much better: there wasn’t as much responsibility. Which is true of course. Adults have to do their taxes, have to pay the rent or the mortgage. But the thing was, the examples she gave were all avoidable (at least over here). She said: as an adult you have to have a car, a house with mortgage… and she felt trapped: she had been admitted to art school, but was also holding down a full time job. A job where she had been managing people, but those people had been fired. In effect she’d been demoted without the difference in salary.

I sure don’t envy her. But it’s a familiar picture for many of you I’m sure. And the pressure of debt (aka mortgage) has become very visible in the past few years.

The sociological change is from having to marry, to not staying a virgin.
From making a living, to feeling right about your job.
From going to church every Sunday (very public and social) to meditating

Perhaps, in our field, the most enigmatic of them all is the Near Death Experience. It’s become a status symbol. There’s the expectancy of a life transformation after having an NDE. But as one lady told me who had had a NDE: the spiritual transformation afterwards doesn’t always happen. She hadn’t become a saint through her NDE she said, though I’m pretty sure (from her behavior) that she had become more generous. But then I hadn’t known her before.

Would you dare say you HAD NOT had an NDE if you’d been in a coma?

[All this inspired by the Dutch book 'De Druk van de Beleving: filosofie en kunst in het domein van overgang en ondergang' by Gerard Visser, a book that compares the philosophers Nietsche and Dithley and the more recent sociological research by Schultze]

All Considering » Spiritual Growth

Giving yourself permission to rejoice in what’s good…

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