I like to use shocking language to establish a contrast with the language of private bliss (which dominates spiritual discourse these days). When I'm not being deliberately hyperbolic, I'd say that sacrifice, not personal fulfillment, is the essence of spiritual development.
Oh, agreed.
I tend to view it, as I think I might have mentioned, as vertigo – if you're aware of the up, you're aware of the down, and the attraction of the down ... temptation increases in proportion.
But then I'm shaped by Christian Scriptures, so the temptation in the Desert might feed in to that. But the story has its corollary in other traditions.
The catch is that no one is ever truly alone, and certainly no one acts alone...
But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that it's the ego one is listening to.
But I would not dispute the point with you.
I think the thing that people miss is what religious affiliation does in the spiritual realm; the esoteric and occult aspects of an authentic Tradition. But that's a whole other landscape, and I doubt anyone would believe it anyway.
As to what "it" is, it actually doesn't matter a whole lot whether we know anything at all about "it". For one thing until we actually get to "it" (and arguably, even afterward), the nature of "it" will be beyond our ken.
Oh, this is such a joy to read!
'Spirituality' is seen today, like everything else, as a commodity. The spiritual path is a shopping-mall experience; one wends one's way through the marketplace ... sampling, browsing ... it's consumer spiritualism that governs the west.
I have long thought there is nothing to it, really, but then if people knew that the spiritual path requires kenosis and all that the term implies – detachment, self-denial, humility, etc – and then knew that, as the Buddhist sage says:
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water;
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water'
Then they'd ask: Why do it? What's in it for me?
D'you know, Meister Eckhart produced a text called 'Signs of the True Ground' which, I would have thought, with the Meister's reputation, would be all over the web as something for the spiritual seeker to contemplate.
But it's not. Why? I suggest because it's not the kind of thing the modern seeker wants to hear at all.
In fact I suspect the best strategy for finding "it" is to forget about "it" and focus on the matter of service and sacrifice.
Well said.
That's why when people on the net ask me where they might find a spiritual teacher, I suggest they look for one in the back pews/rows of their church/synagogue/mosque/temple, of the prevailing religion of their culture, in the most ordinary setting they can find.
Bravo.
Like the monastic life, people dismiss the back pews and the cloister, although this is the place where one really comes face to face with what they seek, but of course they avoid it, it's far too confrontational for them.
People talk about 'escape', but there's no escape in a monastic community. It's not for the feint-hearted. The world, of course, now there's all means and methods of avoiding the one thing necessary. Lots to distract us.
Yet, without extensive character work and personal preparation, it is impossible to approach the Divine.
I would say that were true if one wanted to be a guru or some kind of mentor or guide. Again, this is what the ego sees in spiritual attainment, and this is one of its greatest attractions. What better than producing little versions of yourself?
But to approach the divine, all that's needed is humility.
But I would agree that 'humility' is one of the least favourite qualities in the West. Again, as one responded here has said, "It's all about me."
Meditation is useless -- even worse than useless -- without first laying down a serious foundation of self-discipline, self-examination and -- to boldly use another untrendy word -- repentance).
Agreed. It's been commodified, like 'yoga', into everyone's 'feel-good' regime. I think what's happened to yoga is a travesty.
I am not a big fan of the "spiritual master" model, which nearly always envisages the master as a being set apart from the rest of humanity.
Another fiction of the West, I think. Look at how many people declare themselves as 'Jedi'
I wonder how long they would last on a desert retreat, without access to the web, etc. Even Obi Ben Kinobi had his lightsabre to hand!
(On a subjective note, I think Alec Guiness' portrayal of the spy-catcher George Smiley in John le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an analogy of the spiritual journey ... but then le Carre's books are about love, primarly ... )
But the fact is, we cannot be our own spiritual masters, we're expert at deluding ourselves, there's no-one better at it!
Give me instead the model of the saint as described by John of the Cross, a being who however spiritually developed is never separate from humankind (I would though give John's ideas a post-Christian, universalist, tweak).
If one reads the lives of 'the great mystics' – St John, the T(h)eresa's, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Eckhart ... they are all so busy, you wonder when they ever found the time to pray.
Another fantasy is the idea that such people operate 'outside the envelope' of their respective tradition. This allows people to decry religion, but claim their heroes from within its ranks. Total nonsense.
Bring on Meister Eckhart, and today's 'liberal Christians' would find themselves in for a profound shock.
In fact, his contemporary might well be living as a Trappist hermit in North America.
I furthermore argue that the world
is full of saints, and you can find them if you look in the right places. This board, however, may not be one of them
Quite
