03 Aug Questions
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious. ~ Karl Otto von Schonhausen Bismarck
I will share with you some of the questions I receive from people who honor me by watching and listening to Aspire in its various forms. I feel it might help you to see many aspects of human nature and what you and I are living in as the collective unconscious.
QUESTION: There are many books written by “western new age gurus” with teachings that are very abundance oriented, very materialistic. Is there validity in these recently very popular teachings? Can our desires improve our quality of life as well as our standard of living?
ANSWER: There are so many “teachers” out there making huge amounts of money from people with very low self-esteem. Low self-esteemers are cash cows for the cunning. Anyone promoting the idea that getting what we want in a material way, through some trumped up spiritual teaching, is nothing more than a snake oil salesman. You must understand that books are made to sell. Publishers are looking for a certain audience that will “buy” anything that will give them the belief that they are being “empowered” by an idea or the acceptance of a philosophy within the pages of a book, which promises them every desire.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with money or abundance. Everyone can have what he or she needs and even more will be given to us if this is our karma in this life. We can have more then we ever thought possible in this world. But these are the “added unto us” blessing and can never be the motive or the intent of an authentic spiritual practice. There are riches in this lifetime that few seek. They come with the blessing of compassion.
The American public is far too immature to deal with money as beauty. They only see it through the mirror of their own greed and self-hatred. If a teacher is authentic and teaching abundance, they teach the student to bypass human desire, which is nothing but fear, and fall into Love through meditation and the power of silence…and the rest takes care of itself. Sad to say, most typically want the stuff, not the substance that is Love.
To know the question rather than learn the answer, this is the Way of the Tao. ~Siraj
QUESTION: How do I balance staying in the moment, accepting everything that is coming into my life without attaching to it and at the same time be aware and completely connected with the interconnectedness around me?
ANSWER: First of all there is no “moment” to be accepting in. There is no such thing as “time” or “moments” or even a “now.” Everything is about consciousness. There is only the state of consciousness we are in or not in. The circumstances that seem to come to us from life are not really coming from where we would like to believe they are, such as the world, time or people. Therefore, you cannot “stay in the moment” as you state in your questions…because there is no “moment” to stay in! Nothing is stagnant in Life. Humans become stagnant because they insist on living as a fixed concept rather than as a living flow of Life.
The mind takes sides because it is filled with the emotional needs of the body, which is a huge storage unit of the past. This is why you are, as you put it: “struggling with staying open to both.” You want to “accept” everything as it comes, but your mind then turns on you, as all minds do, and offers you “solutions” that are NOT solutions at all. They are only what you can think, which does NOT make them authentic solutions. What if the truth, the answer, the solution is not something you can think? Then what?
As we mature into consciousness, we begin to view everything through consciousness. We begin living beyond perceptions based in the bias of human thinking and environment, and we will realize the illusion of it all and do not become engulfed by the fear of pain, sorrow and suffering. Nor are we seduced by the hope or promise of getting everything that we want. These two polarities create the mischief that most of us suffer from in the course of a lifetime.
Never surrender your life to a mere philosophy. Find the rhythm of Life through meditation and allow it to pulsate within and through you. You will find that a new mind is born that allows you to live in totality and not in the mere prejudice of a philosophy that only appeals to your thinking. There is far more to this experience than thought can give you.
The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; All will then be clear. ~ Seng-Ts’an
QUESTION: I often feel a pull to isolate so I can continue self-examination without involving others, thus eliminating drama, which is distracting for me. How do I balance my spiritual practice (self-examination) without offending others (intimate relationships)?
ANSWER: Jesus said many thousands of years ago: “Blessed is he who is not offended in me.” Which means to me that a person is more benefited by following Love than by becoming popular in a social way. Every master that I have read about or even have known, had to separate themselves from the world for a period of time in order to establish the Way within them. It takes great courage to sustain an authentic spiritual practice while living with people we are “intimate” with (family, lovers) who typically lives off the coarser energies of life, thus do not agree with nor understand our inner search. It is deeply threatening to the weak and trivial person who is deeply codependent upon family to give them the “emotional support” they believe they need to help them out of their insecurity and mischief.
Most people though are only on an intellectual journey seeking emotional fulfillment and that is what they call being “spiritual.” Intellectual intrigue is not enough to sustain the practice of Love. One must have enough insight to see the bigger picture of their life and realize that compassion is necessary. In an authentic spiritual practice one is presented with doubt from the ego, which is a mechanism that manufactures the evidence needed to sustain hate and fear as a way of life. One needs more than mere instinct to overcome the illusions and self-deceptions that the ego creates.
If a person’s search for intrinsic Love is authentic, it matters NOT what other people think of them. They must be willing to search for that which they have within them with all of their being. This means one must be willing to “lose” that which is temporal for that which is authentic. Only Love as Life is real.
Watch and listen without the noise of opinion - see what you can know that is beyond what you believe
Give up the questions and make room for the Way that lives within you…as Love itself
Make space, not thought
Give and do not worry about what you will “get back” for your giving
Forgive and forget what you believe happened - let Love occur within you
M
Posted at 03:35h, 04 AugustThank you, dear Siraj for lighting the path with your constant Love.
Mike
Posted at 04:13h, 04 AugustAs always, thank you
Johnny
Posted at 05:20h, 04 AugustThank you for sharing the Love you are.
Emile Bisson
Posted at 06:28h, 04 AugustYes!…thank you for your continual and blessed reminders. L-Sharilyn
Vicki
Posted at 07:19h, 04 AugustThe questions you shared are revealing, and it seems are common questions many of us wonder about from time to time. Your answers are very insightful. Thank you for taking the time to share a part of your life and practice with us.
Gloria Shaw
Posted at 08:34h, 04 AugustThank you. Your words resonate in me.
Gloria C
Posted at 07:13h, 05 AugustMaria Rodriguez
Posted at 19:25h, 01 SeptemberThank you.