Who speaks? It is I. And who are you that you should speak? I am one who is speaking, but hopefully not as sounding brass while making a good impression upon your mind.
Do you come in the name of God? or as another? I wonder. We talk and talk and talk. But does anyone listen to us? Again I wonder.
There is a time in the life of a person when they just wish/want someone, anyone to just listen to you for just a minute. It is a time when we need it the most – a time when our troubled hearts are full of need. We pray. We sing. We speak out to our God. We even talk to others, but is anyone really listening?
I have been thinking about this problem for some time and it is obvious to me that it is a problem for a large number of people. Some people listen to others because if they don’t, they are libel to loose their spouse, their jobs, or their supposed place in society.
Each one of us contributions to the growth of our parents, brothers, sisters and other family members and friends. We make contributions to those we work with, ride with on plains, buses or metros, and eat with at a restaurant or coffee shop.
We make contributions to their well being in that for only a moment we make them feel that they are truly appreciated and wanted and that their words are important. We listen to them; they listen to us, and maybe give us the satisfaction of knowing that we are being heard. How do you give to others? Do you give of your time and energy? Do you give them your ear for a moment? Or do you just make funny faces that say, “I am listening to you, but all that you are saying to me is totally meaningless.” You soon forget them knowing that that the person who spent so much time talking was wasting their time with you.
Who are you? Are you a friend, or foe? Is your life so wrapped up in you that you cannot be a friend, a good listener, a pal? I wonder if I’m one of those that I’m talking about in this paper. I wonder if others are trying to take advantage of me and try to make me into the person that they think that I should be so that they have something to complain about if I don’t comply with their dictates. I am an individual who has a life apart from others and I need you as I hope you need me. We need to listen to each other, call one another, take the time to really listen to one another and respond to others with love, and understanding. Maybe, just maybe, we will learn something we didn’t know before.
How can we live with other people in our lives? Can we? You decide. I know what I think about all of this.
I hope that you will think on these things and not think that it is only me, that I have the problem with, and that it has nothing to do with you. We are all involved in life on this planet called earth and we, as individuals are important and needed. I need you, and I hope you need me, if only to have you listen to me for a moment and for me to listen to you with love and understanding for a moment.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Where Do You Stand?
When Frances Banks (1844-1911) went to the Spirit side of life, she was able to express her experiences there through various mediums such as Helen Greaves. In Helen’s book, Testimony of Light (Published in 1969) talks about the “Shadow Lands. The Shadow Lands is where those who “thought that the world owed them a living, or people who complained and criticized and judged all the time.” People who were engaged in “dubious experiences in crime, drug taking, alcoholism, theft, deceit, and other negative activities” are all found.
Helen said that the Shadow Lands “seem to be a clearing house where unlawful and mischievous adjuncts of the old personalities are rejected, disregarded and finally resolved.” The Shadow Land seem to be the place, where some people go when they make their transition from the physical world, to make right the less than good decisions made in physical life, right the negative things that they did to people they wronged, or be reminded of things that they did in physical life that they had forgotten about, but is causing the person to beheld back from progressing to the Spirit World of light.
Because Frances Banks, Daniel Dunglas Home, Swedenborg, Andrew Jackson Davis, the writings of Sir Author Conan Doyle, and a number of others, gave us the above information through their mediumship we have a record of what the Spirit Worlds are like and those who are there.
As I look at the various articles that I have written and placed on my blog or shared with friends, I cannot help be reminded of the fact that a ministers job is to inform, uplift and encourage people through messages from spirit, the Bible, the Koran, writings of the Buddha, and other sacred books, to remind us that there is a better way to deal with things in lives without injuring to ourselves or other.
I have sat in various denominational churches listening to hundreds of sermons by ministers in the Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Roman Catholic and other churches. All of the sermons used the Bible as a basis to remind the congregation that they should be living their life as Jesus lived his. Jesus lived a pure and loving life, never judging other, uplifting with his love. We, like Jesus, are encouraged to deal with friends and other people with compassion and love “doing unto others as we would have them do to us.” These are a few things that a minister tries to express through his/her sermons and take personal responsibility for our every action.
By knowing of the shadow lands and what they stand for we are better able to appreciate the messages of our ministers and the teachings of Jesus. By living a more Christ like life, we will are able to avoid the pitfalls of life and prepare ourselves for a new life in the Spirit World of light.
God Bless
Helen said that the Shadow Lands “seem to be a clearing house where unlawful and mischievous adjuncts of the old personalities are rejected, disregarded and finally resolved.” The Shadow Land seem to be the place, where some people go when they make their transition from the physical world, to make right the less than good decisions made in physical life, right the negative things that they did to people they wronged, or be reminded of things that they did in physical life that they had forgotten about, but is causing the person to beheld back from progressing to the Spirit World of light.
Because Frances Banks, Daniel Dunglas Home, Swedenborg, Andrew Jackson Davis, the writings of Sir Author Conan Doyle, and a number of others, gave us the above information through their mediumship we have a record of what the Spirit Worlds are like and those who are there.
As I look at the various articles that I have written and placed on my blog or shared with friends, I cannot help be reminded of the fact that a ministers job is to inform, uplift and encourage people through messages from spirit, the Bible, the Koran, writings of the Buddha, and other sacred books, to remind us that there is a better way to deal with things in lives without injuring to ourselves or other.
I have sat in various denominational churches listening to hundreds of sermons by ministers in the Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Roman Catholic and other churches. All of the sermons used the Bible as a basis to remind the congregation that they should be living their life as Jesus lived his. Jesus lived a pure and loving life, never judging other, uplifting with his love. We, like Jesus, are encouraged to deal with friends and other people with compassion and love “doing unto others as we would have them do to us.” These are a few things that a minister tries to express through his/her sermons and take personal responsibility for our every action.
By knowing of the shadow lands and what they stand for we are better able to appreciate the messages of our ministers and the teachings of Jesus. By living a more Christ like life, we will are able to avoid the pitfalls of life and prepare ourselves for a new life in the Spirit World of light.
God Bless
Limbo Land
I have written about life and what it means to me and how my life may relate to others. I find that it doesn’t matter what I think, others have their own ideas and they don’t necessarily agree with mine. That’s Ok for we all have total freedom of choice. Freedom of choice reminded me of an article I read by Robert Egby.
It was an article that Robert had placed on the internet site spiritualist@yahoo.com about the after life place called “limbo’. I learned that it doesn’t matter whether a person lives a really loving life where they think more about others than themselves, or whether they are a total …… all will go to a spirit world that is conducive to their personality.
In the article, limbo is described as a grey lifeless place that is extremely depressing and lonely. It didn’t seem to matter that their were other living in the same limbo place, the person was alone with their “self”. It is a place where people (knowing it or not) who have, “starved their soul while living in the earth plain, and had fed only on the EMOTIONS and DESIRES of their personality”. However, not all is lost for people there. There are people from the higher spirit world who go into the limbo lands to try and convince them to take charge of their “wrong doings while in the earth” and do all that they can to correct them. Then they can move on to higher spirit plains where they can progress spiritually. To correct one’s wrongs, one has to recognize them and then change their whole outlook to become a loving and thoughtful person.
As I continued to read the article, I realized that it doesn’t matter what a person is like in their earth plain life, they will reap what they sow and get their just reward. So what does it matter whether you don’t treat me and display a total lack of respect, talk about me behind my back belittling me and making me out to be something I’m not. You haven’t taken responsibility for your actions here, so you will have to make amends on the other side of physical life. Far too many people engage in this kind of wrong action on a regular basis but truly believe that they are absolutely correct in those actions. But are they?
The law of cause and effect says that we must take personal responsibility for our action, emotions and thoughts while here in this physical world, even though it is never an easy job for us. We have to first recognize that we have a problem, and then search through our lives to learn about the source of the problem, and then take the right actions to correct the problem and thus ourselves. If the correct action means that we have to forgive someone, like our father or mother, brother or sister or a person we once called a friend, then we must do it. Waiting until we get on the other side, or conveniently forgetting about what we did, is no excuse to procrastinating. The sooner we take care of our problems here the better the possibility of keeping our friends. Some would say “it’s the Christian thing to do.”
I realize that most problem come about due to misunderstandings of some kind. This is most often due to pride, ego, or just not hearing the other person correctly while engaged in our own internal dialog that distracted us at the time so that we do not here the other person correctly. Or, not really understanding where the other “person is coming from”. It may have been a poor choice of words by the other person. It may have been our not asking for more information or saying that we understood this or that and you needed clarification, but didn’t ask for it. If you didn’t think to give them a chance to explain, then you are totally in the wrong and must make the appropriate corrective action.
What a life but a school of hard knocks for all of us to learn the ups and downs, the rights and wrongs of living on our spiritual path.
This article was written to all of us, especially me, to try and get you and me to think a little. Maybe we can save our friends and ourselves a lot of problems.
It was an article that Robert had placed on the internet site spiritualist@yahoo.com about the after life place called “limbo’. I learned that it doesn’t matter whether a person lives a really loving life where they think more about others than themselves, or whether they are a total …… all will go to a spirit world that is conducive to their personality.
In the article, limbo is described as a grey lifeless place that is extremely depressing and lonely. It didn’t seem to matter that their were other living in the same limbo place, the person was alone with their “self”. It is a place where people (knowing it or not) who have, “starved their soul while living in the earth plain, and had fed only on the EMOTIONS and DESIRES of their personality”. However, not all is lost for people there. There are people from the higher spirit world who go into the limbo lands to try and convince them to take charge of their “wrong doings while in the earth” and do all that they can to correct them. Then they can move on to higher spirit plains where they can progress spiritually. To correct one’s wrongs, one has to recognize them and then change their whole outlook to become a loving and thoughtful person.
As I continued to read the article, I realized that it doesn’t matter what a person is like in their earth plain life, they will reap what they sow and get their just reward. So what does it matter whether you don’t treat me and display a total lack of respect, talk about me behind my back belittling me and making me out to be something I’m not. You haven’t taken responsibility for your actions here, so you will have to make amends on the other side of physical life. Far too many people engage in this kind of wrong action on a regular basis but truly believe that they are absolutely correct in those actions. But are they?
The law of cause and effect says that we must take personal responsibility for our action, emotions and thoughts while here in this physical world, even though it is never an easy job for us. We have to first recognize that we have a problem, and then search through our lives to learn about the source of the problem, and then take the right actions to correct the problem and thus ourselves. If the correct action means that we have to forgive someone, like our father or mother, brother or sister or a person we once called a friend, then we must do it. Waiting until we get on the other side, or conveniently forgetting about what we did, is no excuse to procrastinating. The sooner we take care of our problems here the better the possibility of keeping our friends. Some would say “it’s the Christian thing to do.”
I realize that most problem come about due to misunderstandings of some kind. This is most often due to pride, ego, or just not hearing the other person correctly while engaged in our own internal dialog that distracted us at the time so that we do not here the other person correctly. Or, not really understanding where the other “person is coming from”. It may have been a poor choice of words by the other person. It may have been our not asking for more information or saying that we understood this or that and you needed clarification, but didn’t ask for it. If you didn’t think to give them a chance to explain, then you are totally in the wrong and must make the appropriate corrective action.
What a life but a school of hard knocks for all of us to learn the ups and downs, the rights and wrongs of living on our spiritual path.
This article was written to all of us, especially me, to try and get you and me to think a little. Maybe we can save our friends and ourselves a lot of problems.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Real or Fantasy
It has been said that “life here is just an illusion”, and I often wonder exactly what is mean by that. As I thought about it, I was reminded of that old television program “Fantasy Island.” A place where visitors to a unique resort island were able to live and act out their fantasies - played out as desired.” I asked myself, are we just actors in a television program? Is life here on earth just an illusion?
It does seem that we are just actors in a play, Hollywood movie or on some fantasy island, called earth, where we interact with other people to learn the lessons of this life.
I remember one of the programs where a group of people were acting out their fantasy as Soldiers. Soldiers that were given the job by their commanders to rescuing several captives in an enemy camp. During the raid on the enemy camp, one of the soldiers was killed. After the captives were freed and the fantasy was completed, the people in the fantasy went to Mr Roarke, the director of Fantasy Island (played by Ricardo Montalban), asked him “why did that person die, we thought that this was just the acting out of our fantasy where no one gets hurt or dies?” Mr Roarke said to them, “It was his desire to die as a soldier while rescuing someone in captivity.” In reality, the man was dying and wanted to die as a soldier, not in a hospital. Life is like that. We act out our part with the hope that we will all come through life with out a scratch or die of natural causes from old age.
Some people make it seem that they are accomplishing their goals, really living their personal fantasy, and all is well with them. However, in reality they may be suffers from not being able to fulfill their fantasy. Suffering from mental illness/anguish, or suffering from some kind of physical illness that others don’t even know they have. Or maybe they have a terminal illness they just don’t talk about. They suffer in silence.
You have all seen the thousands of Television programs that portray people being killed in war enactments, by criminals or by an act-of-passion, or even by “supposed ordinary people”; or stories about the hero policeman who, each week, captures the criminal, and jails them for punishment, all in less than an hour. The moral of the story is, “if you break the law, you will be caught and punished no matter what or who you really are.
Life may be a fantasy for some, but it sure seems to be very real for others. Life is filled with every sort of experience. We “make or break our life” depending on how we look at it. Some people act out their fantasies on a daily basis, while others seem to get further and further into the depths of despair and suffering. What on earth can be done to change things? Can anything be done?
One of the things that Spiritualist’s teach is Natural Law. Natural Law works in every part of our life and we all have the opportunity to use our knowledge of those laws to change anything that comes our way in an instant. We merely need to know which laws we can apply that will help us make the appropriate life decisions. As true Spiritualist we study these laws and make every effort to abide by them. They are God’s Laws.
Christianity teaches that a strong belief in God and His son Jesus, accepting him into their hearts and confessing their sins to God is all that is necessary for the changes that are needed in one’s life. We teach that a strong belief in God, the source of all creation, is all that is needed. All choices in life are up to you and me, as long as we get the results that we want. The ultimate goal is to find happiness and a little joy in our personal fantasy world.
It does seem that we are just actors in a play, Hollywood movie or on some fantasy island, called earth, where we interact with other people to learn the lessons of this life.
I remember one of the programs where a group of people were acting out their fantasy as Soldiers. Soldiers that were given the job by their commanders to rescuing several captives in an enemy camp. During the raid on the enemy camp, one of the soldiers was killed. After the captives were freed and the fantasy was completed, the people in the fantasy went to Mr Roarke, the director of Fantasy Island (played by Ricardo Montalban), asked him “why did that person die, we thought that this was just the acting out of our fantasy where no one gets hurt or dies?” Mr Roarke said to them, “It was his desire to die as a soldier while rescuing someone in captivity.” In reality, the man was dying and wanted to die as a soldier, not in a hospital. Life is like that. We act out our part with the hope that we will all come through life with out a scratch or die of natural causes from old age.
Some people make it seem that they are accomplishing their goals, really living their personal fantasy, and all is well with them. However, in reality they may be suffers from not being able to fulfill their fantasy. Suffering from mental illness/anguish, or suffering from some kind of physical illness that others don’t even know they have. Or maybe they have a terminal illness they just don’t talk about. They suffer in silence.
You have all seen the thousands of Television programs that portray people being killed in war enactments, by criminals or by an act-of-passion, or even by “supposed ordinary people”; or stories about the hero policeman who, each week, captures the criminal, and jails them for punishment, all in less than an hour. The moral of the story is, “if you break the law, you will be caught and punished no matter what or who you really are.
Life may be a fantasy for some, but it sure seems to be very real for others. Life is filled with every sort of experience. We “make or break our life” depending on how we look at it. Some people act out their fantasies on a daily basis, while others seem to get further and further into the depths of despair and suffering. What on earth can be done to change things? Can anything be done?
One of the things that Spiritualist’s teach is Natural Law. Natural Law works in every part of our life and we all have the opportunity to use our knowledge of those laws to change anything that comes our way in an instant. We merely need to know which laws we can apply that will help us make the appropriate life decisions. As true Spiritualist we study these laws and make every effort to abide by them. They are God’s Laws.
Christianity teaches that a strong belief in God and His son Jesus, accepting him into their hearts and confessing their sins to God is all that is necessary for the changes that are needed in one’s life. We teach that a strong belief in God, the source of all creation, is all that is needed. All choices in life are up to you and me, as long as we get the results that we want. The ultimate goal is to find happiness and a little joy in our personal fantasy world.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
When We Meet Others
“Hello, my name is John, what’s your name?”
“Joe”.
“Nice to meet you Joe, how are you?”
“Fine”
“Good”.
How many times have you and I been introduced to some one and experienced the same kind of scenario that I just presented? I would say…about a thousand times, provably many more.
What happened when we were introduced to someone? It is said that we make a judgment within a few seconds of meeting someone else. Yes, a few seconds.
If I ask you if you had made a judgment about that person you just met, you would provably say no. It is a fact proven by countless surveys and studies by psychologist that we do indeed make judgments. It is in the way we were brought up. It is a defense mechanism that we all engage in all the time. When I look at a television program, I cannot help but to make a judgment as to whether or not I will like the program and even the actors.
If I meet a man or woman for a job interview, I am being judged by that person as to whether or not I have the qualification they’re looking for and if they believe that I will fit into the corporate structure of the company. I sit there doing the same to them. It is a fact of life.
One of the things that we are judged on more than anything else is our religious beliefs. It seems that it only takes a few minuets for person we have just met to start to talk about religion and inquire about our personal beliefs. “My beliefs are mine I say”. The other person, if a “born again Christian,” will further his/her inquiry even more not wanting to abandon the subject. How many times has that happened to you?
I would say that being judged by others is so natural that we just cannot help ourselves. That is one reason that I get a little upset when I talk to people. I want my idea and beliefs to be mine and not be judged for them. However, as you know, it happens all the time.
Is there anything that we can do about it? I don’t think so. Even if I myself try not to judge, I do. The Bible says “Math 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.” And if you are going to judge than as it says in John 7:24: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." Something we all do. It becomes an almost impossible for anyone to live by these two verses of the Bible because our way of judging is really a defense mechanism that directs our actions towards others. This does not mean that we can at least try. We must.
The reason for the title of this article is because it seems that we are Christian when we want to be and non-Christians at all other times. Oh you say! Yes it is true none the less. We are Christians when it suits us, and non-Christian when it suites us as well. I know a man who always ends his prayers with “In the name of Jesus.” This would indicate to most Christians that here is a man who is a real Christian. Just because we use those words to end a prayers does not mean anything. We could as well end our prayer with in the name of “Bromo Shave.” It would have the same meaning to us because we have already judged that person as being a non-Christian; a person who just goes through the motions of a Christian.
Everything that we do has strings attached to them. Our friendships, our marriage, the work we do for others, the people we come into contact with. You say to me “didn’t you just say that we all judge others all the time?” Yes I did and that is why I say that we all have strings attached to everything we do in life. You and I do also. The above was just an example I used here, (real or factious, you decide).
Like you, I am tired of being judged by others and I have done everything that I can think of to make the changes in my life so that I judge in the proper way as described in the Bible, I hope that you will also.
“Joe”.
“Nice to meet you Joe, how are you?”
“Fine”
“Good”.
How many times have you and I been introduced to some one and experienced the same kind of scenario that I just presented? I would say…about a thousand times, provably many more.
What happened when we were introduced to someone? It is said that we make a judgment within a few seconds of meeting someone else. Yes, a few seconds.
If I ask you if you had made a judgment about that person you just met, you would provably say no. It is a fact proven by countless surveys and studies by psychologist that we do indeed make judgments. It is in the way we were brought up. It is a defense mechanism that we all engage in all the time. When I look at a television program, I cannot help but to make a judgment as to whether or not I will like the program and even the actors.
If I meet a man or woman for a job interview, I am being judged by that person as to whether or not I have the qualification they’re looking for and if they believe that I will fit into the corporate structure of the company. I sit there doing the same to them. It is a fact of life.
One of the things that we are judged on more than anything else is our religious beliefs. It seems that it only takes a few minuets for person we have just met to start to talk about religion and inquire about our personal beliefs. “My beliefs are mine I say”. The other person, if a “born again Christian,” will further his/her inquiry even more not wanting to abandon the subject. How many times has that happened to you?
I would say that being judged by others is so natural that we just cannot help ourselves. That is one reason that I get a little upset when I talk to people. I want my idea and beliefs to be mine and not be judged for them. However, as you know, it happens all the time.
Is there anything that we can do about it? I don’t think so. Even if I myself try not to judge, I do. The Bible says “Math 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.” And if you are going to judge than as it says in John 7:24: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." Something we all do. It becomes an almost impossible for anyone to live by these two verses of the Bible because our way of judging is really a defense mechanism that directs our actions towards others. This does not mean that we can at least try. We must.
The reason for the title of this article is because it seems that we are Christian when we want to be and non-Christians at all other times. Oh you say! Yes it is true none the less. We are Christians when it suits us, and non-Christian when it suites us as well. I know a man who always ends his prayers with “In the name of Jesus.” This would indicate to most Christians that here is a man who is a real Christian. Just because we use those words to end a prayers does not mean anything. We could as well end our prayer with in the name of “Bromo Shave.” It would have the same meaning to us because we have already judged that person as being a non-Christian; a person who just goes through the motions of a Christian.
Everything that we do has strings attached to them. Our friendships, our marriage, the work we do for others, the people we come into contact with. You say to me “didn’t you just say that we all judge others all the time?” Yes I did and that is why I say that we all have strings attached to everything we do in life. You and I do also. The above was just an example I used here, (real or factious, you decide).
Like you, I am tired of being judged by others and I have done everything that I can think of to make the changes in my life so that I judge in the proper way as described in the Bible, I hope that you will also.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Spirituality
In my never ending desire to define and experience true spirituality, I find that the Bible is one of the most profound books on the subject available. It provided guide lines that an individual can follow that, when fully understood, provides one with a life that is free from all negativity.
The Bible teaches in the book of John 13:34 “love one another as God loves you” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you “(Math 7:1). Two ideas and verses within the Bible that provides a person with all they need to get along in this world. Yes, two verses that the Master Jesus lived by in his daily life and preached. In fact, the life of Jesus was a life filled with God’s love – totally.
As a minister, it is my duty to express what God has placed on my mind, to my congregation. To express in my counseling secessions with individuals who come to me for help. It is the divine within that stresses the right way of doing things.
When one follows that teaching of the Bible one goes from knowing about God to knowing God personally. From the very beginning, God never intended that man should be separate from Him. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and all there in – an expression of God’s love. It was only when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they understood that it was possible to make choices based on two aspects of their new knowledge of right and wrong. Duality was not a part of God’s purpose for man, or of the Garden of Eden, but it came into existence. One may now ask, was it wrong for Adam and Eve to gain the knowledge of right from wrong? The answer lies in the hearts of man in general, not in God. When man eat of the fruit, God knew that man would have a strong tendency to choose wrong over choosing right. You might say, this is the reason God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden instead of just forgiving them and allow them to continue living there in the garden.
In my search for meaning to what man believes spirituality is, I have searched high and low and found that it is basically in the hearts of man and therefore undefinable. That is not to say that the word cannot be defined because Webster defines spirituality as: 1: “Concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church "lords temporal and spiritual"; "spiritual leaders"; "spiritual songs" 2: Concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul "a spiritual approach to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values". We go on to look at the way in which the Wikipedia on line encyclopedia defines spirituality. “Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and faith, a transcendent reality, or one or more deities. Spiritual matters are thus those matters regarding humankind's ultimate nature and meaning, not only as material biological organisms, but as beings with a unique relationship to that which is perceived to be beyond the bodily senses, time and the material world. Spirituality also implies the mind-body dichotomy, which indicates a separation between the body and soul.” In another encyclopedia, it says “The term spirituality is defined as living the Christian life with a consciousness or sensitivity to religious values. Striving or aiming for perfection and making particular use of prayer are therefore very important considerations in many different Christian circles. However, it must be emphasized that spirituality assumes various forms in several Christian traditions, for instance, from the solitude of the Orthodox monks to the activism of the Pentecostals.”
In yet another encyclopedia it says “Spirituality is about making sense out of nonsense, shining light on the darkness that is around you. Spirituality is about improving ones self and being able to help others as well too. Growing and expanding yourself, thoughts, knowledge and wisdom.”
Ones definition of spirituality is individually defined and no one can say that they are right or wrong but that their definition is totally there’s.
We strive in our lives in such a way as to always do what is right, because it is the way our parents taught us and society expect us to act. But, that is not to say that we are not individuals who have earned the right to express ourselves in our own way. Our way, for us, is the only way. However, if you can give me a reason to modify my definition of life, I will listen and if I like what you have to say, I may adopt it for myself. This is free will working for our highest good.
The Bible teaches in the book of John 13:34 “love one another as God loves you” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you “(Math 7:1). Two ideas and verses within the Bible that provides a person with all they need to get along in this world. Yes, two verses that the Master Jesus lived by in his daily life and preached. In fact, the life of Jesus was a life filled with God’s love – totally.
As a minister, it is my duty to express what God has placed on my mind, to my congregation. To express in my counseling secessions with individuals who come to me for help. It is the divine within that stresses the right way of doing things.
When one follows that teaching of the Bible one goes from knowing about God to knowing God personally. From the very beginning, God never intended that man should be separate from Him. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and all there in – an expression of God’s love. It was only when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they understood that it was possible to make choices based on two aspects of their new knowledge of right and wrong. Duality was not a part of God’s purpose for man, or of the Garden of Eden, but it came into existence. One may now ask, was it wrong for Adam and Eve to gain the knowledge of right from wrong? The answer lies in the hearts of man in general, not in God. When man eat of the fruit, God knew that man would have a strong tendency to choose wrong over choosing right. You might say, this is the reason God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden instead of just forgiving them and allow them to continue living there in the garden.
In my search for meaning to what man believes spirituality is, I have searched high and low and found that it is basically in the hearts of man and therefore undefinable. That is not to say that the word cannot be defined because Webster defines spirituality as: 1: “Concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church "lords temporal and spiritual"; "spiritual leaders"; "spiritual songs" 2: Concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul "a spiritual approach to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values". We go on to look at the way in which the Wikipedia on line encyclopedia defines spirituality. “Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and faith, a transcendent reality, or one or more deities. Spiritual matters are thus those matters regarding humankind's ultimate nature and meaning, not only as material biological organisms, but as beings with a unique relationship to that which is perceived to be beyond the bodily senses, time and the material world. Spirituality also implies the mind-body dichotomy, which indicates a separation between the body and soul.” In another encyclopedia, it says “The term spirituality is defined as living the Christian life with a consciousness or sensitivity to religious values. Striving or aiming for perfection and making particular use of prayer are therefore very important considerations in many different Christian circles. However, it must be emphasized that spirituality assumes various forms in several Christian traditions, for instance, from the solitude of the Orthodox monks to the activism of the Pentecostals.”
In yet another encyclopedia it says “Spirituality is about making sense out of nonsense, shining light on the darkness that is around you. Spirituality is about improving ones self and being able to help others as well too. Growing and expanding yourself, thoughts, knowledge and wisdom.”
Ones definition of spirituality is individually defined and no one can say that they are right or wrong but that their definition is totally there’s.
We strive in our lives in such a way as to always do what is right, because it is the way our parents taught us and society expect us to act. But, that is not to say that we are not individuals who have earned the right to express ourselves in our own way. Our way, for us, is the only way. However, if you can give me a reason to modify my definition of life, I will listen and if I like what you have to say, I may adopt it for myself. This is free will working for our highest good.
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