Years ago, I thought of manufacturing and merchandising comestible Bibles. The book would be condensed, including only the most frequently quoted Bibles with pages made of a thin, wafer stuff similar to Catholic Holy Place Holy Communion hosts. The thought was to cut out your favourite Bible and then eat it, after which it would mystically travel deep interior where you would actually dwell that scripture.
As my Negro spiritual life matured, however, I realized that simply reading something or even eating the words was not adequate for a personal transmutation to take place. We have got got got to undergo something quite astonishing and unusual for a existent alteration to happen, and when that alteration takes place, we must incorporate that Negro spiritual alteration differently from how we have integrated new experiences in the past.
So I began a pursuit to happen out if it is at all possible to fundamentally change, which intends not merely changing on the surface by pretending that we have changed, or life some sort of an ideal of flawlessness or fantasy, but changing essentially where all of our actions, large 1s and small ones, go instinctively compassionate and wise.
My pursuit began as a selfish desire to happen and experience enlightenment for myself, but as I began to meditate, I became more than witting of the human race around me and concluded that whatever we were doing, it wasn't working.
What I was led to were methods by which the head alterations internally. In other words, "Wherever you go, there you are" alterations to, "Wherever you go, there others are!" I could see that the thought of "me," which was so ingrained, had to change to "you," otherwise, everything that I did would be based on the "me" instead of the other. The "me" coevals had to change to the "we" coevals for the human race to truly change. This Iodine came to understand; and I understood as well that this would take a monumental displacement in consciousness, because many people had the feeling that they were only responsible for themselves.
The feeling was that if you didn't have got money, it was because of your personal laziness, and therefore if you are poor, or sick, or not mentally up to the task, well then, good luck; you are on your ain - you rate your bad fortune. The feeling was that we should only look out for ourselves and perhaps trust on our Christian church or some other organisation to assist the poor. Other than contributing a little amount of deductable parts to a Christian church or organization, a cursory gesture for sure, we were out of the image as far as a direct experience of helping our chap person beings. We were detached and estranged from anyone not living up to our rigorous standards. We looked upon others outside of our peculiar societal strata as somehow less than us. We shunned and ignored those less fortunate and kept our distance, other than, of course, the cursory parts we might do to a 3rd political party in order to look good, and that we could indicate to as an illustration of our charity.
This is not good enough, I thought. I felt that a dramatic "shift" in consciousness would be required. I felt this manner because although we believe that we are happy in our present consciousness (and therefore, why would anyone who is happy privation to change his or her situation) we would never change our interior prickliness while we are under this psychotic belief that our friends and activities fill up us with happiness, and while we turn our dorsums on the remainder of the human race and humanity. We conveniently bury the "Wherever you go, there you are," apothegm that is so true. We drag all of our problems and concerns around with us, and although we believe that we get away into our activities and friends, we can see that our felicity only endures a short clip period of time, even though our psychological keeping of that short-lived felicity makes the semblance that happiness is a lasting circumstance.
The Buddha's First Lord Truth looks at life objectively. The First Lord Truth is: "This is Suffering." He then depicts the ways in which we suffer. He reminds us of eventual old age, disease and death, and also the clinging and fond regard that convey up all sorts of problem even while we are young. He said that the mere recognition that we endure is required as a first measure toward reliable spirituality.
Without a serious unwellness or tragical event to stun us out of our complacence and dreaming human race where we detect that a thin line offprints us from the less fortunate, few in the deluxe Occident ever see their ain agony until it is manner too late to make anything constructive about it. We just don't believe that we are sick, and the The Buddha always said that a patient without evident symptoms will rarely take medicine. Only when we go sensitive to our existent feelings and experiences, and see that indeed we worry and go stressful, will we get to detect that we are in fact spiritually ill, regardless of our current patterns and beliefs.
So eating the Book won't work. Jamming our caputs full of citations and facts and spewing them while hating those who differ with us, just doesn't work; we can never coerce others to travel our way. What we can make is accept others for whatever they are, or whatever they believe, and concern more about our ain deficiency of compassion.
Curiously enough, working on yourself, which looks a selfish thing to do, is the lone manner to overcome the ego. And if we believe that a strong egotism is a good thing, something necessary to support our state or do certain that we survive, then we haven't even begun to understand the deeper degrees of humanity, the degrees that Jesus and the The Buddha were all about.
We haven't begun to research our "selves."
Furl It
Simpy
