Humanities Transformation into Spiritual Adulthood

Here is a hypothesis on human transformation into adulthood, presented as a supposition or proposed explanation to explain the chaos engulfing America and western civilization.  This is presented as a starting point for a discussion to further explore and investigate ourselves from a spiritual point of view.

By spiritual we mean beyond the limited structure of science, math and deductive reasoning the foundations of Western Civilization; to also include the esoteric, emotional, supernatural and other phenomenon that penetrate the human psyche.

Individual Chaos The Path to Sanity

As individuals we grow by pursuing our own desires as we seek to satisfy ourselves entirely.  We learned to balance our individual animalistic tendencies to encompass our tribal ideals and cultural expectations to maximize our self-serving interests.

Humanity as a collective has been growing and developing along this same egotistical self-serving path since the beginning of time. People have been dividing by family and then geography into local communities. Next we developed allegiances to regional group identities. This development process was also driven by our individual desires for sanity and survival.

We individually love and hate as we battle for supremacy in our relationships, while we create and contribute to community structures all to support our own self-serving objectives.  We all individually grow through this internal conflict of chaos to resolution.  We ultimately define ourselves by our tribe, our ideals, our expectations and our responsibilities to people who are “like me” all driven by the animalistic instincts of self-interest.

We progressed as a species and further sub-divided into ideological and social constructs that established additional unique tribal alliances. These sub-groupings led to further chaos and division. Tremendous human suffering ensued as each tribe and society battled for relevance and superiority over “the others” … driven by the animalistic desires for survival by dominance over natural resources for sustainability of one’s self-interests.

Further Chaos The Path to Enlightenment

Each tribe and community group established social compacts based on love and mutual consideration. That is the spiritual feminine energy of nurturing and caring for one-another within the group, this too was driven by self-interest of mutual survival.  We encourage each individual within our groups to pursue their dreams and ideals to better self-serve the interest of the group.

Since the world is now fully explored and basic survival is no longer the driving force of our character, we are expanding into the enlightenment phase of human development.  We are moving beyond the individual enlightenment of self-interest to a holistic ideal of altruistic selflessness.

Our children realize that our future cannot sustain the animalistic processes of self-interest and dominance of one group over another for survival. As all previous generations before them they feel it deep down inside that the system requires change. They have yet to individually mature to the point of actual acceptance of “the others” as they perceive them.

The chaos will continue as long as we clutch to our tribal identities. We do this by negative stereotype labeling of “the others”.  Labels of socialist or capitalist’s, bigots and racists, Nazi-Fascist, religious fanatic, homophobic, greedy, lazy, selfish, ignorant, stupid, careless and any other negative identity that they can assign to “the others” … this is a last ditch attempt to hold on their individual selfish egotistical identities.

The Path to Further Enlightenment

We are now uniting as a global tribe and we need to unite the ideologies from all sides of self-interest. Into a positive agenda that moves beyond basic survival of the individual and our tribal identities towards our ultimate spiritual character traits of thriving as a unified whole.

This is reflected in the desire of millions of people who see the imbalance of power and resources and thereby seek to rectify this injustice by demanding fundamental changes within the hierarchy of civilization.  Balancing this dichotomy within the psyche of the individual is spiritual attainment, but is reaching this balance within our physical reality ever attainable?

Will we ever stop ascending as a species toward dominating our physical reality?  Are we capable of uniting around the spiritual ideals we strive for individually?  Ask yourself  are you willing to fully accept and acknowledge “the others” however they are labeled?

Test yourself by asking how open-minded and accepting you are of others.  Are we entrenched in non-acceptance of others or are we evolving toward greater spiritual attainment?

For now it’s a path for you as an individual, are you on the path?

Climbing The Spiritual Ladder … Experience It

Mastering the spiritual journey, individually we must engage and commit to each step throughout the process, there’s no short cuts.

As we climb in our physical world each step brings us deeper and deeper joy. A small child learns to roll the ball to Mommy and laughs with delight. As she grows she learns to bounce the ball and re-catch it again, another deeper level of satisfaction. Next she can bounce the ball off the wall, off the ground and into her hand again. Alas she desires further progress, but to become a master requires commitment and sacrifice. It takes months and even years before she can juggle three balls, then four and more.

The spiritual climb follows a similar process, the early steps are easy and joyful. To become a master requires sacrifice and commitment.  Learn to swallow your inner most spiritual sensations of guilt, fear or apprehension.  Feel it swimming in your stomach, examine it, hold it, experience it and you will learn to grow through it.  You will find it as frustrating as the little girl mentioned above as she fumbles and drops, again and again through each successive step of her progress. She suffers many, many defeats during her journey to becoming a master juggler.

We don’t climb to the highest levels on our positive experiences. It is through the negative,  frustrating and sometimes painful interactions that we achieve the greatest growth.  Be it in juggling or in our spiritual states, there’s always challenge and frustration along the development path.

Each successive step is harder and harder to master. However each step brings us deeper and deeper joy and satisfaction as we master it. So embrace the negative it’s the area to explore for advancement. As we wrestle with it, rehash through it, swallow it down, digest it we finally master it. We attain another step on the spiritual ladder.

As we reach new heights we experience a deep joy, but that joy quickly reverses as we discover the next rung to conquer. Can we ever return the joy of the early steps of our spiritual climb?  Yes, when we share that step with someone else new to the experience, just like a master juggler rolling the ball with a small child.

As we share our experience we relive the joy, hoping the newly exposed will also commit to mastering the next step. We cannot do if for them we can only encourage, prod and challenge them, hoping to keep them engaged to becoming masters too.

The same is true in mastering the spiritual journey, individually we must engage and commit to each step throughout the process, there’s no short cuts. Each successive step requires more and more concentrated effort.  Through repetition, analysis and continued commitment internally to our spiritual state we progress.

Every genuine point of progress along the climb is experienced alone.  Once we achieve a plateau the pleasure and satisfaction is always there for us, but soon it becomes insufficient and our next level of advancement becomes our driving desire to keep climbing.

If we stay among children we may deceive ourselves on our progress toward mastery.  It’s easy to feel like an accomplished mathematician in a room full of first graders. We all can become masters if we genuinely desire it. It’s not easy, it’s complicated and requires lots of repetitions and struggle, and no one can do it for us.

The spiritual journey is a unique path of progress for each one of us. As we attain mastery we immediately know those who are close to mastery and those who are pretending. Alas we also know those who have skills we have yet to master, this is your next level. Inquire of their journey secrets to get to know the road signs and paths to hasten your own advancement, but remember that only you and you alone can do the work to experience the mastery.

No matter how high you climb there’s always another step and fewer and fewer masters to share their experience. When you find yourself alone in your own space of mastery, new developments come slow but when they do arrive the Joy is Immense.

This posting is a spiritual sharing. I invite you to measure your progress against your own inner compass, it will not deceive you. No Master can do it for you they can only point you in the right direction.

Faith and Beliefs Are They The Same Thing?

I have faith that a car approaching me in the opposite lane of a divided highway will stay on their side of the road.  This despite the factual belief that it can cross onto my lane and crash head on into me.

One can rediscover faith by removing it from religion and superstition … adopting it as as the best way to live in all areas of life.

faith-beliefs
Faith and beliefs are not synonymous, many different beliefs are held by people with faith.  Belief is an opinion derived by experience. Whereas faith is a conviction that requires no experience. Beliefs are derived from critical thinking through evaluating information and evidences to which one is exposed. Faith is above and separate from our minds and from critical thinking. Faith sees beliefs for what they are, limiting and limited.

As conscious Beings with awareness we can recognize the varied beliefs derived and subscribed to through human intellect. Beliefs surrounding god, nature, politics, religion, theology, money, government, race, etc. etc. All these belief systems require one to engage intellectually with personal experience or shared knowledge.

Faith requires no such conditioning. Genuine faith cannot be shaken by any belief system. Faith allows for and encourages a willingness to explore ALL beliefs. Faith allows one to quickly see beyond the limitations of any belief. Faith allows one to recognize that beliefs are prejudiced from one’s own point of view.

Faith is fair-minded treating all viewpoints equally without regard for one’s own feelings or vested interests. Faith delivers a person from the prison of beliefs and delivers an awareness that all beliefs are limiting and actually work against faith. Faith is open to all beliefs understanding that beliefs are the framework that builds societies and are adopted for harmonious living.

Faith moves one through the contradictions and complexity of human beliefs allowing the willingness to explore and confirm all beliefs in an open-minded manner knowing they are limited to those who hold to them.

By being open to all beliefs and conditioned thought patterns we encourage unity and oneness. By holding to one belief as true over another denies faith which is open oneness and completeness. Resist limiting beliefs embrace the abundance of faith.