All the above listed components are important. However, as we all should know without physical survival first often the others become impossible(at least here in the physical world).
So, If you feel you need to be alive for a good purpose it might be that you want to work on physical survival first, next Mental and Emotional survival and finally spiritual survival. I have watched many people base their entire lives on Spiritual survival but it must be known this doesn't always lead to physical, mental or emotional survival.
As a young man I visited the UCLA Library because a good friend was getting a Master's Degree in History of religion there. He was going for a PHD but realized he didn't want to stay in college until he was 30 or more to do this. So, he graduated I believe in 1976 I believe with a Master's degree instead. His specialty was Sanskrit and Buddhism in his History of Religion major even though he studied in depth all religion in this Master's and undergraduate program. With this he could teach college level History at any college that he could get a job with.
While I was there at the library I looked up Confucius because I had heard a lot about him. One of his statements seemed very practical to me. It was "Man should study man before he studies spirit." I had seen many people die in my life from putting everything into spirit first and not enough into physical, mental, emotional health and had watched them die. My parents were ministers at in the 1950s there were still a lot of unbalanced uneducated people who had barely survived the Great Depression and World War II. So they were still dying a lot from their confusion at that time. Wars and Depressions tend to make people dysfunctional, crazy and incapable of survival. Those who do often are very amazing people.
So, for me, "Man should study man before he studies spirit" typified what I had observed already among the crazy people I had met in all religions. I realized a little religion goes a long way and basic practical pragmatism saved lives but spiritual excesses often made people crazy or killed them. So, I took "Balance in everything" like the ancient Greeks did and the Lam Rim or "Middle Way" path of the Buddha as a more balanced approach after all the insanity and death I had observed growing up in a religion.
So, because I observed so much death and insanity growing up and then observed so many who went crazy or died in the 1960s and 1970s as well on the west coast, I found myself usually one of the most spiritual and practical in any room I was in because my intuition and God living in my body with me made me practical in a sort of ultimate way that I didn't observe in many people at all.
Most people I observed intuitively were either so scared of religion that they were dysfunctional around spiritual issues or they were so scared of God and Death that they were also dysfunctional and impractical around spiritual issues. So, around 90% to 95% of people I have met along the way tend to not be critical thinkers in regard to anything about God. And this often leads to their early deaths or insanity or ill health of one kind or another.
So, first you have to decide if you want to survive physically, then do that to the best of your ability. Then try to "Study man before you study Spirit" so you have enough practicality and pragmatism to actually physically survive being spiritual. In the meantime study about your own mental and emotional health so you can balance being a physical being, mental being, emotional being and spiritual being. Balance in all things will bring you happiness in all ways.
God and Life in the end is very simple, practical and wonderful. Understanding this it is a joy to be alive and to help yourself and all other beings into enlightenment by the Grace of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment