How can we bring our spiritual practices into the social and political arena? How can we both serve ourselves and others in politically and socially difficult situation? Topics covered: 1. The spiritual life is about developing our ability to appreciate, enjoy and love what life is offering. 2. In this process we develop or expand our sense of being until we feel connected or at one with all beings.3. Self Love First; we have to FIRST be able to not abusing ourselves emotionally and lying to ourselves by blaming other for that abuse.4. Then we can confront situations with compassion and love.5. Example of awake black guy and racist white guy. 6. We are taught to fear, including being afraid of ourselves.7. Church today.8. Politicians encourage fear to keep people controlled. 9. Church and state, religion and government are about CONTROL, products of the fear of others. 10. Systemic fear, deeply ingrained in society and ourselves.11. We are programmed like Pavlov’s dog to respond to words with physiological responses. 12. Overcoming the World is taking responsibility for our programmed reactions to what life is offering us. 13. We want to experience positive reactions.14. We can change our reactions with practice.15. The choice is ours; the power to choose comes with practice.16. Go around people who are different than us and engaging.17. Practicing loving our enemies.18. Demonstrating the light in the world.
The eastern spiritual traditions are about finding peace; the western traditions are about passion. By combining BOTH strategies we can expedite our spiritual evolution and increase the quality of our life experience.
In the spiritual process maybe the greatest HACK of all is to recognize how conditioned we all are to react to words and language. Awakening to this is a major part of being Enlightened. Language or words are used to define and make concrete the idea of our being or self. To make words and language so important is to make our “being” or the separate self-important. Overcoming the world is really overcoming our habitual reactions to words, concepts, and ideas that are causing us a negative life experience.
Many, if not most, meditation instructors practice the same meditation tactic for dozens of years and wonder why they haven’t found Enlightenment yet. They haven’t found it BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T EVOLVED their methods. In academic pursuits, we go from Kindergarten to elementary school, junior high, high school, college, and finally maybe to graduate school. Nowhere do we continue to study or practice the same exercises, so why would we assume that we should do that in our spiritual pursuits?In this episode, I talk about some of the HACKS or ways to expedite the spiritual journey that I was either taught by various teachers or ones that I developed or uncovered myself. These hacks enabled me to process faster through the various stages of the spiritual journey faster than most people.
Why do so many meditators fail to find true peace or Enlightenment? I say it is because they did not prepare themselves BEFORE they got to the mat. Both Eastern and Western traditions teach that we have to prepare ourselves for the journey BEFORE we get serious about our efforts. If we want to be doctors or lawyers we first have to learn to read and write. There is a progression to the process of meditation and the journey to Enlightenment/Heaven/Nirvana. Unfortunately, many if not most teachers of meditation today have not only skipped these steps themselves, which is why they have not found enlightenment themselves even though they have been meditating for 20-40 years. Preparing ourselves for the cushion is the first step.
My first introduction I wrote out a script just to get started and it sounded like it. This one I used an outline and let my passion out. Hopefully it is better.
In this first episode I introduce what I want to do with this podcast and the basic philosophy. Admittedly the first episode is rough, not polished, but a start. I talk about what is enlightenment/heaven/nirvana and my unique skills and insights that I bring to those who are interested in pursing a higher quality life experience. As a rebel I will be challenging conventional ways of thinking and beliefs. I will be controversial and at time confrontational as I challenge those conventional ways of thinking. I talk about embracing BOTH Eastern and Western traditions, strategies, and methods and why combining them expedites the awaking process. I will also be talking about the physiology of spirituality, to demystifying and bring confidence to the process. I also acknowledge that I am NOT religious but I think/feel that Jesus has way more to offer than the Christians acknowledge, that in fact the Christians discourage people from following Jesus' way. And lastly, I acknowledge that I/we are our own worst enemy and because of that awakening means we look at ourselves to see why we are not free to fully enjoy and love all that life has to offer.