VENTURING INWARD

As a culture we tend to be strongly outer-directed; we are not trained to venture inward to find the next steps of our growth. As a result, much truth lies hidden within us, in the depths of our self. Of that unknown, hidden self, there is much that must be unfolded in order for us to embody the truth of divinity.

For instance, one of the tasks of the present age now is to draw on its spiritual heritage and, through reestablishing the collective female consciousness, develop a way of life which doesn’t need a domineering hierarchy at its base and which returns humanity to its efforts to live out the knowledge that they are all one.

Our discontent and subtle suffering spring from the loss of the feminine values, and we face formidable obstacles in restoring this value. To be fed only male images of the divine is to be badly malnourished.

For the ordinary mind, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible, and fear is created, not by the world around them, but in their mind, by what they think is going to happen.

For ordinary people spirituality means being a ‘nicer’ person and loving a nebulous creator while fearfully retaining all the rules of morality and ideas of God they were ever taught. The accumulation of their old religious concepts often festers into moral guilt or self-righteousness, while effectively sapping strength from any new spiritual inspiration.

What happens when there is no transformation of spiritual consciousness?

It’s very subtle: unknowingly the ego uses religion to preserve itself, defend itself, change the world for itself, and thus religion becomes the servant of the ego, its cloak and its mask. This is the most powerful position the ego can possibly assume, because it is all in the name of the divine and ultimate truth.

For instance:

the revelation of the divine to the feminine psyche is not wholly understandable to the masculine consciousness, for which reason it has been largely ignored, not taken seriously, and simply brought into conformity with the masculine psyche.

the most basic reason for uneasiness with female metaphors for God is that unlike the male metaphors, whose sexual character is clocked, the female metaphors seem blatantly sexual and involve the sexuality most feared; female sexuality.

the old argument that in the end truth must be the same for all is not very convincing when ultimate truth reveals itself to men only, or when men only have defined it, taught it, propagated it, are its sole authorities, and historically have defended it with outright wars.

if female history is different, if female biology if different, if female psychology is different, if all the hundreds of little responses to life’s daily occurrences are different, how can the spirituality be the same?

There’s often a big temptation for persons on their spiritual way to leave their ordinary life behind and seek a greater involvement in ‘practice,’ but these people must realize that the ‘practice’ is always done right where they are.

Spiritual growth is not attaining a permanent perfected state that is rid of negative emotions or experiences. It is, instead, finding out who we are. Awareness and acceptance and acceptance of all parts of ourselves grants us freedom and enables us to understand and have compassion for others.

We must realize that all of life is relationship.

Presently, the entire world is being driven insane by this single phrase: “My religion alone is true.”

All paths to spiritual enlightenment are good. It depends on conditioning and tendencies and living in the present moment. Different lines of approach suit different types of people. Eternity is now, if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere.

This entry was posted on 14. May 2010 at 22:37 and is filed under Links. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.