LIVING
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Many teachers will show
you a spiritual technique to practice. Maybe
some rituals, or a specific attitude to
have. These have their place, and can yield
profound results.
However in order to change
your life in the most substantial way, you
need to change your lifestyle. You need
to learn to live in a spiritual way.
Each moment of our lives
has profound spiritual influence. Shawn
teaches how to utilize this immense power
in all facets of our lives. He says “Each
moment is almost like a battle. Almost.
There is your spiritual nature struggling
to shine, and your human/animal nature operating
automatically. It is up to you which side
wins moment to moment.”
It is taught that with
each moment, we can expand our consciousness
and become more divine, or we obey our programming
and enforce our human nature. It is not
that human nature is bad. It is that spiritual
evolution is elective. |
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When we are new to an area, we explore
it with our senses. We find it more interesting, fun.
However, when we encounter a place we are familiar with,
we lose that sense of wonder. We no longer pay attention
to, or enjoy the experience. It becomes routine being
there, so it is natural to descend into autopilot.
Each time “autopilot”
switches on, we become less conscious of our situation.
Therefore, our sense of connection and joy, fades. Our
senses dull. We are not truly present. Our human animal
is essentially living the experience for us.
The mind is subject to wander. It
will engage in fantasies, wondering about the future,
perhaps dreading it. The mind can also fix it’s
gaze upon memories, of how things worked out, what might
have been. We can no more hold on to 5pm as it passes
to 5:01 than we can hold on to our first kiss, or fondest
memory. What has occurred in our lives may still have
impact today, but that time is not there. We are not
capable of changing or altering it in any way. Therefore,
by paying attention to these fantasies of the past,
we are giving the power over us. If we look to the future
with hope or fear, we are interacting with an illusion.
The future is not here. The future will never arrive,
for when tomorrow comes it is today. The present moment
is the only thing that we have the power to change and
interact with. What is happening now is the only thing
that is REAL at this second. That is where your power
lies.
But living a spiritual lifestyle is
not limited to mindfulness, though that is a big part.
Living a spiritual life is, moment to moment, making
the decisions that will take us in a happier direction.
- Will I be compassionate or rude?
- Will I work out or not?
- Will I call my dad now or later?
- Will I ask for help, or no?
- Will yell at her when she upsets
me?
- Will I observe my pain, or react
to it?
These are the types of choices we
make, each and every moment. Shawn will guide you to
live up to the highest standard that you can at this
moment. This standard is determined by you, and constantly
upgrading. This is a warrior’s path. You must
be ever vigilant. You do not expect others to behave
as you do. It is your determination to get the most
out of now.
If you make mistakes, it would be
a negative use of your energy to begin to doubt yourself
or cut yourself down. This would be an ego-reaction.
Instead, the compassionate thing would be to forgive
yourself, observe where you made a mistake, and moment
to moment, strive to correct it.
What has been provided here are merely
samples of how one can live a spiritual life. Shawn
will guide you to be the best person that is possible.
But it is up to you to make the decision now, and over,
and over again. |
