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Posts Tagged ‘life purpose’

What Value Can You Offer the World?

“What is a cynic?
A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

~ Oscar Wilde, 19th-century Irish Writer & Poet

Giving Value

I am so glad that self-development and spiritual-development are becoming more widely accepted topics, and that so many people are embracing the betterment of their lives through connecting with nature and their true souls.

Myself, I’ve been on this path for over a decade, you could say that I have been on it for my whole life, and I have experienced some fantastic changes and magical occurrences along the way.

That being said, I occasionally still find myself falling into the trap that many modern seekers do. The quest for money…the urge to master manifestation and spiritual thinking in order to create material prosperity.

This is not to say that thoughts of this nature mean that we are losing our spiritual achievements or that we are greedy, evil people of any kind. It is simply a true factor of a modern life.

In ancient times, when humans lived in small, manageable communities, staying in the same place for generations, there was more support for the spirit and the spiritual.

Spiritual leaders, the psychically gifted and those with metaphysical knowledge were honored by the community. These special community members acted as advisers, healers and intermediaries between the people and the spiritual realms. In return they were supported with food, clothing, shelter and love.

But those days and those community ties no longer exist for most of us. Thus it follows that we HAVE to be concerned with our own finances and how to get what we need in this world. The challenge is to learn to balance this with our spiritual development and spiritual outlook, without losing our focus and becoming myopically fixed on the “prosperity” issue.

Being a parent now, I am faced with this issue nearly everyday. You put yourself and aside and instead focus everything on the little being you are now trying to raise. Money does not go far, especially when you are trying to choose between providing the best for them in the present moment or saving for their educational and life expenses of the future.

Here I am, in one of the most historic and ecologically beautiful towns in Eastern Canada, fields and trails and ancient waterways all around me, and I am still worrying about paying the phone bill.

So, walking around with these very thoughts in my head yesterday afternoon, a line from a song that I was listen to caught my attention: “When did the light die?”

And at that very moment it occurred to me that with all of the planning and dreaming and … Continue reading →

First Action, To Benefit Others

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Feeding Others

Life can be confusing sometimes. Even the simple act of getting everything that needs doing completed each day can turn our heads round and make us forget that we are living a unique life and that we are individual bits of divine spirit energy. To be honest with you I am known to be a huge procrastinator and often several days can go by without me pausing to take notice of life, spirit or my connections to others.

Over the years I have gotten much better at doing things that need doing, even if I don’t feel particularly motivated to do them, at least more often than I used to. Like when dishes need washing, I use the “just do 5 dishes” mentality and, inevitably, I end up doing 20. Starting is the hardest part.

Days are the same way. Starting them may not be as hard as picking up your tax forms and filling them out, but how you start you day most certainly sets the pattern for how the remainder of your day will flow (or stagnate.)

Oddly enough, my own busy-ness and procrastination, which are always in the way of me starting or completing things, seem to end right at the place where my comfort and desires begin. In other words, I never have trouble finding the time to bake brownies or getting up and starting a new knitting project. Those things are easy to remember and to place priority on. Yet, publication deadlines, jogging, paying bills and mopping the floors can get pushed back for weeks and even months.

I suppose you could call this self-indulgence, and in some instances our distracted mind can fall into such a “pleasure and comfort” pattern. But, in most people’s case, it is so much more than just that.

We live in a world filled with over-stimulation. The mental and visual landscape seems designed, and often deliberately intended, to keep you … Continue reading →