Hi TurqB, your day does sound wonderful. As does what you call your goal shift and resulting spiritual progress. I'm happy for you. Thanks for your insights which evoked in me what I write below.
For your phrase Here and Now I'm using the word presence. Anyway, in my experience at any given moment a person is always some mix of presence and what you call distraction. For myself, in a nanosecond I can slide from 90% presence and 10% distractedness to 10% presence and 90% distractedness. It helps to have an intention to be more present. And definitely for me, the state of my physiology can play a major role in how present or distracted I am. So important to stay rested, eat healthily, exercise, etc. Common sense stuff. And sometimes good to ignore this too (-: What also helps me be more present is just being more in my body. Awareness on sensations or on the breath or on focused perception. I think this is the direction spirituality is taking now, thank God. Embodied spirituality. The spirit matter split being healed. Tough love can definitely be a part of this healing. But only if it's balanced by compassionate love. Both the stick and the carrot are needed to keep us all on the path of becoming happier in ourselves and more loving towards others. And it seems that some of us are better at the stick aspect and some at the carrot. Too much of either is not ideal. But I'd say in general, better to err on the side of compassionate love than tough love. ________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 2:04 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Upselling: lofty spiritual goals as a distraction from Here And Now Walking my dogs this morning, I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window, and couldn't help but notice the enormous smile on my face. The day is beautiful -- warm, sunny, and almost what summer is supposed to be like in places other than the Netherlands :-), and I noticed the smile and it made me realize that I *really* look forward to the rest of my day. Life on a 46-year spiritual path hasn't always been like that for me. I can remember back to many mornings in which I *wasn't* looking forward to the events of the day, and to enjoying them, and to spreading that joy among the people I love. Instead, a large part of me was thinking how much "better" my day would be and my life would be if I were just enlightened. I got over it. Now I'm content with the moment, and trying to live it fully. I look upon this "goal shift" as having made spiritual progress. I've known so many seekers over the decades who have been sold lofty spiritual goals, which, once they bought into them, became the entire focus of their lives. These seekers may have *started* meditating just to enjoy their lives a little more, but that was before their teachers ran an "upsell" routine on them, and convinced them that these goals weren't lofty or meaningful enough. What was "really" important was to become enlightened. Or to actually levitate. Or to get thousands or millions of people to meditate and believe the same things they did. Or to achieve world peace. The "lofty goals" vary from spiritual trip to spiritual trip, but the purpose of them -- in my opinion -- never does. The lofty, probably unachievable goals are served up by the teachers to *distract* the students and keep them focused on the carrot-on-a-stick that keeps getting moved further and further away every year. The lofty goals are designed to keep them from noticing that they still haven't realized the "lesser goals" that were the reasons they started to meditate or pursue a spiritual path in the first place -- being able to live a happier, more fulfilling life, both for themselves and those they love, every day. How many people do you know who honestly believe that they won't be truly happy until they're enlightened? Be honest, now. Where do you think they *got* that belief? It was almost always given to them as part of an "upsell" campaign, from one or more of their spir- itual teachers. Now think about these people as individuals. How many of them would you characterize as being consistently happy in the Here And Now? My point is that many of them have *forgotten* about that "lesser goal." They've been told that it's "better" to focus on the lofty goals, and they've been told this for so long that they have forgotten the reasons that they actually started meditating in the first place. I think it's more intelligent to backtrack a little, and try to remember those original "lesser goals." Who CARES if you become enlightened, if you spend all of the days leading up to flashing out being not happy, and not fulfilled, always feeling that something is missing or lacking from your life? The last day of each of our lives is going to start exactly like today did. Chances are we're going to live it pretty much the same way we live today. I'm pretty sure, looking forward to my day -- I'm taking a bunch of kids to the beach -- that if it turns out to be my last day, I'll dive into the Bardo content and with the same smile on my face I caught a reflection of this morning in a window. And along the Way, I'll have probably shared that smile with a few others. Who needs more than that? I'll leave the lofty goals to those who feel that they're important. Call me a spiritual slacker, but I've come "full circle" to the goals I had when I first started meditating -- to become more able to live each day a little happier and a little more content, and thus more able to do nice and produc- tive things for the people I meet.
