Day 4 of the 40 day spiritual journey from the book 'The Purpose Driven Life
- what on earth am I here for?' by Rick Warren
My insights from Day 4 are that, to me, True Life is an endless ocean.
Rick talks about this life as a dress rehearsal before the main act.
I like the analogy of waves in an ocean. From my earlier blog:
Enlightenment is becoming the ocean
I like the idea that the universe is a great ocean of life.
A great ocean is continuously producing new waves that then grow,
live for a while, and then merge back into the ocean again.
Its a non-stop process.
An ocean of life is continuously producing new 'beings' that then grow,
live for a while and then merge back into the ocean again.
The problem is that many of us believe that we are the finite waves,
with a seperate birth, life and death, instead of knowing that we are
all the vast infinite ocean itself that is continually creating and
manifesting beings in so many different ways.
One big wave, perceiving itself to be seperate and rushing towards
the see shore said to another big wave, 'we are going to crash and die'.
The other wave said, 'just relax, flow and be, and you will see how we
will all gently subside, pull back from the shore for a while, as part of
our natural cycle, and then recreate again, as new waves, later'.
This ocean metaphor comes from the Sages of the East.
I am not entirely comfortable with the Christian view that we can only
come to know and commune with God through his only son, Jesus.
And those that reject Jesus's love, forgiveness, and salvation, will
spend eternity apart from God altogether?
That implies that we have to 'convert' those that may choose to worship
God, the Creative Intelligence, the One and All, as Hindu's, Muslims,
Buddhists or whatever, for their salvation.
I prefer to simply strive to become more Christlike, Allahlike, Krishnalike,
Buddhalike, etc. God is God and we are all equally his sons and daughters.
It should be inclusive, not exclusive.
We should not convert anybody but share our truths with one another so that
individuals can develop and change their thoughts and beliefs themselves.
What I think we all really need is to identify these common underlying
spiritual, timeless, changeless principles, and all work together, in our
chosen religions, non-religions and other spiritual paths, to manifest them
for the good of all beings.
Surely, no one religion can be only absolutely right and all the others totally wrong?
True 're-ligion' is a personal experience that goes way beyond labels.
I do like it when Rick says "the closer you live to God, the smaller everything
else appears". I guess that ego and self start to vanish when we are faced
with Self.
On his discussion about eternity and here and now, I think of the two
hemisheres of the brain again.
The right brain can only deal with eternity and infinity. It is timeless.
The left brain can only deal with past, present and future.
The wholebrain works with both eternity and here and now.
I love the notion of continually pulling eternity into the here and now.
That's why stewardship has to be the best form of leadership. We all need
to become self stewards and self leaders of everything we see.
More at:
http://www.in-love-with-wisdom.com/
