Attain Peace of Mind and Live from True Intelligence
Do you ever wish that you can attain peace of mind? Have you ever considered that you are a normal person with personal development (and maybe beyond) aspirations. What if you were to really take a look at the world of normal people. You might find that from a more detached view you would see that normal people are, not to mince words, kind of crazy. The modern mystic Eckhart Tolle writing in the Power of Now says of the human being
the human being is insane.
The Buddha who was one of the guides to the undoing this absence of peace of mind called this insanity suffering and outlined the path to the cessation of suffering. Suffering means different things for different people. To the man who cannot feed his children because of drought there is intense suffering. For the man who is attached himself to the idea of success and failure there is a different kind of suffering. It was interesting for me to read in The Compassionate Intention of Illness by Tony Humphreys and Helen Ruddle that one of the causes of heart failure is considered to be the addiction to success. Uncertainty is increasing dramatically in recent times. There is the constant invitation to fill our minds with the threat of terrorism. There is the worry of losing our employment and if we are sensitive we are also concerned about the future of our children within this uncertain day to day living. We all want peace but there doesn’t seem to be that much of it about.
Beatrice – Rosetti
There is, however, a way to attain inner peace if you are committed to such attainment. This is learning how to attain inner peace of mind beyond that monkey mind that is filled with restless thoughts and to follow what the poet Max Ehrmann writing in the inspirational poem Desiderata referred to as as the ability to
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
In a very real way you do not choose your thoughts. Anyone who has meditated, even once, will tell you that thoughts simply come and go. There is experienced, for the most part, simply internal noise. If you pay attention to the thoughts in your mind you will find that your mind is like a badly tuned radio and that there is little peace of mind. You will find that you have what is termed in Buddhism as a monkey mind. This means that you are not the master of your mind but that you have a kind of a monkey on a chain that simply jerks you around. What tends to happen is that the mind is often filled with worries anxieties, goals, things to do. Most normal people are enslaved by their thoughts.
The good news is that you can be free to attain peace of mind. This is not necessarily the absence of through but means that the coming and going of thoughts are simply allowed to be the coming and going of thoughts and in simply witnessing this coming and going the mind of its own accord begins to become calm. You begin to attain peace of mind not by trying to attain peace of mind but by using your witness consciousness to simply witness what is moving through the mind. Over time you will then become master of your own mind. You will find a magic that you might never have considered possible. This is the magic of being able to choose when to think and when not to think. Thinking is simply a habit but it is a habit that is driving the human race insane.
Calmness of mind is the most powerful of experiences. It brings inner peace and it impacts the collective mind of humanity. Out of this calmness there arises a stillness. This is the stillness that speaks but not in words. It gives you the ability to access true intelligence. Here are some of the powers connected to this wonderful sense of inner peace.
Attain Peace of Mind Through Stillness
True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to
problems are foundDo you need more knowledge? Is more information going to save the world, or
faster computers, more scientific or intellectual analysis? Is it not wisdom that
humanity needs most at this time?But what is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wisdom comes with the ability to
be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and
listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct
your words and actions.
From Stillness Speaks
Stillness SpeaksStillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle
You can attain inner peace provided the proper training is undertaken. This training for inner peace of mind frees the monkey on a chain kind of mind from the compulsion of incessant thinking is True control the mind is not just the ability to concentrate on one thought and disregard other thoughts. It is the ability to cleanse the mind completely and make it silent. This silence brings peace, contentment, happiness and bliss. The first real step is to take some begin some form of meditation and make the commitment to work with the chosen practice for at least a three month period. There are any number of meditation practices available. It is preferable that you do this practice in a group to begin with because it is so much easier to remain motivated because the monkey does not want to give up its power to jerk the chain of your habitual thought processes.
Peace of mind is something we all seem to want, and want more of. There are so very few of us get to attain this peace of mind, and when we do it tends to be fleeting. Here are some suggestions as to how you might, not so much get peace of mind, but reveal that underlying sense of peace that arises from the stillness that speaks.
How to Attain Peace of Mind
- Give yourself time to be. This means that you simply spend time doing nothing other than witnessing the content of your mind without trying to change it.
- For some period each day give up the need to achieve something.
- When you choose to practice sitting still notice how you will resist. Your ego will fight you doing this practice. It wants to retain control and keep you distracted.
- Keep your focus on breathing in and out. Do not change your breathing but allow it to come and go. It too will become still.
To attain peace of mind and maintain peace of mind is a choice. That isn’t to say that it is an easy choice. The reality is that you are working against a collective mind called humanity that spends most of its time in distraction with the outer world. You are not separate from this collective and you have to work against this collective inertia that does not really want to do the work of changing the inner environment that then will be reflected in your outer world. If you do choose to make the commitment to attain peace of mind then expect resistance. When this experience of resistance arises then practice a meditation called the Meditation of Loving Kindness. Be kind to yourself. Learn to trust the stillness within that speaks from the heart. Remember inner peace is not something that you get but is more a state of mind that you reveal beyond the noise and chatter of your everyday thinking.
Finding that dimension (the dimension of no thought) frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on
yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your
life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your
life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness.If you can recognize, even occasionally, the thoughts that go through your mind as
just thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-emotional reactive patterns as
they happen, then that dimension is already emerging in you as the awareness in
which thoughts and emotions happen — the timeless inner space in which the
content of your life unfolds.
Attaining peace of mind begins with intention. That intention is then aligned with the will that will then manifests in action. Without the will to peace of mind and a committment, which is a daily commitment, then there is merely the normal mind which will then be mirrorred in the outer world. In choosing to attain peace of mind you are not only gracing your own life but the life of this collective called humanity. This is truly a win/win situation. Practice deep self interest and attain peace of mind and bless yourself and each and everyone of us.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
inner peace
THE NEXT STAGES IN HUMAN EVOLUTION – We are now entering the twenty-first century and the third millennium. A perceptible feeling hangs in the air that the world is rapidly approaching one of history’s decisive seismic shifts. Changes are looming ahead o
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS – Video about the various states of consiousness.
THE SOUL JOURNEY – Spiritual growth programs guide you on The Soul Journey. It and many spiritual ebooks will support your growth by developing more soul consciousness.
Dream Interpretation and Developing Psychic powers
In my personal and spiritual development work I pay attention to my dreams in order to assist in developing psychic powers. This paying attention to ones dreams assists that phase of the spiritual journey the writer Jim Marion calls physic consciousness. The attention to dream work can lead to the awakening and the developing of physic powers. Here is what Jim Marion writes about the psychic level of consciousness,
At the psychic level of consciousness we no longer identify the self with the rational mind. Instead, we identify the self with the inner witness that observes body, emotions, and mind. This inner witness is the permanent self, the part of the self beyond space and time. The permanent self has senses such as clairaudience and clairvoyance that roughly parallel the physical sense, and which are referred to in the New Testament. Persons with psychic consciousness may make use of abilities such a healing by laying on of hands, prophesy and speaking in tongues.
This developing psychic powers arises from beyond that aspect of the self called the personality. These psychic abilities arise from within. They give guidance and are for the use of the highest good of all. It is not at all a good idea to delve into such psychic dimensions unless your personality is integral and that you are in good psychological shape. These physic powers are not there for the purpose of self serving but for use in the service of the Self, or to state it another way, they are there to serve Loves purpose.
Dreams are also the language of the the psychic consciousness. They are what John A. Stanford, a Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest calls
God’s forgotten language.
The Beguiling of Merlin – Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Developing Psychic Powers
1st Stage in Developing Psychic Powers with Dream Interpretation
.
Those persons who are moving into the witness stage of consciousness, which is also the psychic stage of consciousness, can develop a deeper understanding of themselves by doing what this writer and storyteller calls dreamwork. This is where one, as a first stage in dream interpretation, engages in writing one’s dreams out on paper and then reflecting on them. I had a dream some nights ago. This is an outline of this dream and the practice of dream interpretation that invites the development and awakening your psychic power. This practice should be followed with the intention of revealing those aspects of yourself that are required to be integrated into the personality. Do not play around with psychic phenomena simply out of curiosity.
I am travelling with two companions. It is late at night. There is a bus that we can get to a hostel. We find a number of buses. All these buses have their lights out and there is no sign to say where they are going. The buses are driven away into the night and we are left out in the cold dark night. One of my companions tells me he is going off to find a place to sleep. I am left wondering if we will be warm enough throughout the night.
2nd Stage of Developing Psychic Powers aligned Dream Interpretation
The next part of the dream interpretation is simply to take the images and symbols that immediately speak to you. Do this without any rationalisation or any judgement. The symbols or images that you choose at this point of the process do not have to make any logical sense. In fact it is more likely that at this point of the exercise that they will not make sense. Please don’t dishonour the dream by going and looking up its meaning in a dream dictionary. Simply trust this process of dream interpretation to reveal to you what the dream is inviting you to know. Here are some of the immediate images and phrases that come to mind in relation to the above dream.
- left out in the cold
- missed the bus
- dark night
- three companions
- no signs
- hostel
When I first awoke from this dream the first thought I had was around the idea of having missed the but. This is of course a common day expression meaning that one has missed some kind of opportunity to that it is too late to seize such opportunity. The question then follows for me the dreamer
What opportunity have I missed
3rd Stage of Dream Interpretation
The third stage of dream interpretation is to pay attention to how you feel in the body when you are working with the images and phrases that you have written down. In working energetically with the above dream I do not feel that I have missed some opportunity. If there is little or no change in your energy then do not force the issue and move on. This work also requires that you are in touch with your feeling self. There will be some part of the dream that rises your energy even if it is only slightly. In this stage of dream interpretation you are listening to the body more than the intellect. Since there is not energy moving around the image of the image of having missed the bus I move on. I take the phrase and the image in the dream of the dark night. In this dream there is a clear reference to having to live through a dark night and wondering will I be warm enough. The thought about being warm enough is the throught about being loved enough. The question that arises from me is, “Will there be love enough to take me through the cold dark night?”
In this dream the community of three is abandoned by the people of the bus. The issue of abandonment raises the energy for me because it has been for me an archetypal theme that rans through my life. The trinity, which I take to mean the holy trinity of mind/body/spirit, is left to make it through a dark night without shelter. In a real Dark Night of the soul, which is a passage one transitions at higher levels of consciousness, the individual is left without signs. One is abandoned to make it through without even the assurance that one will make it through, All that can take one through the dark night is a connection to the Self and even this is felt to be lost. The transition of the dark night is called the Crucifixion initiation. It is that moment in your life where you feel totally abandoned without any support from your previous life’s experience.
The main feeling in this dream is a sense of anxiety. It is important to pay attention to the feelings that the dream images and phrase evoke. For me it is the anxiety of the cold. The cold to me is representative of frozen love and abandonment that I felt throughout my childhood. This dream may be indicating that I am required to process the sense of abandonment by travelling through a dark night without signs and without certainty that such a night might be survived. It is the idea of non-survival that makes me anxious. The dark night, however, in its final stages is the process of dying into life.
The Nightmare – Henry Fuseli
In writing about dreams and their value in developing psychic powers one begins to become clearer about their invitation. In this dream I am not really concerned about missing the bus. The missing of the bus is a prelude to travelling through the dark night without signs or without shelter from lack of love from any source. The bus is a communal vechile and a vehicle of communion. Does this mean I am going through a dark night of the soul or will go through a dark night of the soul. At this moment in time it does not feel like this will happen. As to the future one never knows. However, it is important for serious personal and spiritual development to know of the various stages of consciousness that any human being will journey through. In this way one can at least be intellectual, if not psychologically, prepared for those periods of transition that do appear. You will become more aware at what level of consciousness that developing psychic powers reveals itself to you
Here is what Jim Marion writes about the Dark Night of the Soul
The Dark Night of the Soul constitutes the transition from the subtle to the casual levels of human consciousness. It is the transition during which our identification of ourselves as human personalities finally gives way to the realisation of our divinity.
Dream interpretation will assist the integration of the conscious personality with the unconscious and to developing psychic powers. This integration will develop to the point that one becomes able to surrender the personality to the will of the Divine. This is a very high state of consciousness and cannot be dictated to by ego demands. At higher levels of consciousness more subtle energies become available but it is important to be aware of the dangers involved in playing around with such energies because you can be damaged in a psychological way. The sense of total abandonment is a common experience of the individual who is moving from the subtle stage of consciousness to the causal stage of consciousness. Paying attention to your dreams can, and does, allow you to integrate what is within with what is without and gives you integrity enough that you can then enter the hell of total abandonment. This is the precursor to your dying into eternity while still living in time and space.
The development of psychic powers will arise from integrity and not simply from curiosity. These powers are for prophesy, healing and for the greater good. They are absolutely not there for the development of the power of the ego. Be warned. Do not go developing psychic powers without first beginning to develop powers of self love, compassion and integrity. Commit to becoming a servant of Love for the highest good of all. First develop states of consciousness beyond identification with the ego. Then the how of developing psychic powers may well be revealed to you. Master the use of these developing psychic powers but do not dwell in this region of consciousness because it is the region of hell realms.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
psychic development
4 STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH – The stages of spiritual growth is sometimes not easily identified, and we’re all of us are undergoing a transformation down this path, even if some of us don’t know it.
KARMA TUBE is a collection of inspiring videos. This website brings inspirational stories to light, using the power of video and the internet to multiply acts of kindness, beauty and compassion
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path
Inspirational Poems on Friendship and Soul Friendship
Inspirational poems on friendship and the experience of soul friendship is a key feature at this personal development and beyond blog so let me share some inspirational poems on friendship. Friendship is also a key aspect of all our lives. These inspirational poems are those written by famous poets. This sharing of my choice of inspirational poems on friendship will include that aspect of friendship called Anam cara - meaning soul friendship. Friends are the ones who are always with us whatever the circumstances. I think if you are graced to have friends enough to count on one hand that you are blessed. The best way to have a friend is to be a friend. The best way is to be a friend is to honour the essence of yourself and in that way you will always tend to honour the other.
Two Girls with Oleander – Gustav Klimt
A Poem about what Friendship is
My mother was a good friend to me when she gave me a book that I still have some thirty years after. I go back and read it on occasion when I want to read an inspirational poem on friendship. This first inspirational poem about friendship is from the best selling book called the Prophet by the poet and artist Khalib Gibran. It is a series of poems whereby the wise man (the Prophet) is asked to speak to his community. The people are grieving his leaving them in order to return to his homeland. They know what they are losing and he, the Prophet seeks to ease their pain of such loss by leaving them with inspired words. Here is what the Prophet says on Friendship.
Friendship
And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Khalil Gibran
.
Inspirational Poems on Friendship and Love
Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree –
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.
by Emily Bronte
Friendship is the mind’s readiness,
The heart’s willingness
and the life’s oneness.Shi Chinmoy
Inspirational Poem on Soul Friendship (Anam cara)
Pygmalion and the Image – The Soul Attains - Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Finally here is a poem by a soul friend who I never actually met but who has accompanied me along this way of inspirational poetic life. This is a poem by one who was a true soul friend to those who where graced to be able to share the beauty and grace of his poetic heart. This is the poet and Celtic scholar John Donohue writing in this poem
Beannacht (The Blessing)
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
John O’ Donohue
The above are some of the many inspirational poems that have been written on friendship. This personal development and beyond blog invites you into the beauty and power of the inspiration that you are here to be. You may not be a poet but at the higher levels of personal and spiritual development the heart will express its essence through the power of poetry. It is the symbolic language of the soul. This is why you find that the power of poetry is often there to support us when we journey to threshold places during life’ transitions. Let me finish with a friendship quote to invite you to remember to be a friend and to be a good friend to the person, and beyond the person, that love intends you to be.
“Friendship… is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t
learned anything.”
-Muhammad Ali
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
inspirational poetry
4 STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH – The stages of spiritual growth is sometimes not easily identified, and we’re all of us are undergoing a transformation down this path, even if some of us don’t know it.
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path
KARMA TUBE is a collection of inspiring videos. This website brings inspirational stories to light, using the power of video and the internet to multiply acts of kindness, beauty and compassion
Inspirational Story for Parents – Meeting with a Giant Toddler
Mother and Child – Fredrick Lord Leighton
Let me share with you one of the inspirational stories that I have written for parents about a child I once met. This is a true inspirational story for parents about the meeting with a toddler, who will I hope, be blessed to retain the innocence that he so clearly lived and so evidently loved to share. I was graced to share his wisdom and strength if only of some very little time. I share this inspirational story for parents so that any parent reading this story will remember the time of innocence that is all too quickly forgotten. This is not simply an inspirational story for parents but will be of interest to anyone who wishes to remember what it is to live in the world with a sense of presence.
“A child’s hand in yours what
tenderness and power arouses.
You are instantly the very touchstone
of wisdom and strength.”
Marjorie Holmes
Inspirational Story for Parents
She said,
Children are for sharing. Not everyone can have one.
We never did. So it is a delight to share time with these creatures of being. They are still connected to their original face. They still play in the garden of eternity. His name sounds as Finn. He has beautiful blue eyes and the blondest of blond hair. He shares his name with Finn Mac Cumhail. This is frequently anglicised as Finn Mac Cool. Finn Mac Cool is one of the most celebrated heroes in Irish myth. Little Finn will be tall and beautiful. Now he is small and beautiful. He is learning to talk. He is learning to put distance between his immediacy. There will be a time when he thinks about his life rather than allow it to flow. He will learn to dance rather than be the dance.
Being around children reminds me that they feel their experience moment to moment. When they look they see what is before them. They do not judge their experience. They are their experience. This is why they are so delightful even if sometimes they behave as if this world belonged to them and them alone. They know this world belongs to them until they are told differently. This is their real understanding of this world. It is we who have forgotten. They are there to help us remember.
I am standing at the edge of Lough Allen in Co. Leitrim in Ireland close to where I live. I have come to visit the beach at Corry Strand. This is where I meet this giant among toddlers. My partner Barbara has met this child before. His Mum had come to hear a concert or play at the Glen Centre in Manorhamilton. While Mum watched the play Barbara minded child. When he became fractious and upset she walked him down the main street. She held him close in her arms and sang Gershwin. He settled at the sound of this melody sang softly into his shell like ear.
He quickly learned my name. He quickly gave me the gift of his trusting heart. It came as a delightful surprise to find him placing his little hand in mine. He had decided he and I would take a stroll along the sand. We walked and came to sit by the remains of a campfire. He told me stories. These were one-word stories.These were one word stories facilitated by finger pointing. He reminded me of the old Zen Master who tells his student “I am only the finger pointing at the moon.” Here is my little Zen master teaching me the simplicity of seeing.
One story is “stone.” The other story is “dog.” Each is direct and immediate. There is no sense of fear. There is only the continued pointing of the finger. He makes the stones come alive. He sees them before ever they have labels. Too soon there will come a time when he lives in labels. Too soon he will think he knows what a “stone” is. Soon he will forget how he once saw the wonder of that “stone” and that “dog.” He will swap wonder for knowledge. He will swap what is partial for what is holy. He will become a rational person rather than the mysterious little being he is.
Peep-A-Boo by Sophie Anderson
He reminds me of Yoda in Star Wars. The force is with him. He is a wise little being with a hand that shows art in every gesture. He shows me the gladness of the ever-present moment. He is selfish as all children are. This is their world. However, they love to share it with you. This world is their playground and they want you to play here too. On this shore of Lough Allen he reminds me of that other shore. This is the one we seekers long to sail for. It takes us to that timeless shore where we are forever young. My work is to do what Finn does best. I spend time patiently allowing myself to enter this mystery of life. He is still held within it. I am the amateur and he is the pro-fessional of presence.
He is a fount of wisdom. He does not have the words. He only has his finger. He uses this to conduct dialogues with this mystery of life. He allows the music of life to play through his little body. I am only a part of the orchestra and too often I feel apart from the music. He plays all parts expertly and is the music. Time will be when he will forget he is the play of God. Time will wrap around him and he will be taught to “do life.” He will be taught that life has to be earned. He will be advised that it is more important to earn a living rather than be alive to love. He will be taught his creativity does not fit with economics. He will become productive and competitive rather than celebratory and abundant. He will give up his wondrousness for acceptance.
He will forget that he is forever enough. If he is lucky he will meet with other wise men and women who will tell him to risk all for love. He will forget that love is all he needs. He will turn from love in action to love of activity. His is the fall from the grace of being to the non-grace of persona. We are all destined to fall from this grace. He will be loved but he will feel separate from all that is When he is older he will, I hope, take another hand. He will stand on another shore.
It is my hope that he will remember to look at the beauty of what is without labels. He will no longer see it the way that we lost in social consciousness see it. He will, I hope, one day see again via his heart. The way he sees now. When this happens he will be a giant among men. He will be Finn. He will be fair of face and fair of hair. Thank you Finn for your instruction. I am blessed to have shared your wisdom. You are already a giant among men. You are a child of the Universe. Never forget little one. May the force be forever with you and may you stay forever young in that little heart that you are so ready to share.
THE END
I hope that you enjoyed this inspirational story for parents that was gifted to me from a giant among toddlers.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
inspirational storytelling
THE HERO’S JOURNEY – Video that outlines the personal and spiritual development called the Hero’s Journey
SPIRITUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION – The study shows student life is enhanced if students engage in “inner work” through activities such as meditation or self-reflection
SELF HEALING EXPRESSIONS – Browse various articels related to topics such as Spiritual Soul Mates, Life Purpose and Dream Interpretation
8 Ways for Developing a Plan for Spiritual Growth
Earthbound by Evelyn Pickering De Morgan
What might you do to create a plan for spiritual growth? This is a great question, leading to a great practice and a great personal and spiritual development vision quest. Here are some ideas that come the this Irish storytellers mind when considering a plan for spiritual growth.
8 Ways to Develop a Plan for Spiritual Growth
- Follow you dreams – these are the invitations from you unconscious mind.
- Commit to a daily spiritual practice.
- Make yourself fully aware of the stages of personal and spiritual development from many sources.
- Understand the power of symbols and the language of the unconscious.
- Study the different stages of faith and belief inherent on the path of spiritual growth.
- Understand the value of resistance in moving from one stage of spiritual development to another.
- Align yourself with your core personal and spiritual values.
- Be of service to something higher than the ego.
Spiritual growth is in many ways a grace that is revealed rather than something that you achieve. Within the process of spiritual growth you are not adding anything to yourself so much as allowing the power, the grace and the beauty of the spirit to be revealed and known to you. The above eight suggestions are what might be called the invitation to ground work. Metaphorically speaking you become a kind of sacred gardener. The above eight suggestions for a planned spiritual growth are seeds that you plant and tend and pay attention too. The poet David Whyte reminds us that
Whatever you can plan is too small for you.
Like any aspect of life in this world of duality there is the tension of opposites. Any plan for spiritual growth invites the positive and the negative. A plan for spiritual growth can lead to spiritual egotism. On the positive side of having a plan for spiritual growth is that you create a boundary. All deep religious practice tends to have a tight structure but the spiritual growth paradoxically takes place when the boundaries of that structure are expanded. This expansion cannot be planned for but it can be understood as part of the process and allowed to be part of the process of personal and spiritual growth and development. It is the view of this writer and storyteller that it helps to know the maps that are available to guide you on the spiritual journey which is really a spiritual journey into awareness of your Love nature. This journey into your Love nature is also a journey into deepening levels of trust and faith and so it also helps to understand that there are also different levels of faith. Each level is more expansive than the other.
Juno and the Three Graces - Arther Bowen Davies
In your plan for spiritual growth it also helps to understand the dynamic of resistance. Spiritual growth is a kind of series of birthing’s into more expanded ways of being and seeing. Each stage of personal and spiritual development involves resistance which is a breaking out of an old paradigm into the new. This breaking into higher levels of spiritual stages is resisted by the ego because the ego does not like change. The ego likes what is known and what is habitual. It likes variety but only the kind of variety that is already within its sphere of experience. It does not like and will resist the birth of a more expanded state of consciousness. A plan for spiritual growth is not something you undertake with a take it or leave it kind of attitude. The plan for spiritual growth is a commitment you make to reveal what it is you are created to be. The revelation you are cannot be planned because any plan, including a plan for spiritual growth, is too small to contain the vastness of who you are and are to become. The discipline and the commitment on a daily basis is the boundary you create for the boundless to arrive. In the words of the Chinese proverb you
keep a green bough in the heart and the singing bird will come.
The plan for spiritual growth is the plan to keep the green bough green with the hope that the singing bird – the holy spirit – will come to light up your life. make any plan for your spiritual growth you own. Your ability to personally authorise this will be dependant on the state of spiritual development that you are at. This is why it helps to at least have a broad understanding of the stages of personal development that are mapped out in various religious traditions and other fields of human development. I suspect that if you are a regular reader of this personal development and beyond blog that you are at a level of personal and spiritual development where you are willing to authorise your own spiritual growth. If not then the freedom to choose your plan for spiritual growth may well be forced upon you and will by its very nature be more restrictive. However, such stricture may well become the catalyst for spiritual breakthrough so make a start and remember,
The journey of one thousand miles begins with the first step.
The spiritual growth plan need only begin with a small step. It is better that you take small steps on a regular basis rather than irregular steps on an adhoc basis. Include in your spiritual growth plan alignment with your core values. These are not the values of you ego or the culture you live in but your core value as a universal value that desires to be allowed to express through you. This is the core value that you work at cultivating and manifesting from within to without. This is the value that is invited by the Rumi poem.
Birdsong
Birdsong brings relief
to my longing
I’m just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please universal soul, practice
some song or something through me!
Without alignment with your core universal value the song you are here to sing in your unique way will remain unsung. You will in a real sense be an unsung hero. The metaphor of birdsong is the metaphor for the hearts joy. Symbolically speaking it is the element of air which represents the heart chakra and the bird which, in most art represents the experience of the grace of knowing what it is that the heart longs for. This is not the longing promoted by endless media and culture advertising that neither cultivates or invites growth but works as to fill up the emptiness at the heart of life lived without meaning and purpose. A plan for spiritual growth will give you more joy than retirement planning. Understanding the challenges and opportunities held within the different stages of spiritual development and also different stages of life offer you the greatest opportunity of living the wild and precious life you are here to be blessed with and bless from.
The way in which you know that the plan for spiritual growth is working is that your heart will begin to long to serve something beyond the sense of the limited self you call me, my and mine. How that service will manifest, I suggest, you do not plan for but allow to unfold out of the practices suggested above. Remember that spiritual growth is vast and that there is real beauty in knowing that whatever you plan is too small for the infinite that you are a part off but never apart from.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
stages of faith development
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS – Video about the various states of consiousness.
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path
PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION – Spiritual evolution is about growth of being, an ever brightening of the godspark that is your consciousness. Knowledge is the crucial cornerstone of this process, but a cornerstone alone provides no shelter. Unaccompa
Doubt and Faith–Two Sides of the Same Coin
The Sorrowing Soul Between Doubt and Faith – Elihu Vedder
What if doubt and faith are simply two sides of the same coin and without one the other cannot really exist? What if doubt is not the opposite of faith? What if, in the polarity that is doubt and faith, it the experience of doubt that drives the stages of faith development forward? What if, without doubt, faith is simply a collection of reassuring thoughts that tend to support a level of dependency needs? What if doubting one’s faith is a necessary stage of spiritual growth even if it is a painful stage of spiritual growth? Philosopher Miguel de Unamuo once remarked that those who believe in God but who do so without anguish, uncertainty or doubt, actually believe only in the idea of God and not in God himself. This stage of faith development that is belief about God is that state of spiritual development called the Form/Institutional stage.
A mental belief in a collection of reassuring thoughts and ideas does not reach the depths of the heart that can take one into the higher stages of spiritual development. These are the higher stages of spiritual development where one becomes a knower and not simply one who settles for knowing about the God one professes to believe in. This belief in a set of ideas and collection of thoughts is what most people take to be religious faith. This belief, however, is only one of many stages of faith development. It is that stage of faith development where the individual takes the wisdom teachings literally. This stage of faith development is called childish literalism. This is were the words of the wisdom teachings are taken literally as written. For example the idea that the world was made in six days is taken to mean that the world was in fact created in six week days. The creation myth of the Garden of Eden is taken quite literally as place where there is a tree that bears fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Stages of Faith Development and Doubt
How does one develop what are called more mature stages of faith? The paradoxical answer is through doubt. One begins to see faith and doubt not as opposites but as energies that invite the higher stages of faith development. Without the experience of doubt you would not begin to ask deeper questions of life and you would thus not take the quest that ultimately leads you to knowing rather than believing. Without the experience of doubt you would avoid the quest into a more expansive dimension of faith. Without the journey, into and through doubt, you would not enter a mature faith that would be able to move such mountains of doubt. Doubts force us to stop accepting half truths and false security. Doubt makes us question the authority of those who tell us what we should believe. Certainly, without this form of questioning, one simply remains an individual who never claims their own authority in matters of the highest value. Doubt forces us to stir ourselves out of bed and take the road of trials that is a stage of the spiritual development map known as The Hero’s Journey.
The Road of Trials means that we follow the call to claim our own truth as written within the heart. Doubt can be seen as a precursor to higher levels of faith development. This is the road of trials that takes you through disbelief and into communion with that which is beyond belief. It takes you into true communion and into the direct knowing of that truth that really sets you free of doubt. A crisis of faith, is thus an opportunity to deepen your spiritual development. A loss of faith can bring you to discover what is beyond belief. This crises of faith often takes place around the age of forty and is that stage of life referred to as midlife. There is guidance along the road of trials but it usually arrives in new and unique ways. This guidance comes from within and then manifests without. The life stage called midlife crisis is that stage of personal and spiritual development that asks us to place our faith in the inner.
My own crisis of faith is not just a one off experience but a developing journey of experiences. I am no longer so disturbed by experiencing times of doubt and confusion. The real issue for me personally is not so much the issue of doubt but the issue of impatience. I am now moving into the second half of life as an elder and mentor and have a deep desire to be more effective in this way. I also have doubts about how I might most effectively move in this direction. This is the direction where my heart lies and thus this is were my treasure is also. It is in the process of trusting the still small voice within that I experience impatience. Impatience is another form of doubt. If I where to have infinite patience then I would be able to manifest what I desire instantaneously. This struggle with impatience is my road of trials. In my own quest I am asked to be ever more patient and this is one aspect of my character that I really do struggle with.
Echo and Narcissus – John William Waterhouse
I have been graced that stage of faith development that I call Knowing. This is a state of Godliness. This means that the mental construct referred to as belief no longer holds any attraction for me. A believer is someone who is a believer in a God of Love whereas the knower is in fact the Lover. What have these stages of belief and faith got to do with personal development and beyond? In this blog I write for a certain age group. This is the age group who are thirty five years or more and who are approaching midlife. These individuals will transition into the second half of life and begin to quest for deeper meaning and purpose than the narcissistic pursuit of ideas of success versus failure that are often the focus of the first half of life. These are the individuals who are at a stage in life where their questions become more universal rather than self centred.
This Western culture that I live is has its primary focus on productivity, consumerism and the culture of youth. This leaves the individual who questions this purely material focus in the dark as to how they might transit this time of midlife that I call the Will to Meaning. This period of will to meaning that includes the struggle with doubt versus faith is often a time when one finds oneself in a metaphorical dark forest. However, even within dark forests there are signposts that point the way into a clearing. These signposts are contained within the myths that are shared all around the world. These signposts are contained within the wisdom teachings of all the worlds religions provided. That is provided that you do not cling to the signpost that is the stage of faith development of the one who believes about God and who will not take the journey into doubt that paradoxically develops their faith.
These blog posts are this writer and storytellers attempt at guiding you into a more expansive understanding of belief, faith and knowing. It is the experience of knowing that is the culmination of true faith. You only need a small amount. One glimpse will do it provided that following that glimpse you pay fidelity to the invitation within it. Your work is to pay fidelity to that experience of knowing and how it is intended to be expressed through you for the highest good of all. In this way you deepen your spiritual development and you move through stages of faith development until your faith is a direct knowing of the universal. This is the rock that is not moved by the shifting sands of a childlike literal belief system that one has adopted but never questioned or spend time avoiding questioning. Without doubt one is not invited into a struggle of deep authenticity and interiority where one becomes not a believer but a knower that one is Love.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
stages of faith development
SUPER CONSCIOUSNESS MAGAZINE – SuperConsciousness is an inspiring, content-rich, evidence-based science and spirituality magazine focused on exploring innate human potential.
SPIRITUAL ARTICLES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS – Spiritual Development articles related to student life
SPIRITUAL THEMES IN YOUNG ADULT BOOKS – Many young adult books can provide the spiritual information young adults need to assuage the loneliness of their passage; some of the possibilities are presented here.