Inspirational Poetry for Awakening the Inspired Life
One of the key invitations from this Personal Development and Beyond blog is from inspirational poetry. Let me share some wonderful inspirational poetry that will help you align yourself with the inspiration within you and that is always available to you. Like any tool we need to use this source of inspiration it on a regular basis. Let me, however, begin with a quote from a writer called Nick Williams who is a man who inspires me. This is from his wonderful book entitled Unconditional Success.
We need to remember that inspiration is always available and we must align ourselves with it. Like any tool, we need to know how to us it. Questions are a great way to begin to ask yourself what would or could inspire you. Do this regularly and you will receive answers.
Inspirational Poetry
The poet David Whyte writes in the following poem What to Remember when Waking from House of Belonging
WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN WAKING
In that first hardly noticed moment
to which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be,
what urgency
calls you to your
one love? What shape
waits in the seed
of you to grow
and spread
its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?
In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?
~ David Whyte ~(The House of Belonging)
Each of these men who inspire me through their writings or inspirational poetry invite remembrance. They invite awakening of what it is inspires you or what you would allow to inspire you. The word inspiration is related to breath and breath is related to health and wholeness. Anyone who wishes to maintain health on the physical and emotional level is aware of the importance of correct breathing. What is it that inspires you on awaking and in beginning a brand new day. Do you take time each morning to do what the poet Kahlil Gibran suggests
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. Kahlil Gibran
Inspirational poem with Inspirational Video
Your energy will follow your intention and your energy will tend to follow the energy that is wishing to express through you whether or not that energy is conscious or unconscious. That is why it is so important to live consciously, to awake, remember and quest with deep purposeful and purpose filled questions. These are the kind of poetic questions asks in order to reveal this unique journey of your wild and precious life that allows you to make honey from what you regard as your old failures.
Make it a goal to surround yourself with what inspires you or might even begin to inspire you. Listen to the still small voice within and commit to allowing it full expression and expansion within you. Dare to live the one wild and precious life that only you are here to live and give the world. In this way you create the environment for unconditional success where you can say
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt — marvellous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.by Antonio Machado
(1875 – 1939
Only there will be no error unless you sit in judgement of yourself which is a way to block any inspiration that flows from within. Judge not that you be not judged is a deep and abiding wisdom teachings. Question regularly what it is that you intend to remember when waking. Then you begin to unfold the vision quest from within which is the way that inspiration – the spirit within you – intends you to be and see the world. It is out of that vision that you bring to bless the world out of your alignment with that which inspires you. Be inspired to live you one wild and precious life. Be inspired to speak that sweet moon language of poetry that blesses every ear that longs to know by heart that which is beyond the separate sense of self. Don’t let your soul be asleep. Remember it on waking.
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Finding Meaning and Purpose from Core Values
Where Next – Edward Fredrick Brewtnall
One of the goals I have set myself for this coming New Year is to align myself with core values that I am willing to express in the world. Over the next year I have committed to choosing and connecting with seven values that will form a kind of heart house with seven rooms. The work of opening these rooms will be the work of the second half of my life. I am at the moment clear about only one core value that I will embrace as a personal and spiritual development practice. The core value I am certain of at this stage of my personal and spiritual development is the value of sacred unity. It is the unity of opposites that takes place when the inner work of reconciliation has been done. This is unity of body, mind and spirit.
To be in alignment with this core value means that it is the focus of how you express the energy of sacred unity. This seeking of alignment begins with the awareness of intention. It is the alignment of the will in service to the core values that you wish to express within you, or at higher levels of spiritual development, have expressed through you. When you are committed to your core value/s then these become your North star. These core values become what guides your actions in the world. This is not to say that the core values you hold at one stage of your personal and spiritual development will be the same values that you hold during other stages of your personal and spiritual development. However, there is value, and I would suggest even immense value, in bringing into alignment your heart/body/mind with what you feel to be your core value/s.
I dialogue with the core values that I seek to integrate within myself through the writing of this personal development and beyond blog. In writing this personal and spiritual development blog my quest is for integrity. There are times I fall short of that integrity but that is sometimes because the opposition within me is too deep or too conflicted. Then the process of integration takes longer and needs time, kindness and patience. One reason I place sacred unity as my core value is because I love it. I love it as an idea and I love it as a personal and spiritual experience. As an idea it encompasses the highest ideas of religious and spiritual thought. It is also a core value that is fairly easy to measure. The more joy I feel, the more creative I feel, the more excitement I feel, the more unity I feel within. The more conflicted, discordant my experience is then the further away I feel from this sacred unity.
The great thing about my core value of sacred unity is that it is a win/win process. I win when I am in alignment. I win when I am out of alignment because the signals of non-alignment allow me to learn how I am not following my core values. Unity needs the opposites within me as the opposites within me are alchemised into unity. This is the process of alchemy that leads to what is called the sacred marriage. One of the symbols that I dearly love, and which is part of my Irish heritage, is the symbol of the Celtic Cross. For this writer and storyteller, this is a personal symbol of sacred unity. The Celtic Cross is a combination of a circle and an equidistant cross. The equidistant cross is the symbol of the masculine. The circle that has no beginning or end represents the feminine dynamic of time and eternity. In the symbol of the Celtic Cross two polar opposites come together in sacred union. It is that union of the masculine and feminine that I hold sacred, creating a sanctuary in my heart. This is the central room in my heart house.
The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine – John William Waterhouse
This core value of sacred unity is allied with the highest spiritual development stage available to a human being living on this planet of duality called Earth. This is that stage of spiritual development called non-duality. Non-duality is where the opposites are reconciled into Oneness. Here is what Jim Marion writes in his book Putting on the Mind of Christ- The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality about this stage of spiritual development.
At the non-dual level, all the polar opposites disappear for they are now all seen as compliments that forever make wholes. This includes the polarities of negative and positive; at this level the seem as making one. Any judgement, therefore, that what people see as positive is better than what people judge as negative must also be left behind. The world is now perceived directly with no concepts, judgements, reasonings or intellectualising in the way. It is the final letting go.
For many people at lower levels of spiritual development this non-judgement appears absolutely unattractive. This is because this non-dual state has not been known as one’s own experience, which is also a paradox because it is an experience, not that one has, but an experience that one is.
So how does one come into alignment with one’s values? The first step, as I have said before, is to begin with clear intention. Find a value that attracts you and that you would be willing to make central to your personal and spiritual development. Work with this core value for a while. Imagine it to be a garment that you might wear. Imagine that when you wear it integrates all that you are. If it is to be your core value then you have to begin to give it value by spending time with the energetic that expresses this core value. Use your imagination and create an image of this value. Choose a symbol that represents that core value and wear it or place it somewhere in your day to day environment where you will see it. When you act contrarily to this chosen core value pay attention. Do not beat yourself up if you cannot be in alignment but at least wake up to the fact that there is within you disunity within you.
You might find a prayer, a blessings or affirmation that speaks to you and that connects to the core value that you wish to be an expression off in your personal and spiritual development. Again, spend time with that prayer, blessing or affirmation before you decide to commit to that practice. In a very real sense it isn’t so much the actual prayer, blessing or affirmation that is important so much as the regular commitment you make to inner revelation of that core value. One final thing to remember. Your real value is priceless. It cannot be measured because it arises from that which is immeasurable. A key aspect of personal and spiritual development is living from a core value that is integral to who you are. It is a kind of spiritual fingerprint that you came into the world to express as an aspect of infinite creation.
At the end of each day you can reflect on how you lived the core values that you have chosen to be in alignment with. One word of warning. Be careful what values you do choose. Some make it more difficult to live the wild and precious life than others. Try to commit to making your core value a universal value rather than a value that is more self-centred.
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the meaning of values
CHAKRA HEALING – Articles on Chakra Healing by Energy Master Carol Tuttle
SUPER CONSCIOUSNESS MAGAZINE – SuperConsciousness is an inspiring, content-rich, evidence-based science and spirituality magazine focused on exploring innate human potential.
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Loss of Faith–The Beginning of an Awakening
Loss of faith, whether in a religious, political or relationship context, is a great source of suffering for many people. I write about stages of personal and spiritual development in order that such suffering created by such loss of faith be minimised or alleviated. Awareness of the various stages of personal, spiritual and faith development allow people to more easily transit from one stage of spiritual development to another. Personally speaking, it helps tremendously to know that loss of faith is a natural growth process and is the invitation to the beginning of true awakening.
I recently watched a video that showed the sun rising over a mountain at dawn. The voice over on the video spoke about a person they knew who was a member of a Christian church. They had confided that they felt that they were experiencing a los of faith. The teaching they once held so dear had become dry and had begun to loose all meaning. The words that had once given them such comfort had become simply words on a page.
The Mystery of Faith – Simeon Solomon
For many secular people such an experience as a loss of faith does not resonate. However, if you have ever lost faith in a relationship that was of immense importance to you then you might, even if you do not consider yourself religious, get an idea about what loss of faith can mean for the individual who loves what it is such faith gives to them. There is experienced a real sense of distress when the person begins to experience loss of faith in a system of belief that them gives their lives a connection to something beyond. This also allows the individual to belong to a community. I have personally witnessed this loss of faith lead to the loss of long term friendships, lost marriages, lost community and a loss of the sense of who the individual was and is.
This is why it helps, at least in theory, to know the transitions involved in various stages of faith development and their relationship to personal and spiritual development. It helps to know what happens along the way in regard to loss of faith. Like a lot of experiences in life, a crisis of faith, can also lead to an opportunity for deepening our connection to what this writer refers to as the faith process. Faith,as written about here, need not be simply a faith in a belief system of a designated religion. It could be faith in one’s connection to a political ideal or faith in ones core value system. There are many maps that outline the stages of the spiritual journey which has as a key aspect the journey into the faith that can and does move mountains. In this writer’s examination of these stages there is a major transition that involves the loss of faith. This is the stage where one moves from the dependence on outer forms to the direct awareness of the inner teachings at the heat of all religions and timeless wisdom traditions.
The key transition on the spiritual journey and the journey of faith is the transition from the outer focus to the inner focus. In various religious traditions this is recognised as a from of initiation. It is the initiation from the exoteric way to the esoteric way. This is the transition of that stage of the spiritual journey from the belief of the many into what is beyond belief and what few of us choose to move into. This is a frightening process for many sincere spiritual seekers. They are pulled each and every way. They know that what they once had isn’t working any more but they don’t know where they are going and they feel lost. they feel that they are losing faith and it is for some their only anchor in a stormy sea of lost meaning.
This is where true soul friendship helps. This is where having a true Anam cara really helps. they will tell you with confidence that while you are loosing faith you are also beginning the process of awakening. What where once words that might have been comforting now become the invitation beyond the words. This is the opening up of awareness to other aspects of your being. What was once the structure of a system of belief now becomes the invitation to the direct experience beyond belief.
The Anam cara knows this process. They have gone through that period of not knowing and come out on a plateau higher up the mountainside. they are a seer who is able to invite you into a vision beyond your crisis of faith. The loss of faith can be a new day dawning. It is in fact a form of awakening and a transiting between faith as being outer directed to a faith that is moved from within. This is a deep personal journey beyond belief into the direct experience of stillness that knows how to be still and know I AM God.
Loss of faith is part of the process of spiritual development and faith development. The problem is, and it is a real problem if you happen to be a member of a community of believers. This includes those who happen to be believer’s in political or social ideal. Within any group there is what is called the group dynamic. Human beings are social animals. We like, and we need to belong and from a psychological and health point of whew it is best if we have some sense of true belonging. When we are at one stage of spiritual development we give our focus to being good members of our church group, our political group or to whatever group gives us this sense of belonging and connectedness.
This gives our lives focus, meaning and a sense of belonging. This gives many people a great deal of comfort. This belonging to the group, however, is inherent on your accepting the beliefs of the group and adhering to the group ethos and practices. Then one day, or more often, over a period of time one begins to question the beliefs of the group and this is very often an internal process that brings a sense of being deeply divided and torn between what is happening and staying within the group and the comfort and security of the group dynamic.
Most groups do not want you questioning their core beliefs. They would prefer that you leave the flock. You have become a disbeliever and what you are experiencing might be infectious. The group try to reassure you that this phase will pass and that whet you need to do is pray more, meditate more, go on one more retreat and basically do more of what you used to do. This will work for a while but the call of the inner is deeper, is more energetic and is more powerful. What is beyond belief is more dynamic than belief in an outer set of words. Many simply repress this experience which leads to loss of soul, loss of meaning and often leading to depression. The individual stays within the group and goes through the motions of believing but the process of transition has begun. The individual can resist this spiritual development and process of faith development but the call of the inner has started and it will continue despite the resistance.
Helping with Loss of Faith
What is need here is not judgement but reassurance. The person who is making this transition experiences loss of faith and feels deeply divided. This individual needs to be assured that this crisis of faith is a deepening of the faith process. In matters of faith, which is one’s relationship to the knowing within and the intuitive within begins when one starts to become ones own authority. This threatens the dynamic of established hierarchies where believers who wish to be part of the group must adopt the rules and practices of the group.
Many spiritually devote people suffer terribly through this stage of faith development. They are in many ways abandoned even if they continue to attend at their centre of worship or their community centre. When they ask for spiritual direction, it tends to be more of the same because the spiritual director wants them to continue in the faith as it is promoted at the level of understanding which the person is in the process of working to transcend.
Too many are left to struggle on their own. They can’t really go to a counsellor because usually a counsellor doesn’t know anything about the mapped stages of spiritual development. They may know about the journey of personal development but not the journey of the stages beyond personal development that includes the development of faith. There seem nowhere to turn. One feels between a rock and a hard place.
The Awakening – Thomas Cooper Gotch
What is needed is a soul friend. This is one who knows the journey and befriends the soul. The soul is that dynamic that is calling to the person in the crisis of faith to move beyond and move higher into know rather than believing. The soul friend has been there and transitioned this stage of loss of faith. Their allegiance is not to any belief system but to the soul of the individual and the unique way that the journey of faith moves through them. They do not call the person back into the outer trappings of a belief system but into the depth of not knowing and the trusting in the eternal mystery that can be the knowing of who you are. The sadness is that this process is know and the suffering can be alleviated but the reality is that we resist all forms of change. The spiritual development and the development of faith is no different.
Loss of faith is a very specific stage of spiritual growth. You don’t have to be a card carrying member of a religious group. You can be a new ager who works on their own and might have belief in the power of crystals. It matters not. It does help to be aware that loss of faith, although difficult, is a kind of giving birth. It is harder because it is an invisible process and what is beyond the pain of this birthing is unknown. Neither do you quite know how long such a period of birthing into the unknown will last.
Having said that, however, this is only a stage. There are those who know the territory. There are those who have written guide maps through this territory. There are those who are able to guide you through this transition of loss of faith. They are not intent on keeping you in the stage you are leaving nor in pulling you into the sate beyond. They know how hard such this transition is. What helps tremendously, is that they know what it is you are going through and have the skill of a midwife who birth stages of spiritual development and brings life into the world that is the life referred to when the Mater Jesus said.
I come to bring you life and I come to bring it more abundantly.
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Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
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How to Follow Your Dreams for the Dreamed of Life
The House of Dreams by Albert Weltii
As you learn how to follow your dreams for the dreamed of life you will find that you begin to become more integrated. The inner and outer begin to merge. Your inner awareness begins to become as interesting and as important as the your outer life. Your life becomes one of emergence rather than emergency. In learning how to follow your dreams you begin to make conscious that which has been unconscious within you. You begin to connect with the super-conscious mind. You begin to unblock the river of your life and feel it flow freely. The language of dreams then begins to become a language that you love and become fascinated with. It is like going to sleep each night and being given a gift that when you unwrap it is not quite what it first appears. With practice and patience and commitment you will be taken more deeply into the real story and the real life you are here to live and give.
Dream interpretation that leads to deep integrity is not a quick fix, one time event. Dream interpretation and learning how to follow your dreams is an art. It is the invitation to your becoming the artist of your inner life. This, like any art form is slow to begin with. In a very real way it is a unique art form. You can learn the basics of how to follow your dreams but you deepen your learning by doing the practice and by committing to the practice. In the beginning it is like visiting a land where you do not know the language. You feel lost. You feel resistant. You worry about getting it wrong. What is more important is your intention of making the effort.
What is most important is that you simply begin. Like any endeavour that leads to a more integrated sense of self, you will face challenges along the way. There will be resistance but this is always the resistance experienced with birthing the new. Resistance is a process that involves the integration of the opposites and what is being opposed within you. Dream interpretation has for thousands of years been connected to wisdom. It was the seers of old who could take the dreams of others and interpret them for their benefit and for the greater benefit of the community. The wisdom instruction that says
Follow Your Dreams!
can be taken quite literally because by learning how to follow your dreams, those nightly gifts of the psyche, you will be required to expand your understanding beyond the idea of logic. The interpretation of dreams takes you into a more symbolic and magical kind of language. It is like and Alice in Wonderland and you are the one who is required not so much make sense of the dream but reveal the essence of the dream. Dreams use puns, riddles, words that are back to front, that can be divided and reassembled. The key to dream interpretation is energy and the energy of the body. You will have connected to the meaning of the dream when you feel yourself experienced a heightened energy. You feel exalted.
In practicing this trust in the wisdom of the body, the body/mind begin to become integrated. There begins the development of a deeper intuitive sense, This is because you are not so much developing logic as developing the ability to reveal the invitation to the meaning of your dreams.
The mystic poet Rumi could well have been speaking about the power of dreams to reveal meaning and purpose when he said
Trade logic for bewilderment
The word bewilderment could be translated as confuses. However, if it appeared in a dream you could interpret it as
ment be wild……..meant to be wild.
This could indicate that you spend your life without taking any risks while your would knows that you are meant to be wild. Wild does not mean that you go and act in any way that is irresponsible. Wild here means the wildness of that young child who runs with exuberant abandon in to life’s play.
Learning to follow your does not mean taking your dreams literally. For example, you dream that you die. THis does not mean you will actually physically die. In your dream you are advised to go to another city. It does not mean that you literally have to pack up and relocate. Dreams begin to build patterns. Certain motifs recur and are intended to invite you to pay attention to patterns in your life that you are repeating and that which you are invited to expand.
When dream interpretation begins to be your art then dreams become your friends. They became a major source of guidance and they are essentially it is guidance from the true Source. Dreams are the royal road to your unconscious and one way in which practice and commitment allow you to follow your dreams. These are not the dreams of the culture, your family, your nation but the dreams of what the Irish poet W. B. Yeats called ‘the deep heart’s core.’ You may learn many skills that assist you along life’s path. Certain skills will bring you deeper integrity than others. One key skill that I invite you to lean and make an art of is dream interpretation. It is always available and it is an art that deepens and expands the longer that you practice it. Usually along the way you are given certain key dreams. There are dreams that you will return to again and again.
Idyll by Fredric Lord Leighton
There are the dreams that guide you toward following your true dreams. With practice you will begin to know how such a dream feels. You will begin to sense within your body the greater integrity and consequently greater health. You can develop your intuition and you learn to trust the interior language of your dreams to live your dreamed of life. This dreamed of life is that which creation intended for you to be and to express. That dreamed of life does not necessarily mean you follow the dictates of your society. The dreamed of life means you follow the flow of life’s energy. The poet Mary Oliver invites the dreamed of life in this way.
West Wind #2
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied.When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
The one thing that you require to live the life of your dreams is courage. This is the courage to follow the way in which your dreams lead you. THis following your dreams is what the poet Robert Frost meant when he wrote of a life as a “road less travelled.” The road of following your dreams through the practise of paying attention to your dreams is the way of the Hero’s Journey. It is a kind of endless road into a more expansive self. One thiing I haven’t mentioned is that there comes the point when dream interpretations really become fun. It is like being given a living riddle to solve that takes you higher and gives you a sense of integrity that in a very real way you could only ever dream.
As a writer and practitioner of personal and spiritual development courses I invite integrity in ways that I find key to my own spiritual development. In one sense whatever personal and spiritual practice you choose does not matter. What matters more is the way you make the commitment and the practice real in your everyday life. Dream interpretation and how to follow your dreams is a practice I have spent tiem with and now it is a practice I love. It has truly become for me and art and integral to my heart. There are plenty of languages that you can learn but the language that I invite you to become fluent in is the language of dreams. This is the language of the unconscious that helps integrate what is wishing to be integrated within you. You might learn many skills but, personally speaking, not many will give you the ability to be more
- intuitive and more integral
- bodily aware and feel beyond sensational
- more deeply aligned with source
- intent on following your dreams
- able to discover lifes’ patterns
- connected to your real story
- aware of true meaning and purpose
than becoming skilled as an interpretor of your dreams. In this way the inner and outer merge. Rather than experience life as a kind of emergency one lifes become one of emergence. Learning how to follow your dreams is a course in life long learning. You might well begin this journey into true integrity by making your commitment to begin a course in dream interpretation here.
This is an affiliate program that I endorse as a writer and practitioner of dream interpretation inviting you to life you one wild and precious life.
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.
how to follow your dreams
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
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.
THE HERO’S JOURNEY – Video that outlines the personal and spiritual development called the Hero’s Journey
Spiritual Work – Work as the Expression of the Spiritual Life
Spiritual Work – Following the Spirit of Work
In many monastic traditions spiritul work has been seen as integral to living the fullness of the spiritual life. In our secular world, work and the spiritual life, are all to often considered very different aspects of our being. In the blog entitled 101 Ways to Transform your Life the second way that your are invited to transform your life is taken from a line from a Rumi poem. It invites you to transform your life through spiritual work in this way
Let the Beauty that You Are be the Work that You Do.
I often wonder how our educational system, and our working lives would look, if each one of us took this wisdom teaching and made a committed decision and a practice of living it and manifesting it into the world. John Donohue, writing in Divine Beauty calls beauty The Invisible Embrace. It becomes an embrace that allows us to live our one wild and precious life from a foundation of unconditional success. Allowing the beauty that we are would allow us to create beautiful products that would, not only beautify the body, but more importantly from a psychological and more refined energetic beautify the mind and the heart.
Spiritual Work – Meeting Life Lines instead of Deadlines
If you were to focus on letting the beauty that you are be the work that you do you would begin to work to life lines rather than deadlines. Our focus would not be so much on exploiting an opportunity as expanding our creativity. Let the beauty that you are be the work that you do is the real work of spiritual intelligence and personal and spiritual education and development. Let the beauty that you are is the allowing of the creative intelligence that knows how to work through you. The beauty that you are has always known how to work through you. This beauty is the beauty of the feminine within and which, in alignment with the power of the masculine within you, creates forms. When these energies are in alignment beauty and work are one and the same.
Spiritual Work – Attention to the Present Moment
This nugget of inspirational poetry by Rumi is real spiritual education and can transform your life. You can make sweeping the floor an act of beauty through the practice of mindfulness and the practice of alignment of the inner with the outer. This is spiritual intelligence at work. As within so without. You would begin to transform your life , if at the beginning of each day, you established some form of ritual, some form of practice where you make a daily commitment to allow the beauty within you to express as the work you are here to do. This need not be paid work and the work that you do is not necessarily the job that you do. Very often the job you do is a job done simply in order to make ends meet. Spiritual work is not necessarily anything to do with working for a religious ideal or group. It has more to do with the flow of your energy.
Your life will begin to transform when you begin to connect to the beauty that you are. Do not confuse beauty with the idea of what it means to be glamorous. There are plenty of glamorous people in the world who feel anything but the beauty that they are. This beauty that you are is not something you create but it is the life force that created you in order to express in beautiful ways through you. Creation does not work . By this I mean, that creation does work in any formal sense. Creation creates to express the joy of creation. It knows how to do this. You are its hands and feet and its form through which this joy can be expressed and is intended to be expressed as beauty in form.
Spiritual Work expresses as your Natural Inheritance
The beauty that you are knows how to create beauty in form. You don’t have to be a trained artist. You can do great spiritual work and all you have do is to have trust and faith in the process. This is real spiritual education and the work of true spiritual intelligence. Education means the arising of this beauty within you. Education is intended to draw that spiritual intelligence from within you which then expresses as work. You can be educated to acquire skills but the beauty that you are is inherent within you and is your true and natural inheritance.
In letting the beauty that you are be the work that you do you are leaving a legacy of beauty in the world. You leave an eternal imprint that connects each and everyone of us and expands into higher and higher levels of consciousness and the eternal sphere of the One Mind – the Mind of Beauty. Many of us are taught that we are not at all beautiful. Yet when we came dancing into this world most of us did not feel that way. We thought that the world belonged to us and that it was our playground. That was up until we learned that the world didn’t belong to us and that Love was conditional.
Sleeping Beauty = Hon John Collier
Spiritual Work expresses Love in Form
Except, that while we might have learned that we are not beautiful, that which creates you in each and every moment, has never ceased to know and be the beauty that you are. Your real work in this world of form is to allow the beauty that you are be the work that you are here to do to bless yourself and all those who you love and do not love. This spiritual work aligns you with true prosperity. Make your life transformational. Make it a commitment to practice being the beauty you are here to express. Create a daily ritual to remind yourself that the beauty that you are is your alignment with the real you. This is the Love in form that you are created in order to bless the world for the greater good of all.
You are already one of the Beautiful people. When you are in alignment with this beauty within then you are rich beyond measure. You find the source of true abundance and you commit to learning how to expand this abundance within you. This is the real secret of living your one wild and precious life. You truly become a rich man or woman because you have the source of the Infinite flowing through you and this will be your true enjoyment. You will be in joy of yourself.
John Lennon sings
You keep all your money in a big brown bag
Don’t simply keep all your money in a big brown bag. This is a symbol about how you hoard your energy and how you begin to armour you body and refuse to give. This is the refusal to give of the work that only you have come to do. This does not mean that the work that you are inspired to express is work that has never been done before It does mean that you express such work in your unique way. Every snowflake ever created is unique. There are no two snowflakes the same. Each snowflake is an expression of incredible beauty in form. Would it not be spiritually intelligent to come into alignment with this creative force that knows how to create every snowflake as a work of art. You are a higher form of this art. That never changes. When you are committed to allowing the beauty that you are be the work that you do you meet with yourself in ways that you have forgotten. Let the spiritual life that is also the inspired life be the life that you express in your work.
Let the Beauty you Love Be the Work You Do
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.
spirit of work
BLISSITATIONS – At this site they are committed to making it easier, more enjoyable and more effective with guided meditations, visualizations, affirmations and other goodness to help turn your meditation into Blissitation!
TIME OUT FOR TRUTH – This spiritual wisdom podcast and website explores the great truths of the ages, and authors like Vernon Howard, J. Krishnmamurti, Gurdjieff and Anthony de Mello.
THE ENTHEOS ACADEMY – Online teaching that integrates everything you might have wanted to study: from old school philosophy and spirituality to modern day positive psychology, nutrition, creativity, conscious business and general self-development–all the
How to Find Inner Peace – Living from Core Values
I love to write about how to find inner peace. This is a peace that proceeds from within to without. One of my favourite prayers about how one might find inner peace is the universal prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi that reads
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
All the words of the opening line of this universal prayer are important but for this writer and storyteller the last two words go especially together. The peace that is referred to in this universal prayer as “thy peace.” This is not a peace that is simply the absence of conflict wherein there is still a tension that has the potential to become less than peaceful. “Thy Peace” is the peace that passeth understanding. This means that it is a peace that is beyond the opposite of peace as opposed to that which is not peace. Moving beyond this tension of opposites is how to find inner peace in a lasting and fulfilling way. This is the kind of understanding of peace that the logical mind cannot acquire. The logical mind understands the difference between peace and non-peace. The logical mind, does not, and cannot comprehend the idea of a peace that is beyond duality or beyond opposites. This peace that is beyond duality is what St. Francis calls ”
Thy Peace
This peace is true peace of mind because within it there is no opposition and thus no tension. It is a peace that has been attained by harmonising the opposites within oneself. It is the harmonising of the forces of the unconscious with the consciousness of the ego. To be made an instrument of they peace is a great invitation and maybe one of the greatest invitations. To attain to such a state of grace is a great blessing. I love the invitation from the modern day writer Deepak Chopra in his book How to Know God – The Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries where you are invited to become a saint. Toward the end of this book, that covers the various stages of spiritual development, there is a section called Manual for Saints. In this section Deepak Chopra writes,
Set your intentions high. Aim to be a saint and a miracle worker. Why not? The same laws of nature operate for everyone. If you know that the goal of inner growth is to acquire mastery, then ask for that mastery as soon as possible. Once you ask, don’t strain to work wonders, but don’t deny them to yourself, either. The beginning of mastery is vision; see the miracles around you and that will make it easier for greater miracles to grow.
Paradoxically speaking there is as much arrogance (if that is the right word?) in refusing to become an instrument of thy peace as there is in asking to become such an instrument. Many ,if not most people, will not see any value in making such a request. The question here is, which then leads to the quest, is are you going to live the values that you love and to make these values manifest in this world of form for the highest good of all? When you spend time with your core values and align these with your actions then you do not become so engaged with judging others. Your focus, is not on what others do or do not do, but on how you follow the intention to be integral and true to the way that life and love expresses through you.
The core values that are spoken about here are universal values. I am not referring to the limited values that might attach to the idea of family values, American values or the values of the culture that you live in. At one time slave owning was considered a cultural value. Female circumcision is considered to be a value in some cultures. This invitation to alignment with your core values will take you into your deep interiority. These are what this writer calls your true Desiderata. These are your true hearts desires.
Are you cultivating that deep interiority of your true Desiderata – your list of deep heart core desires? Or are your desires simply those driven by the marketplace that never last and are cultivated from a never ending sense of enough? These limited time space values are values that will not take you into a peace that passeth understanding which is the real inner peace and true peace of mind. Political and business leaders talk a lot about adding value. The real value that is added to you is a paradox. It is not so much added as is revealed. The more deeply you align with the interior values of the heart the more expansive you reveal yourself to be. This alignment is how to find inner peace. The beginning, as with all beginnings, is intention. Do you intend, and are you intending, to be true to thine own self and value the expression of life that you are created to be?
You cannot add value to yourself because you are essentially beyond value. What you can do, and what most everyone is doing, is hiding that value that you already are and substituting it for something other. This substitute is called the ego. This is the separate sense of self that is added to in order to make something of itself of value. What is the universal value or values that you would live and be remembered for.? In choosing to commit to this, or these universal values, you then align yourself with the Universe the flows through you. You align yourself with the creative force of life. This alignment with universal values is part of that stage of personal and spiritual development referred to as the stage of vision/logic in the map of consciousness outlined by Jim Marion in his book Putting on the Mind of Christ.
At lower levels of consciousness the value system that is subscribed to tends not to be universal, but as we see in places were there is conflict, is focused on tribal loyalty or on the larger tribe called the nation state. Alignment with universal values begins at a stage of personal and spiritual development were one’s awareness begins to be focused more on the connection to the experience of Oneness rather than on the limitation of a sense of separateness we call the ego. Alignment with core values means that you have a sense of what is to be revealed from core of human existence. This core is not simply a belief but arises from a direct revelation of your essential Self. This universe is not a collection of separate forms. It is essentially a sacred unity. The separate forms (you and I) are simply an expression of this unity. Lao Tzu said this beautifully when he said.
Thus, the sage keeps himself in no-action (wu-wei),
He teaches his wisdom without words.
The Ten Thousand Things rise and fall.
Tao “creates” everything without possessing,
Accomplishes with no claim,
Thus, no adherence, no vanish.
This invitation to come into alignment with universal forces invite integrity, healing and miracle and is not simply a cerebral exercise. It is practical engagement with such universal practices such as mediation, prayer and contemplation. This are universal practices that, not so much add value, but reveal the value of who you truly are. If your values are those that align you with the idea of the tribe, the nation State then this alignment will create opposition within you became you are aligned with an aspect of separateness. There is nothing wrong with having a pride in your belonging to a tribe, or nation State. This, however, is not universality and cannot lead to the living of universal values and the deep peace that is inherent within such a practice.
As always, practice kindness to yourself. Wherever you are is an opportunity to expand but remember that expansion into deeper universal values and stages of spiritual and personal development tends to involve resistance and tension. When you move beyond the tribe, your family or your religious group then you might be accused of disloyalty. When you move beyond the limited idea of the nation state then you might be accused of being less than patriotic. This is part of the the growth involved in personal and spiritual development. This is part of the reflatory process that is moved from the deep hearts core. This is the real value that you are and who you are intended to be.
Core values, as invited by this writer and storyteller, are universal values. They invite the arising within you of the integrity of Oneness. It is this Oneness that allows you the knowing of your true value and your true values. This is the list of your true hearts desiring – your true Desiderata. Let me finish with a Celtic blessing of peace that I use on occasion and sing on occasion.
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
This is a beautiful blessing that is written by one who has lived from an alignment with the universal value of peace. This is one who knows directly the real value of peace as being the connection to the infinite peace that you are and which you are here to reveal and share with others as the core of your very being and your being here.
10 Ways to Find Inner Peace
Finally here is a video that I love and which inspires me each time I am graced to watch it. Simply double click on the graphic below and enjoy the images, the inspiration and the feelings of empowerment. If you were to practice the Ten things YOU can to to create peace and are committed to this practice then you WILL get the blessing from above.
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
SELF HEALING EXPRESSIONS – Browse various articels related to topics such as Spiritual Soul Mates, Life Purpose and Dream Interpretation
FREE Healing Meditations, Affirmations, Inspirational Broadcasts and Downloads
THE ENTHEOS ACADEMY – Online teaching that integrates everything you might have wanted to study: from old school philosophy and spirituality to modern day positive psychology, nutrition, creativity, conscious business and general self-development–all the