Hi Zack

I have also had similar experiences with regards to Christianity and Faith. For me it was important to make a distinction between the religious organization, community, religion, theology and the practice.  What I mean is that when we talk about God, religion, community, theology, belief, faith we tend to mix them all up and can get lost in the ‘politics of belief’ = guilt and fear.

In ‘awakening’ the ego has two roles. The ego serves as a challenge that needs to be overcome and the medium through which that overcoming is experienced. It takes a healthy ego to detach it self from the experience of SELF. What is ‘you’ is not the ego… yet how you experience that realization is via the medium of ego. The ego the medium between the objective and subjective, between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Religion is similar. Religion acts as both the medium and the challenge. You may have heard the expression that you must lose God to find God. Religion purpose is to guide, yet at the same time, perhaps because religion is also an organization tied to the experience of community, constrains. Pushes you forward while holding you back = pain.

We desire community, to belong. Much of the guilt we feel as we grow comes from the fear of loss of community. I suspect you may have had the experience of some people responding to your weight loss that left you ‘feeling’ guilty. Witnessing you change causing others to experience anxiety and guilt which because they don’t want to make such a change project it back onto you.

Its important to understand if the Spiritual guilt and fear you experience belongs to you or is originating from others.

There is a Zen koan “If you meet the Buddha, kill him”. The Buddha encouraged his followers to find their own way yet having followers created community = conflict. You can imagine the response of a community to ‘killing’ the very thing being sought. You can imagine the quilt one might feel if one think they are objectively ‘killing’ the Buddha… killing Christ… yet it is the death of Jesus that reveals Christ.

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” (A map is not the territory) Every wisdom tradition including Christianity reference back to this truth, yet in practice tends to forget.

The first noble truth – We Suffer – Life is the sacrifice of life and when we deny that reality, fight that reality and or try to fix it we suffer.  Most of the suffering we experience we create based on our thoughts about that reality and unwillingness to engage with life as it is. When we say Yes to that reality, we still suffer only we are less likely to attach our sense of self to that suffering.  The suffering flows through us vice getting bottled up and clung to.

We work for that which no work is required.

You hinted at a realisation that you need to develop a health self esteem. I agree as It takes a healthy sense of self (ego) to let go of the ego and the suffering that arises when we attach our sense of ‘I’ as being the ego. (The ego remains the medium through which you experience life, we do not negate the ego as if it was ‘bad’ and had to be killed off which is the cause of much suffering. Instead we learn to detach our sense of ‘I’ as being the ego. You, (the Self), are not your ego, you are not your thoughts, you are not your mind, your body… you are not your experiences… The ego is both the challenge to be overcome and the medium through which we awaken… )

The work requires taking responsibility for our ability to nurturer ourselves as well as protecting ourselves by having healthy boundaries. Confronting our shadow by getting honest about our best and worst aspects… And then the most difficult coming to terms with duality – the problem of opposites…

There are many forms of meditation – which is it you practice? The purpose of practice is so that when we get up to play the game the skills we have are in our muscle memory. We act, we play, we are, without having to think about them.  Its odd how it never occurs to people that have a meditation practice allow it when Life is engaging them.  Stilling still and calm by a peaceful river for 30 min is all well and good but the practice shows itself when we find ourselves cought in the current of that river.

Hi Lily
You may find the following book helpful: ‘Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve’ by Lewis B. Smedes

“If you persistently feel you don’t measure up, you are feeling shame—that vague, undefined heaviness that presses on our spirit, dampens our gratitude for the goodness of life, and diminishes our joy. The good news is that shame can be healed.”

“The difference between guilt and shame is very clear–in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. A person feels guilt because he did something wrong. A person feels shame because he is something wrong. We may feel guilty because we lied to our mother. We may feel shame because we are not the person our mother wanted us to be.”

“We feel properly embarrassed when we are caught doing something that makes us look inept, knuckleheaded, or inappropriate. Maybe the difference is this: we feel embarrassed because we look bad, and we feel shame because we think we are bad. When we are embarrassed, we feel socially foolish. When we are shamed, we feel morally unworthy.” – Lewis B. Smedes

Most Shame we feel is undeserved! The book may help guide you through letting it go.

Hi nz133:

With regards to expectations. Its important to distinguish the difference between expectations and healthy boundaries.

Hi Angi

“What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see.” – Jean Piaget

“We create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in.”  ― Gregory Bateson

The Law of Attraction is very much connected to the idea that we ‘see’ what we expect to see and call it attraction. perhaps you heard the saying “your car goes where your eyes go” – “The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.” – Garth Stein

Here the driver that can’t look away from the wall ‘attracts’ the crash while the driver with a calm ‘mindfulness’ looks down the track ‘attracts’ the regaining of control. (it is a ‘break of free will’)

I like the question of how much ‘free will’ do we have as it points to my observation that we have free will however that it is difficult to exercise. (And that many people do not exercise at all – for these people every “choice” is a reaction never a response.)

There is a hermetic saying – As above so below, as below so above – we are influenced, and we influence, we are created as we create, we are bigger then big smaller then small – we are influenced from outside forces, nurture and nature, that we have no control of… yet at the same time can influence the outer by addressing the inner.

‘Free will’ then may be the art of making the choice to become the change we hope to attract and create in the world.

Thus, we have the practice of mindfulness and ‘not doing’ – free will is the art of not doing – how’s that for a paradox. In the words of the infomercial “set it and forget” it. When we try to force change we almost always shift to trying to change outside forces of which we have no control over. Imagine trying to force a plane into the air by lifting it. When we are the change we become that slight change of the wing that allows the plane to lift off.

I would argue that the Universal plan is Life – the paradox here being that life relies on the sacrifice of life. That is life’s wonder and its horror. As such life does not give us meaning, we give meaning to life. Your destiny then is to be you.  You are exactly where you must be to get to where your going. So follow your bliss, drive your ‘car’ mindfully, avoiding becoming fixated on fear and be the change you want to attract.

Hi Nicolaas

We work for that which no work is required. In the Buddhist tradition the practice of mindfulness would help. You appear to be aware of the moments you become short tempered  the next step would be make a choice in that moment not to react but to respond.

Like you I tend to get annoyed with last minute work requests and drivers who driving I judge to be idiotic 🙂 I realize a while back that in those moments what I was really angry about was a lack of control. That life was showing me very clearly that I was not its center, that I was smaller then small… I’ve learned long ago that control of outside influences is a illusion and that the best we can do is influence our inner experiences – be the change we want to see…

I continue to be annoyed at other drives. A part of me enjoys my impotent anger. Its kind of a outlet. I know what I’m really frustrated about and after the outburst I take a breathe and have a good laugh at myself for thinking that my needs, my plan, my views ‘must‘ matter more, must be more important, then anyone else’s. (that is not to say they don’t matter, the problem is the must. )

This may sound trite however if you want to stop being short-tempered stop being short-tempered.  When you falter, which you will, don’t beat yourself up about –  just another form of short-temperance. Learn better do better, repeat, and have some laughs along the way.

Hi

All words are symbols and the word ‘God’ is a big is a big one – meaning that when we unpack all the attributes that the word points to it can be overwhelming. Mostly we tend to mistake the map for the territory or the word as being the thing is only points to.

When you use the word God what is it you picture? Something outside yourself, something withing, both? Many approach god as if he/she/it is a alien being with powers to punish and reward – I don’t recommend that approach

We are bigger the big and smaller the small….the human being is not merely a drop that can merge with the Ocean, but a drop that also contains the Ocean. Every divine attribute is latent within the human heart, and by the cooperation of human will with divine grace these attributes can be awakened and manifested.

We human beings contain within ourselves the potential to experience completion, to know our intimate relationship to the whole of Being in such a way that we reflect this completion through ourselves.

My favorite form of prayer is listening.

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.  Joseph Campell”

If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”― Joseph Campbell

Hi Rosie I’m not sure what you mean by the word ‘passionate’. Its my opinion that the ‘self help and becoming’ movement have created a lot of unnecessary angst by creating unrealistic ideals with regards to passion, purpose and meaning all of which are connected.

I like what Joseph Campbell said about Passion or Bliss “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. (Passionate Life) I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

The experience of being Passionate for career or what have you is just that a experience that exists not as a object to hold by a moment of being to experience. In a given day, week or month if we expect to the Passion for what we do in every moment were going to be disappointed. To a large extent we are the stories we create. as such having a Passionate career is a choice.  This has been my experience. There have been moments that I dislike what I do for a job and moments when I feel very passionate about what I’m doing. I am greatfull for the moments I experience passion for what I do.
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