HABITUAL?: Don’t Be! Here's Why. Jim Gleeson 2016
There is much discussion today about awakening, Spiritual growth and enlightenment.
“But,” you ask, “where do I start?” Good question and now that we know where we’re headed we can start at the beginning. Anyone who even just realizes there is somewhere to go beyond the mundane material existence—even one with relative comfort—is way ahead of most.
The first thing that happens is, and must be, an increased awareness of one’s habits. Why? You ask. “I like my habits!” OK. The choice is between keeping your habits and dying with them or finding the you, you were put here to find. Totally up to you!
The vast majority of humans grow up into a life full of habitual behaviors—behaviors that tie us to whatever version of the material world we grew up in. This could be anything from the nomadic life of a Mongolian herdsman to the “charmed existence” of European royalty. We all learn some way of dealing with the “reality” of the material world we each perceive. So when we begin to awaken, the first thing we start to understand is that our habits—our habitual thoughts and behavior—is a kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy we drag around with us 24/7. When you realize that almost everything you do or think is reinforcing the belief in the RWOT—the “real world out there”—you can begin to make corrections and slowly (or even quickly) see a lessening of attachment and a corresponding increase in personal power. The only real power comes from eternal spirit—anything else is temporary. Your world becomes less and less “out there” and out of your control and becomes more and more a reflection of your true self—true you. (See our video—“TRUE YOU—Clearing the Fog that Keeps Us from God.)
Does not everyone think their habits are the “natural result” of being them? I mean i have known people whose every move was habitual. Then there are a few “free spirits” who are known to occasionally or even frequently do something “wild and crazy.”
But what if you, like the “successful” among us, do something really “strange” like drop out of college and start a business in your parent’s garage? Perhaps the first stage of spiritual awareness is being able to act on a belief in “yourself” and end up inventing Microsoft. But in a way that’s more of a total belief in the material world—to the point you have “faith” that it will respond to your actions and give you what you want. If material success were an indication of some kind of spiritual awakening maybe so many successful actors, rock stars and politicians wouldn’t end up broke, on drugs or behind bars. Even many of the super successful come to admit their success was a hollow, short-term victory.
No, spiritual awakening always represents real change. And it’s much more than “getting religion.” It must include some understanding—knowledge of what’s behind the religion. We must be able to speak as one with authority, not as a scribe. If someone accepts “Jesus as their Lord and Savior,” but doesn’t really understand that they must leave behind the “old man” and learn to accept the “new man”--their underlying spiritual connection to the power and grace of a spiritual god-- they will continue to depend on their material habits. Awakening may start by consciously letting go of some of our worldly habits, but at some point in our new understanding the habits start falling away like chunks of snow on your car as you pick up speed—we aren’t even aware they are falling away.
But what is this new understanding. The Christ’s simple spiritual message is clearly expressed in acts 17:28:
In him we live, move and have our being…
Would you prefer it said “in spirit we live,” or in “truth we live,” or maybe “in the unified field we live?” Does it matter? The important thing is it is real and “it” is there, now, always, everywhere. Wise men and women throughout the ages have tried to tell us what to them seemed obvious. God is infinite and eternal and so God is everywhere, always.
Many of us become numb to the “religious” and write it off as just “religious talk.” Perhaps something a little more “modern” would help: Francis Thompson said:
Does the fish soar to find the ocean, the eagle plunge to find the air?
So here we are at the crossroads, at the middle of the dividing line between secular and religious, atheist and deist, pagan and Christian, believer and scoffer. If god is so pervasive—he’s everywhere! Why can’t i see him? Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is he unwilling to stop the killing? Etc. Etc. The answer is quite simple.
There is only one problem and one solution. The solution could be represented by the question, if god is infinite and eternal, what else could really exist?
Jim Gleeson, from his upcoming book, Science, God and You—The Ancient Theory of Everything