Authentic Spirituality /THREE Freedom from the egocentric, petty sense of “me.” Absence of any pride, narcissism, or narrow obsession with the body-mind personality. Transparent humility and “purity of heart.” Profound peace and deeply relaxed openness. Freedom from restlessness, instability, discontent, and neurotic tensions. Extraordinary love, empathy and compassion for one’s fellow beings, which manifests in a spontaneous spirit of serving them or being useful to them on their bodily, emotional and spiritual levels, without any thought of reward. This is an attitude of generous giving, not selfish taking, motivated by the welfare of all beings, who are not regarded as “other.” (“Love thy neighbor as thy Self.”) This is a real solidarity or oneness with all living beings. Positive influence on sentient beings, inspiring greater ease, joy, love, unattachment, eagerness to serve the needy and other beautiful traits. Equanimity or equipoise. Ability to flow with arising situations. Relaxation of binding attachments and aversions—i.e., freedom from greed, fear, anger, hatred, envy and other reactive, egocentric emotions. Certain emotions may still occasionally arise for our sanctified friends, like brief anger or sadness when encountering injustice or pain afflicting sentient beings; but these emotions don’t significantly throw them off balance, disturb their essential clarity, or interfere with effective action in the world. A deep bliss, joyous ease or extreme wellness, not to be confused with a mere self-centered euphoria on the surface level of the mind. A positive radiance of pure aliveness and innocent exuberance. Nondual presence. Dropping any sense of separation, alienation or loneliness. For the most deeply realized mystics this matures as actual identification with God-Self, Spirit, Absolute Being. Spontaneity. Freedom from hesitation or rigid, inflexible patterns of behavior. Ability to freely do whatever the situation indicates as appropriate action, even if unconventional—yet always from a wholesome context. A sense that actions can flow fairly effortlessly due to the Divine Power, without deliberate, willful effort or planning by the egocentric sense of “me, the doer.” Attunement to what can be called Dao or Divine Will/Way. Spontaneous thankfulness. A deep sense of gratitude to God, Spirit or Reality. (Again, for many holy ones this gratitude is nondual, free of any ultimate sense of separation from God, Spirit, Reality.) A sense of being fully, consciously established in the eternal here-now (the nunc stans), free of obsessive or distracting memories or fantasies that abstract one out of the present. Obviously, memories may be accessed and plans get made, but one is not obsessed by past or future. Superior quality of attention. Extraordinary sensitivity to and mindfulness of phenomena, including people, animals, plants, nature and basic sensations (sounds, colors, tactile sensations, etc.) and psychological processes (thoughts, emotions) as well as any psychic phenomena that may arise (ESP input, apparitions of beings on subtle-energy planes, and so on). Nonattachment to any paranormal powers, psychic visions, or unusual experiences that may arise (and these states or powers often do arise for holy persons, since their consciousness has become highly refined and consciously aligned with the Source of manifestation). Deep insight or intelligence—e.g., an ability to discern the Real (the unchanging Source-Awareness or God-Self) from unreal changing phenomena, the fleeting forms of the Formless. An intuition that the changing, passing world is not so solid as most people think, but a cosmic dream, a “stage-play,” or “movie” conjured by God or Spirit out of primordial Divine No-thingness. Moreover, the most illustrious mystic sages/saints will affirm that whatever apparently happens in the phenomenal world is perfect, a wonderful expression of the Absolute; therefore, nothing that happens is ever truly a problem. Yet this is no license for apathy or irresponsibility; mystics urge us to empathize with the sufferings of our fellow beings and try to alleviate suffering. “It is all a dream, but one must act impeccably within the dream.” “Moral intelligence”; acting in accordance with the Real (God’s Will) on behalf of the commonweal or public good and one’s highest nature. Fearlessness. Courage. Freedom from neurotic aversion toward death, injury, disease, persecution, or any other form of so-called misfortune. A greater sense of benign humor, innocent playfulness, and good cheer. “Enlightenment” is lightening up. Not all of the above criteria for the spiritual goal or God-realization (or theosis, devekut, fana fi Allah, nirvana, moksha, ming-dao, etc.) are found in the case of every person regarded as a God-realized saint, sage, or mystic. But, uncannily, most of these factors do characterize the holy ones. Hence, these factors can be considered the genuine core of religion or spirituality, much more important than mere doctrines, rituals, and institutions—which should, ideally, promote these factors of God-Realization, not interfere with their development. The liberated ones, the free beings, invite us to enjoy the same radical state of extreme spiritual wellness. Spiritual liberation, an incredible, optimal well-being, is our very birthright
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:25:10 +0000
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