Spiritual growth: the real determinant

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Starman

My understanding is limited to objects and earthly situations. What determines us, in my opinion, is an impetus coming from beyond words.

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If the energy is integrated into words then as I see it, the expression is forthcoming through that state.

Where understanding comes into this, is really our ability and integration to express ourselves more authentically from this place. If your energy is aligned inwardly, the flow is a natural extension as I see it.

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by JustBe

I think the whole opening in self to meet things as they are, is to suspend all knowing and just be present. Of course presence is not something numbed down or detached for me, it’s from doing the work in myself to achieve that place. It’s open and grounded as best I can be moment to moment.

personally I think, that the state where I suspend all knowing and just 'am' is just another way of feeling, of being, of awareness, maybe in some ways an 'alternate' state of being.

More or less like any other state of being, with its own strengths and weaknesses.

But it feels different than other ways of being.

But just because I like it and might seek it sometimes, that doesn't mean it is the only state of being that I should ever experience. It is kinda like, I don't have exactly the same meal at dinner time, every night?

To me, if I look at my own past, it is riddled with the idea of finding some 'perfect' way of being to just stop and rest in. Kinda of like, me endlessly trying to make an ending to things. I haven't been successful in that though...

There is nothing wrong with endings I suppose, just right now I'm having fun with the rather new and novel idea that I don't have to just experience feeling as is are happening to me, I can interact with feeling as well...

[JustBe]

Yes it’s fullness of being so it’s all if you in there. Of course you don’t have to align to anything you don’t want to. I’m speaking from my own experience of deepening into myself. I’m not trying to be anything I’m not aiming, for anything other than noticing myself and what that might mean in me, if it’s activated in me moment to moment. Being open to myself, means I’ll notice stuff if it’s important to my awareness.

Relaxing into just Being you is just fine.

[Starman]

JustBe, post #31, well said!

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

In direct experience, would you say that a this or that practice, is a sufficient cause of spiritual growth
without an actual shift of consciousness in thought, word and deed, moment to moment, in lived reality?

What in your view, is the actual determinant?

Yes spiritual practices do help in spiritual growth . But they are not an end in itself . Spirituality being an ongoing journey no single practice suffices .

Bold marked underlined is very important point raised by you . And that is key to determining the spiritual growth .

[peteyzen]

Living a good life, `Living a right life` as Shiva Puri baba used to say, is how to progress.
We are meant to grow through what happens in our life, we are meant to combine our spiritual practices with our life in order to grow.

The single most powerful accelerator, is grace, which is won by remembering the divine as much as you can, this can be done by offering up aspects of your life to God in whatever form you appreciate the most. As Mother Meera says, always remeber the divine.

[Unseeking Seeker]

@ peteyzen ~ to remember the divine, unless we have first recognised would effectively mean that it is a concept, a thought construct, wouldn’t it?

In my experience, which would more or less be everyone's experience as well, at some point in our life, whatever be the trigger, we choose to turn our attention inward. What does this mean? We shift from head to heart, former being craving of ego and the latter voice of God. This involves becoming empty by thought cessation. Dwelling in silence for the most part, we simply feel whispers of silence, as ethereal magnetism.

Once we be, see and so know, then only are doubts erased and we can say that we are divine entwined, as a becoming, rather than a doing.

I would say, inner progress responds to our choice of consciousness correction, as we gentle our touch in thought, word and deed, as a way of life. That’s my take on this.

[lemex]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

In direct experience, would you say that a this or that practice, is a sufficient cause of spiritual growth without an actual shift of consciousness...

My direct experience remembers a thing about practice before shift of consciousness that seems to be true. The practice we are told before a shift of consciousness seems to have been true based on the direct experience of now. Therefore practice does not require a shift of consciousness to know and to try because practice can be based in knowledge. This is important to see for those who practice, practicing is very freeing. All systems tell us what to practice, do they not, therefore we are told what to practice maybe even why, but we are not forced to practice. To not practice is to not try though one knows they should. Here one sets up a different effect, delay moving forward. Practices something else.

Of course if memory serves many times I didn't follow the practice of the system but I was told what to practice. But there is no direct experience, yet, so is the practice of the system not valid. Is the practice valid? Simply one doesn't need a shift of consciousness to know, that shift will happen. Spiritual growth is automatic ongoing incarnation to incarnation. But what I have experienced what we are told by systems and by teachers what to practice has been valid. Practice allows one to explore and try.

[FallingLeaves]

the thing about known ways to practice is, they won't take you everywhere. The obvious place you are never going to get to from any known way to practice, is eden.

But personally I think that is more a limitation of the desire to go on 'autopilot' and drift into 'what is easy' at some point than anything else, still we are all used to trying just that....

another problem for me is, there are multiple ways to practice and they all seem to conflict... so if i am going to go down the path of using a known way to practice to the extent I follow it is like getting locked down in a single fiefdom. In any given lifetime that is it, I won't be able to travel around the way I wanted to.

personally i also had this problem where it seemed the spiritual 'lords' of the fiefdoms would not let me proceed in any case unless I swore fealty to them, and that was something I wasn't willing to do. I didn't trust them enough to believe they actuallhy knew about anything 'real'. Actually I felt like they were as lost as all the rest of us they had just found a way to garner other people's respect and in some ways keep adherents in line.

but im a little more laid back now, if i was starting over from where I am now i might be more pliable lol....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
all that said the real benefit to a known way to practice, is the social life that comes with it. The people you can talk to and relate to who have been there before you or who have similar experiences now. I never understimate how important that is to me, or to others, any more. And like you say do get experiences that seem interesting if you are practicing a known practice... and i really liked your attitude about exploration and trying different things that is cool....

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

@ peteyzen ~ to remember the divine, unless we have first recognised would effectively mean that it is a concept, a thought construct, wouldn’t it?

That’s my take on this.

Perhaps some of us, are here to ‘become’ it more as a purification inward process.

Others are here to simply practice in whatever form their extension to life offers.
The being part of their becoming, not as necessary to the art of their doing?
I know I am the former of the two, and so for me the practice is through my being as I’ve become.

I don’t need to practice being myself and I don’t have to strive to do good deeds or remember the divine, the natural extension is as I am realised.