I do believe that you can't just sit back and accept everything. You do need to struggle for some things. One example, two men are diagnosed with the same life threatening disease. One decides that it is just in God's hands and accepts whatever will happen. This man dies. The other man decides he is going to live and does everything mentally and physically he can. He struggles, he suffers, he lives.
I'm not religious so I can't say what happened to the man who died. I do know the man who struggled lived to see his grandchildren. |
I see what you’re saying Jill. But I think there’s a difference between effort and struggle. Struggle has negative connotations, like desperation, and such negativity is held in the mind. Whatever we face in life, I don’t believe we have to “struggle”.
In the scenario you described with the two men, if the second man had been an advanced soul, then if he had decided he was going to live and do everything mentally and physically he can, (i.e. he would apply a positive frame of mind, which in turn would lead him to do certain things differently physically too), then he might have lived to see his grandchildren, but would not necessarily have needed to struggle - within himself. That’s the point I was trying to make. Struggle is a mental attitude, a negative one at that, and we can rise above it from within. We can reach a place of complete acceptance and trust, not only of the conditions we face, but also of the fact that we are eternal spirits, and that death is the beginning of something wonderful anyway.
(I personally believe that a positive frame of mind aligns our perception of life with the Truth – which
is inherently positive. An advanced soul will therefore naturally perceive things positively, will have great reverence for life, and won't struggle with it. He or she can find a sense of peace, even in the midst of severe calamity or external discord.)
I suppose these principles therefore refer to an advanced soul, in my view. Most people struggle in life, and we don’t seem to have much choice regarding our feelings, especially during ‘low cycles’ or when facing calamity or hardship. I’m a bit wary about the word “choice”, to be honest. I think it’s more a question of spiritual growth. If we’re struggling at the moment with certain conditions in life, then in a few years time we might not struggle within ourself at all, even though we might be facing exactly the same external conditions. (Maybe that's our soul's deeper goal. We might face the same conditions in a few lifetimes, and yet won't struggle with them.) We can’t really help how we feel, ultimately, just as we can't do much about our physical age, and I think the best we can do is try and learn to accept exactly how we feel, at all times, whilst not judging ourself negatively.
When deciding which conditions we should accept and which we should strive to change, the classic ‘Serenity Prayer’ comes into its own: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
| I don't have to read man's (or in this case a woman's) book to find that peace. Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. Why would I want to go elsewhere Andy? |
You shouldn’t have to go looking elsewhere, KFC. You’ve already found your own personal groove in the Bible, and that’s where you are most comfortable. I’m sure the Bible will provide you with a hearty meal until the day you die, for this particular lifetime, and that's a good thing. The Bible and Christianity is your cup of tea, but it’s not everyone’s, just as Marianne Williamson’s book isn’t your cup of tea.
I was recommending the book to other people who might be seeking, and who might happen to be on her ‘wavelength’. I think that fundamentalist Christians would turn in horror at some of the things she writes. A God of unconditional love, goodness and grace is incompatible with an exclusive Christian view. It is true that we’re all on different stages of the path, and not everyone is ready for certain points of view.
| The second part of what I see there is the "love and acceptance". Love and acceptance should never be a matter of work, struggle. Nor are they something that needs to be earned. If a person demands any of that for their love and acceptance, it doesn't exist for them anyway. |
I agree with you Ted. I think if we can’t love another for who they are, and if we can’t be loved for who we are, then it’s not the highest form of love - which is unconditional love. We shouldn’t need to struggle or “try to be good”, in order to feel a sense of self-worth and value.
Marianne Williamson expresses this principle in her book ‘A Return to Love’. She writes: “As children, we were taught to be “good” boys and girls, which of course implies we were not that already. We were taught we’re good if we clean up our room, or we’re good if we make good grades. Very few of us were taught that we’re essentially good. Very few of us were given a sense of unconditional approval, a feeling that we’re precious because of what we are, not what we do. And that’s not because we were raised by monsters. We were raised by people who were raised the same way we were. Sometimes, in fact, it was the people who loved us the most who felt it was their responsibility to train us to struggle. Why? Because the world as it is, is tough, and they wanted us to make good. We had to become as crazy as the world is, or we would never fit in here. We had to achieve, make the grade, get into Harvard. . . . Yet by struggling this way, what we lost was a sense of our own power. And what we learned was fear, fear that we weren’t good enough, just the way we are.”
Demosthenes, the quotes you shared from Marianne Williamson are good, and sum up her views well. I think her views describe a mere glimpse of Truth, and even though the meat of her message is on the ball, naturally there's still room for growth and for more insights. I believe that a big part of our journey is about considering different points of view, and searching for more insights, until we feel that we’re gaining a better picture of Ultimate Reality. By definition, reality is so ‘big’ there’s always more to learn. But it's all a personal journey, and whatever we see or hear, we can make up our own mind.
