your true nature is spirit

It is well documented that throughout history, as societies become more and more individualistic, concern for the morals of materialism becomes of paramount importance. In fact, the governance of these societies, their goals, values and way of life become directed to the pursuit of materialistic wealth, fame and the success of the individual, overriding the Morals of Spirit, of Nature and of Life.

It is within this kind of environment that every imaginable version of “spiritual practice” arises, updated and comfortable modern-day practices redecorated as the means of managing our daily life. The actual Practice of Spirit-Based Reverence becomes another kind of self-righteous, consoling belief system; all are loosely lumped together under the generic term “spiritual practice.” But so often these are just self-centred, competitive, status-identifying indulgences.

Whenever the members of a society, the population, become deadened and numb to the Mystical Spirit Wonder of our Existence as the very means of our Existence, human depravity becomes very close to normal behaviour. All kinds of aggression, violence, greed, profiteering, the suppression and exploitation of all the Gifts that Spirit Freely Offers, becomes justified in the name of human progress, of economic growth and individual success. And what do we do with our “easier life-styles”? How do we use the Gift of Spirit, of Life- Force?

When a society, a culture, loses its Spiritual Veneration, its fundamental everyday Practice of acknowledgement, recognising and honouring the One All-Pervading Spirit that actually allows the life of everything and everyone to be, then that society or culture reinvents every imaginable “spiritual practice” to accommodate its existentially crazed and degraded inhabitants’ lives. Something to appeal to the individual’s stress and fear in their own society’s/culture’s destruction, under the intractable and inexorable domination of only economic growth and empire building at all costs.

 The stress of our lazy luxury, wherein an enervated populace now has the time and boredom to over-think and to isolate ourselves in our own chameleon castles of discontent. In such a society, the ideals, goals and expectations of the population and the character of the inhabitants become grotesque caricatures of the system.

Such a society displays all the symptoms of loss of Soul; its bewildered followers become anxiously involved in trying to appease their consciences. Masks of cordiality and self-interest are skillfully worn, flattering words are substituted for truth, with solipsistic philosophical gibberish and quasi spiritual redemptive beliefs and practices.

And it is within this “way of life” that seemingly plausible, spiritually-justifying arguments are bred to fit neatly around our own socially constructed, disdainful perception of our self and its fearful self-preservation at all costs.

Nothing changes really. In fact, we tend to become a nation of people, a group of humans who are continually reminding ourselves and each other that threats exist everywhere. In the barren righteousness of Spiritual information alone, there seem to be threats in the streets, in our food, in every new life- giving idea, in each other and even in our reasons for our preferred spiritual practice. Not surprising since the glue holding most religions, cultures and “spiritual practices” together is the design of moving from one fear to another.

It seems that the more affluent, the more materialistically comfortable we become, the more obsessed we are with fear of every kind. It’s not that fear is something new; there always have been and always will be threats to every kind of physical survival. After all, our body/minds are limited mortal instruments.

What comes with individually motivated materialistic wealth and comfort is a weakening of resolve, which breeds Spiritual laziness and complacency - that is, a decline in emotional empathy, without the Spiritual Real as the guide to our physical existence. And concomitant with this empathetic disassociation from the Spiritual Real comes a decline in emotional empathy for each other. Furthermore, our leaders become even further detached, accustomed to a life of ease and indulgence, and far more interested in keeping their own privileged positions, self-serving rather than serving the people.

Our human history has strikingly clear examples and lessons to illustrate how whenever a society or culture abandons its Sacred Obligations to and in the Spirit Reality as the means of governing everyday practical life, that society implodes from its own treacherous appetites, often in all manner of violent ways.

Unless the Spiritual Reality is firmly embedded in our societies, sincerely and actively embedded in our body/minds psychically and emotionally, how do we evaluate or wisely discern how we are using the Free Gifts of the Spirit?

How do we relate to each other? What are our relationships truly based on?
What are we actually doing with each other? What are we communicating to one another? We have been, and still are, determined to exploit every possible free Gift of Nature, of Spirit for our own comfort, our own glorification, our own fraudulent sense of superiority, our own self-centred gratification.

Are we using each other in a similar way, albeit masquerading as “I love you”? And what has our essentially craven greed for luxury afforded us or enabled us to attain, in terms of the self-forgetting Courage to Love and the Wisdom to leave more than we take? Does it awaken the Soul, the Spirit-driven Generosity to Give rather than finding fault and criticising when we do not get what we want? I suggest the age of modernity has given us the means to invent and create the implements of Spiritual death, thus the death of our own environment.

However, there have been people and societies in ancient times, up until the age of what we call ‘modernity’, that engendered courage, self-forgetting courage that was held in high regard so that individuals were pro-active in the presence of the un-known. And it is this Courage, the Graceful strength of this Courage, the Courage that is required to Obey the Will of the Spirit rather than the will of our own human-centred, self-glorifying, self-saving desires. The courage that Infuses the body/mind with True Life Dignity in Love.

Well, what was, what is the source and nature of our Inherent Life Dignity and the Courage of Love?

Wisdom Life arises spontaneously out of a sincere whole-bodily (emotional, mental, psychic and physical) feeling acknowledgment and devotion to the Spirit. Spirit that is the Source and Reality which makes all this existence possible. It is the constant Practice of Love-Fully, whole-bodily Intuiting that Spirit is the Ultimate Reality behind and in all Existence, that gives Birth to Wisdom. Wisdom Life is not merely about a better way of organising our personal circumstances, our personal arrangements or the defiance of breaking a few social and cultural morals.

Wisdom is not an answer to our troubles, our attempts to love each other, our relationships, our difficulties with human community. Wisdom has nothing to do with all that subjective drama.

Wisdom is an Existential State of Being. Wisdom is the Intelligence that holds together and flows through the Web of Life. Wisdom pervades our body/mind, our living arrangements, our relationships, only when we acknowledge with whole-bodily emotional, mental, physical and psychic sincerity, the Practice of the Spirit Being the Source and Reality of all Existence.

Wisdom is a Mode of Living when we are firmly immersed in whole-bodily, Heart-felt acknowledgement and devotion to the Practice of grateful emotional, mental and psychic recognition, that all manifestation is a modification, expression and ultimate Gift of the Living God Spirit.

We are the recipients of Its Gifts, not the maker nor the owner of them.

The purpose of the Conscious Practice of the Spirit Being the Great Source and Provider and Wisdom-Intelligence of all Existence, is for the Awakening of our Being, our Soul-Being, because without that, knowledge or information alone is useless and often times used in all manner of self-destructive ways. We are not transformed by information or by knowledge alone; we are transformed by the Force of Love for the Spiritual Real.

Have we forgotten that we live and die in a world animated by Spiritual Energy?

Have we forgotten, or not ever realised that to be a Lover, the Beloved and the Loved have to thrive? And for the Love to thrive, the Lover must put aside their own importance, so as to hear, protect and nurture, encourage and inspire the Loved.

We must create relationships and communities that sustain our interest, passion and devotion to the Wilderness of the Soul, especially in a society with such a remorseless drive to acquire only the latest fashionable implements of death. These are the convenient devices and forms of fake human life- intelligence for destruction of ourselves and all creatures.

The whole Earth, the Cosmos and every temporary physical Being are a Great Spirit-Given Sacrifice, a Gift in time and space to be returned eventually to the Great Spirit Beloved. It is the Eternal Spirit from which all forms spring and have their physical life that we all depend on, no matter what religion or culture, no matter our colour or the creed we proclaim. The Great Web of Life, the Total interconnectedness and interdependence that all forms rely on, is the Radiant Intelligence of the Eternal Life-Force.

Without It there would be no forms, no trees, no rivers, no oceans, no mountains, no moon nor sun. It is the One Great Unifying Spirit that Births all forms, all creatures, You and me, in order to circulate the Master, the Great Spirit Life-Force for a time, and then to be The Great Gift of Prasad back into the Eternal Spirit Beloved - the Mahasamadhi of Love - the Great Love Sacrifice that all forms, according to the Will of the Spirit, will finally Oblige.

Therefore, let us consent to fulfil the Spiritual Law. Let us give ourselves up so that each Sacred Temple - each Bodily Being – may become a temporary and perishable Altar of Self-Giving into the Mystery that pervades us.

Those who Awaken (discover or uncover their True Nature – Spirit) become a continuous Love Sacrifice into the Spirit, within which they find each moment a passing Lesson in Love, or a temporary Blessing in the Mystery of Amazement, Wonder, Freedom of the Being and Forgiveness, in which we appear and the State into which we are always dissolving.

Let us fall into Love and thereby be animated by our True Nature, the Spirit Beloved, rather than by the effects of experience alone. And let us not confuse Being enlightened to Our True Nature or the Being of Wisdom with an escape from all our natural earthly happiness and sorrows, our joys and grief, for this is not the case and neither should it be. Suffering, if we will relate to it in Love, is the Fire that burns away our false sense of independence. The pain of suffering, the pain of grief is the further breaking of the shell that we constructed around ourselves, around the Heart, for self-defence but which only obstructs our Greater Understanding. The shell must break if the Heart, the Soul, is to Stand in the Sun.

We live and die in a world animated by Spiritual Energy.
Oh Beloved, the most Beautiful You can experience is the Mysterious Self.
Be not any outer authority, Be already dissolved in the Spirit and thus
Graciously whole-bodily animated in Love. The Life Gifted Nature of You.

May You Hold me in Love as I Hold You in Love
Yanchiji