What is the most important thing you can do to advance your
spiritual growth?
It's nothing different from what you are already doing.
What do you think is the nature of spiritual growth? And how does it manifest?
Useless speculation from my perspective, unless you are following the first
question above, in which case striving to answer this question is the most
important thing you can do to advance your spiritual growth.
When one wants bad enough to do something else, then these desires will manifest
in thought and deed, in which case these new desires/actions/in-actions will be
the most important thing one can do to advance their spiritual growth.
It ain't one thing, other than to keep moving, unless of course one wants to
stand still, in which case that is the most important thing one can do to
advance their spiritual growth, for all these actions/inactions/thoughts/deeds
inevitably bring consequences which will advance our spiritual growth. We are all in a stream (earth bound humanity)
flowing down to the sea. Some are swimming with it, some against it, some across
it. (Now if one were to desire to swim "With" the stream, then
figuring out which way the current was flowing and how to stay in that current
would be the most important thing one could do to advance their spiritual
growth.) Basically the reason for this is that we are all the same and we are
all different. We have common lessons to learn and we have individual lessons to
learn. Our HGA / H.Self knows which is which. IT is in charge, not us. The true
"I" is in charge, not me.
I recognize the manifestation of the undeviating Justice in all the
circumstances of my life.
JC
(Ain't doing jack. Never did)
2. What do you think is the nature of spiritual growth? How does it manifest? NJ.
By opening your hand and heart to life.
My Light shall set you free . . .
I.
Dear hermit: What do you think hearts are open to now--chopped liver?
Las Vegas is also Life. NJ.
I don't see that response as justified or contributing to dialogue and
exploration. Looks like a put-down to me. While no biologically functioning
heart is "closed" - the poetic metaphor of hearts being closed or
being open to darkness, death or the lower unconsciousness instead of that which
evidently promotes life and spiritual growth (of course everything essentially
promotes these) communicates clearly to me one possible answer that is worthy of
discussion.
HC
I can understand how NJ's statement could of been interpreted, but I did not interpret it that way myself,
because I realize that from an
"individual" point of view there is no wrong answer to this question. However, from a
"general" point of view NJ. has a valid point. It was my
impression that he was responding to the "general" viewpoint, not the "individual"
one.
In general there Ain't no such thing as being "closed to life" (since
we ain't the doer anyway). It's all about what we desire to get, and what we
desire to avoid. If I truly desire death, darkness, lower consciousness, and the
fleshpots of Egypt, then (attaining, dissolving and assimilating the lessons
thereof) is the most important thing I can do to advance my spiritual growth. I wrote about this in detail in my email of 7/28/99 which
discussed this intensification-dissolution process.
If you desire to resist these things, then that is the most important
thing you can do to advance your spiritual growth. If one desires something else
entirely, then that is the most important thing they can do to advance their
spiritual growth.
One only gets into trouble when they try to tell another that the
"Thing" that advances their spiritual growth must be the same
"Thing" to advance another's spiritual growth. There may be principles
in common, and at its essence the lesson may (or may not) be the same, but the
"Form" that the activity takes is individual. Common ground is
obtained by being able to see past the individual form, to the essence (the ole "face of the beloved
behind the mask")
For one person, it may be meditating. For another, it may be indulging
themselves in the fleshpots of Egypt.
