Thought for Today

Spiritual Insight: The Spiritual Basis Of Creativity

In the mid-1980's, while William was consulting on corporate creativity, he began to recognise a similarity in the language that people used to describe their moments of creative insight and their experience of spiritual inspiration. It dawned on him that the similarities were not by accident; but rather, it's because our spiritual nature literally means we are co-creators with the Divine...as Martin Buber, a 20th century Jewish philosopher, reminds us:



"Destiny is not where we wait for God to push us. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions."

AUTUMN

I am in Upstate New York at the moment and the leaves are changing colour. The sun is shining brightly and the leaves look so beautiful it takes my breath away. It makes me realise yet again what beauty there is in this wonderful world of ours and how sad it is that there is so much stress and unhappiness to mar the enjoyment of all this wonder and beauty.

If only – ah if only . . . !! If only we could bring ourselves to the point where enjoying the beauty of the earth and doing our best to enhance it were among the most important things we feel we can commit ourselves to. If instead of feeling threatened by those we do not understand, we can try harder to obtain understanding. If we could only see that we are all swimming in the same universal sea and that because someone is swimming in a different direction from us does not mean they are our enemy. If we could see that helping another swimmer in difficulties is so much preferable to either pushing them under the waves or ignoring their cries for help. All these things would change our perspective and create for us a much more satisfying and worthwhile stay upon earth.

As I look at the autumnal beauty all around, it is difficult not to believe in the rightness and perfection of the natural world; to believe that all nature, the animals and humanity are part and parcel of the same wonderful design and that each is as important as the other in the scheme of things that the Great Spirit has created. We are meant to enjoy it all but to work in harmony with not only the natural world but with ourselves also. Disharmony and disease are inseparable. Much of the disease we see throughout the world springs inevitably from disharmony; whether it is the disease and death spread through warfare and terrorism (which is just another word for warfare), or the spread of diseases like cancer and hypertension that are the result of the desperate unhappiness of people. Unhappiness created by the struggle going on within us between our higher, spiritual self and the ego that is ruled by the five senses.

Inside we know what is needed for happiness on earth and it is rarely to do with maximising our material possessions. Inside we know that war and violence resolve nothing, are destructive and generate a cloud of negativity that at present surrounds our globe and adds to the total sum of human misery. Inside we also know that disputes more often than not result from two things; 1)Our refusal to make a real effort to understand one another and 2) Greed, the selfish desire to possess more and more material things, especially money.

Is there anything we can do to reverse the process? There is. We can as individuals pay more attention to the beauty of the natural world. When, as we gaze upon it in wonder, and as a result feel the light of the spirit shining around and within us, use our imagination to project that light outwards and upwards. If enough of us do this it will disperse the clouds of darkness created by war, hatred and misery and the suffocating pall that hangs over the earth at present will melt away. The effects of its removal will bring about a dramatic increase in inter-personal understanding and a vast reduction in sickness.

Surely such a prize is worth making an extra effort to spread the light of the spirit as widely as possible?

SILENCE

Once again my thanks to "Spiritual Insight" for this thought-provoking piece. It brings to mind Psalm 46 "Be still and know that I am God."

In spite of whatever wisdom we may have; we can make a mistake if we have no control over our words. And we can easily find examples of this truth; those who talk much have less power than those who talk little.

For a talkative person may not be able to express an idea in a thousand words which those who are masters of silence express in one word. ... What gives power over words? What gives the power that can be attained by silence? The answer is: it is will power which gives the control over words; it is silence which gives one the power of silence. It is restlessness when a person speaks too much.

The more words are used to express an idea, the less powerful they become. It is a great pity that man so often thinks of saving pennies and never thinks of sparing words. It is like saving pebbles and throwing away pearls. An Indian poet says, 'Pearl-shell, what gives you your precious contents? Silence; for years my lips were closed.'

A Little Ice-Cream is Good for the Soul!

Last week, I took my grand-children to a restaurant.

My six-year-old grand-son asked if he could say grace.

As we bowed our heads he said, "God is good, God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Nana gets us ice cream for dessert. And liberty and justice for all! Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark, "That's what's wrong with this country. Kids today don't even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!"

Hearing this, my grand-son burst into tears and asked me, "Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?"

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job, and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.

He winked at my grand-son and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer."

"Really?" my grand-son asked.

"Cross my heart," the man replied.

Then, in a theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes."

Naturally, I bought my grand-children ice cream at the end of the meal. My grand-son stared at his for a moment, and then did something I will remember the rest of my life.

He picked up his sundae and, without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, "Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes; and my soul is good already."


The End

I love this story!

Sometimes, we all need some ice cream.





I hope God sends you some ice cream today!

FEAR!

I am once more indebted to the writer of Spiritual Insights for this piece. I hope you find it enlightening - Lionel

According to metaphysics fear is caused by the lack of light. Therefore the more light there is in the heart the more fearless the heart becomes. ... When a person is afraid of a dog, he gives the dog a tendency to bite him. This can be noticed so plainly in the lower creation, that every animal is afraid of another animal, and the expectation of harm makes it fear more than does the idea of the hugeness of the form or the bodily strength of another animal. Many things in life can be brought about, not only by wanting them and thinking about them, but also by fearing them, both objects and conditions. To clear one's mind of fear is like bringing light into a dark room, and as light is needed to illuminate a dark room so the light of the soul is necessary to clear away the thought of fear. ... When one fears, this world frightens one, but when one clears one's heart of all fear, the whole world of illusion turns into one single vision of the sublime immanence of God.


There is a story of a Brahmin, a young man who was very much impressed by what his guru told him: that the whole of manifestation is the immanence of God and that, therefore, there is nothing to fear, nothing to distrust. This thought made the young man feel quite at home in the world, quite comfortable. Then one day a mad elephant came along the road on which the young man was walking. The men running before the elephant yelled, 'Away, away! The elephant is coming!' But the young man would not get out of the way. With palms joined he stood as fearlessly before the elephant as one stands before God, as his guru had told him. The consequence was that the elephant gave him a shove and he fell down. He was brought to the guru who asked him what had happened. The young man said, 'Guruji, you said that all is the immanence of God, and therefore, in all reverence, I stood before the elephant with joined hands.' The guru said, 'Did anyone tell you to get out of the way?' He replied, 'Yes.' 'Why then,' said the guru, 'did you not stand before that man with joined hands and listen to him?'

What You See Is What You Get

I am indebted to The Spiritual Insight’s website for this enlightening piece. I hope you find it as thought-provoking as I did. - Lionel

A friend of mine had an unpleasant experience with a mother of one his students who was about to be ordained a rabbi. This greatly upset and disturbed this woman who considered herself an enlightened intellectual and looked at organized religion as backward and fanatical. She was very nasty and cynical about her son's religious convictions. They were on the way to the ceremony when she turned to my friend and said, "Basically, I don't believe in G- d."

My friend replied, "O.K., fine! Don't believe in G-d." He was the first religious person who had responded to her that way, others tried to convince her. "What?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"You don't want to believe in G-d?" he said. "Fine, so live in a G-dless world."

That's essentially the choice we have. If we don't want to believe in G-d, then G-d won't be in our world. That doesn't mean G-d isn't real. G-d is real, but not for those who choose do deny that truth.

In other words, if I've never tasted papaya, then there's no flavor of papaya in my life. Whether it's real or not for others, it's not in my life. If I'm blind to the color red, then red will not be one of the colors in my life. Mammals do not see colors, so they live in a colorless world. If I'm not willing to see G-d, then my world is godless.

Once I was dating a woman, who I'll call Daphne, whom I loved very much. I wanted to marry Daphne. It took me a long time to realize that Daphne simply could not acknowledge my love. I did everything in my power to show her that I loved her. Daphne had such a poor image of herself, however, that she couldn't believe that anyone could love her. It didn't matter how much I professed my love to her, how many bouquets of flowers I sent her. She couldn't see my love. So, in a way, it wasn't there for her.

Everyone is thirsty for love, but how much love you can receive is dependent on how much you believe someone can love you. How much you believe is how much you receive. The more you acknowledge and believe in G-d the more you receive and see G-d in your life.

To the extent that we build our awareness, expand our consciousness, and acknowledge that G-d is the power directing the show, to that extent we see how G-d runs the show for us.

Each one of us has a choice. You can believe that this world is filled with the presence of G-d who cares about it and guides it. Or you can believe that this world is one big accident, a chaotic mess. The choice is yours. But remember what you believe is ultimately what you will see. What you believe creates the world you live in.

The Talmudic Sages taught: "Everything is in the hands of G-d except awe of G-d."

The Hebrew word for awe, yira, means both "awe" and "will see." Everything is in the hands of G-d, except for our acknowledging and seeing and being in awe of G-d. If we are in awe we will see G- d. If we are not in awe, if we are not open to seeing G-d, then G-d is not in our world. It's that simple and that serious.

Some people experience constant Divine presence, which means they see and feel G-d's care and guidance in their lives. They need $800 to pay for a car repair, and an unexpected check for $800 arrives in the mail. They miss a bus, so they get on the next bus, and the person they sit down next to turns out to be a friend from twenty years ago.

Why are such experiences not part of everyone's daily life? Because what you see is what you get.

SECURITY

One particular thing I notice these days that is so different from when I was a child is the growth of an almost unhealthy pre-occupation with security. I do not just mean national and international security due to terrorism, although I will come to that later, I mean ordinary, every day activities. When I was a boy, no adult worried about me climbing trees or going off cycling on my own for miles. Indeed, when I was four, I climbed onto the roof of a greenhouse in the garden. Surprise, surprise, it would not take my weight and I bear the scar on my leg to this day! I am sure that had my parents seen what I was doing they would have stopped me but they did not because they felt it unnecessary to keep watching me all the time – “just in case”. The fall and the cut resulting from it were painful but no permanent damage was done and it certainly taught me not to climb on glass roofs again!

I and my friends would have died had our parents insisted on accompanying us to school every day. We walked, sometimes alone, sometimes together with friends but never with our parents. It was perhaps a thirty minute walk and there were potential dangers on the way; not just ill-intentioned adults (although there seemed to be an absence of those, then) but a canal and two busy roads to cross. I recall no-one being hurt – oh one or two ventured too near the canal, fell in and emerged wet and smelly but that was the worst that happened. Today, even quite grown up schoolchildren are driven to their schools by over-anxious parents and local authorities are so in fear of legal actions against them for negligence that they have removed any equipment from children’s playgrounds that carries the faintest risk of injury.

What has happened to us? As we have become more prosperous, we seem also to have become more fearful. Why? Life has never been and never will be risk free. Indeed it appears logical that it is through the risks with which we are faced and what we do to meet them that we learn. If life were completely risk free I believe it would become anodyne and uninteresting. I realise that anxious parents will point to the large number of attacks on unaccompanied children and the presence of various ne’er-do-wells in their community. There have always been sick people in communities but in former times we seemed to be able to handle them rather better. Perhaps, paradoxically, we cared more then? The change in attitude is epitomised by the equally fundamental change in adult behaviour towards the children of others and the attitude of the law in this area. When I was a boy, if you dared to misbehave in any way in the presence of an adult, you were reprimanded there and then. Indeed if there was a policeman about when you misbehaved, you would probably receive a clip around the ear and be sent on your way. If you dared to tell your parents about it, they would give you another clip on the assumption that you had deserved what you got from the policeman. Today even parents hesitate before disciplining their children in this way.

I can just hear some people muttering about sadism and licence to practice it when you are in uniform or are a parent but it wasn’t like that. There was a mutual sense of pride in our communities and that included how children behaved. Children are learning to be adults and they need rules to guide them. It is surely our responsibility to not only set such rules but also to supervise them? Today bullies and the like are arraigned before children’s courts and wear their arrest and trial like a badge and become folk heroes as a result, going on to become much worse as adults. Formerly, most such bullies had their violent tendencies knocked out of them as it were, although some did not. I am citing this merely to show it could well be a reason for the growth of parental fear and our preoccupation with security. There is a big downside to all this in my opinion. Because so much risk is removed from the pathway of children, when they grow up they either yearn to take any kind of risk, especially anti-social ones, or they become mentally incapable of overcoming even the smallest risk placed in their way. They have been so coddled they cannot accept the normal risks of life.

We seem to have abdicated personal responsibility for acceptable behaviour in our communities and handed it to officialdom, just as we have with our response to terrorism. We set up official bodies to oversee national security etc., and then wonder why so many petty regulations emerge! Give people an official title and they will feel obliged to justify their existence by introducing all kinds of rules, whether they help or hinder the policy they have been appointed to administer. I will not repeat what I said about our reaction to terrorists in an earlier blog but there is a strong case for arguing we have made the terrorists’ job much easier by over-reacting, by becoming too fearful. Maybe it is time for us to take stock and re-examine the whole question in the light of experience.

Should we perhaps encourage more risk taking by our children and become less anxious for their safety? This does not involve failing to warn them about risks beforehand and giving them advice on handling them By accepting more openly that life has risks we may begin to produce a far less fearful future generation! That wonderful person Helen Keller once pronounced on the matter of life and its risks and remember what she had to overcome to make her way in the world; this is what she said:-

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”