Our body needs balance, our mind needs balance and we need to balance the two together - this is spirituality. The buddha taught that we are to have our lives in balance. The Tao taught this as a central teaching. The Quran teaches God helps those who help themselves.
So it is not enough to just believe in something , we need to have balance.
It can be hard to achieve balance in a bad economy or when the persons in power are full of greed and lust. It can be hard to achieve balance when our neighborhood is over run with crime and drugs. It can be hard to achieve balance when we are born poor or have a disability. However we must try it is our spiritual journey.
When we look around us we can see that most of our personal problems and with our family is because of an imbalance. Sometimes we view it as an unfairness and that can lead to anger. we should merely view all things as having balance or imbalance. Making at first a major adjustment as needed then smaller adjustments along the way, we can bring ourselves back into balance.
What we don't want to do is to try and bring others back into balance before making those needed adjustments to our own lives. Everything must first start within our own being or temple.
Balance between our own body and mind is spirituality. How we achieve this balance may differ from each of us. All of our needs are different, some may need food or shelter others may just need a hug. Something we all must consider once our lives are in balance is to help others achieve balance.
It is not really journey of rights and wrongs - it is one of balance. That is why we are told to cast out the mote in our own eye first, and also not to judge lest we be judged.
We can seem overly religious or overly absorbed in our desires. Even a man that reads the bible or the quran each day and prays all the time must also take into consideration his own daily needs and those of his family. A need may be food or shelter or a simple hug to his children.
We can see lately that most terrorism is caused by religious fervor where instead of viewing life as being fair or unfair , right or wrong it should have been viewed in regards to balance.
We can also say that in a capitalist society balance can be achieved only by working to change the government or corporate structure to allow for a balance. Of course we see the executives having their own perks , washrooms, allowances and special options where the worker at the bottom seems to be neglected. There are some companies that do take care of their workers and they have no problem finding good ones to attain overall success. Those that do treat employees poorly usually end up out of business or create an environment of distrust.
Good balance brings trust.. Brings joy to our lives.
Bad balance causes distrust, lies and brings unhappiness to all.
Communism became popular when the royals and those in power where not concerned with the balance of those who had given them their power. The thing we should note is someone gave up something so they could be in the position they are in. Always be considerate of others sacrifices.
In communism we find that balance is achieved by affiliating everyone into the same party , putting the workers first. In capitalism we find the corporations are all in competition this creates a greater variety and quality of products. Competition is healthy as it helps to balance out the quality. Even in communism there can be a reward system to achieve a higher quality.
Quality is sometimes preferred over quantity. So there is a fine adjustment is you want quality called competition. If we want to compete we must have balance within and around us. Balance is not always a fair distribution , or right or wrong it may just be improving the way of doing things, actions. Balance by actions or change, balance by fine tuning later.
In the lesson of the chariot , we see that there are (2) horses that make up our nature a dark horse and a white horse. This same scenario was spoke about by Plato which he speaks of a dark horse being more the nature of desires and the white horse the heart , honor , victory and can be angry when they see a wrong being done. In both cases the mind must decide which horse will take the lead which is represented by the chariot driver. If the Lord of our mind is wise and leads us to make good decisions we will make better choices.
There are times when the dark horse may lead , it is another part of our nature. Sometimes the dark horse will represent a personal survival which is necessary. To balance our desires with the heart would involve an equal distribution of work. The three parts of our soul are the dark horse, the white horse and the chariot. Regardless of what we may think the chariot will always represent who we allow in the driver seat with us. In the case of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna was the driver and the one giving advise to the commander. We remain the commander , the Lord always gives us the free will to make the final choices. In the case of the Christian, Jesus is the one behind the wheel , we still make the final decision. Having the mind of Christ is having the one whose is in your chariot in the character of Jesus.
We are still limited by our own nature , the horses and the chariot driver. What if we had someone that did not give good advice , where would we be, perhaps in a ditch. In the story of the chariot in Buddhism Nagasena tries to tell the king he arrived on a chariot and is questioned about the existence of the chariot by identifying each piece as not being the chariot. Then tries do deny his existence in the same fashion. "Or is "Nagasena" a form, or feelings, or perceptions, or impulses, or consciousness?" Finally it was rationalized he could exist as the chariot did by having all the parts identified and named as a single entity or "being". We are merely the sum of all parts identified by a sound.
So if we are traveling to a destination and someone asks where are your wheels we may point to our feet. What do we do when someone says who is your driver? Do we say no driver in the seat? These horses drive themselves like a runaway buggy. What buddha is saying the chariot does not exist at all without all the parts intact you are going nowhere.
Peace,
Earl.
So it is not enough to just believe in something , we need to have balance.
It can be hard to achieve balance in a bad economy or when the persons in power are full of greed and lust. It can be hard to achieve balance when our neighborhood is over run with crime and drugs. It can be hard to achieve balance when we are born poor or have a disability. However we must try it is our spiritual journey.
When we look around us we can see that most of our personal problems and with our family is because of an imbalance. Sometimes we view it as an unfairness and that can lead to anger. we should merely view all things as having balance or imbalance. Making at first a major adjustment as needed then smaller adjustments along the way, we can bring ourselves back into balance.
What we don't want to do is to try and bring others back into balance before making those needed adjustments to our own lives. Everything must first start within our own being or temple.
Balance between our own body and mind is spirituality. How we achieve this balance may differ from each of us. All of our needs are different, some may need food or shelter others may just need a hug. Something we all must consider once our lives are in balance is to help others achieve balance.
It is not really journey of rights and wrongs - it is one of balance. That is why we are told to cast out the mote in our own eye first, and also not to judge lest we be judged.
We can seem overly religious or overly absorbed in our desires. Even a man that reads the bible or the quran each day and prays all the time must also take into consideration his own daily needs and those of his family. A need may be food or shelter or a simple hug to his children.
We can see lately that most terrorism is caused by religious fervor where instead of viewing life as being fair or unfair , right or wrong it should have been viewed in regards to balance.
We can also say that in a capitalist society balance can be achieved only by working to change the government or corporate structure to allow for a balance. Of course we see the executives having their own perks , washrooms, allowances and special options where the worker at the bottom seems to be neglected. There are some companies that do take care of their workers and they have no problem finding good ones to attain overall success. Those that do treat employees poorly usually end up out of business or create an environment of distrust.
Good balance brings trust.. Brings joy to our lives.
Bad balance causes distrust, lies and brings unhappiness to all.
Communism became popular when the royals and those in power where not concerned with the balance of those who had given them their power. The thing we should note is someone gave up something so they could be in the position they are in. Always be considerate of others sacrifices.
In communism we find that balance is achieved by affiliating everyone into the same party , putting the workers first. In capitalism we find the corporations are all in competition this creates a greater variety and quality of products. Competition is healthy as it helps to balance out the quality. Even in communism there can be a reward system to achieve a higher quality.
Quality is sometimes preferred over quantity. So there is a fine adjustment is you want quality called competition. If we want to compete we must have balance within and around us. Balance is not always a fair distribution , or right or wrong it may just be improving the way of doing things, actions. Balance by actions or change, balance by fine tuning later.
In the lesson of the chariot , we see that there are (2) horses that make up our nature a dark horse and a white horse. This same scenario was spoke about by Plato which he speaks of a dark horse being more the nature of desires and the white horse the heart , honor , victory and can be angry when they see a wrong being done. In both cases the mind must decide which horse will take the lead which is represented by the chariot driver. If the Lord of our mind is wise and leads us to make good decisions we will make better choices.
There are times when the dark horse may lead , it is another part of our nature. Sometimes the dark horse will represent a personal survival which is necessary. To balance our desires with the heart would involve an equal distribution of work. The three parts of our soul are the dark horse, the white horse and the chariot. Regardless of what we may think the chariot will always represent who we allow in the driver seat with us. In the case of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna was the driver and the one giving advise to the commander. We remain the commander , the Lord always gives us the free will to make the final choices. In the case of the Christian, Jesus is the one behind the wheel , we still make the final decision. Having the mind of Christ is having the one whose is in your chariot in the character of Jesus.
We are still limited by our own nature , the horses and the chariot driver. What if we had someone that did not give good advice , where would we be, perhaps in a ditch. In the story of the chariot in Buddhism Nagasena tries to tell the king he arrived on a chariot and is questioned about the existence of the chariot by identifying each piece as not being the chariot. Then tries do deny his existence in the same fashion. "Or is "Nagasena" a form, or feelings, or perceptions, or impulses, or consciousness?" Finally it was rationalized he could exist as the chariot did by having all the parts identified and named as a single entity or "being". We are merely the sum of all parts identified by a sound.
So if we are traveling to a destination and someone asks where are your wheels we may point to our feet. What do we do when someone says who is your driver? Do we say no driver in the seat? These horses drive themselves like a runaway buggy. What buddha is saying the chariot does not exist at all without all the parts intact you are going nowhere.
Peace,
Earl.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.