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Living The Good Life!

Living Dharma (the good/balanced life) includes all aspects of your life. You do not become spiritual just from meditation alone. Below is my balance chart for life. You need to be addressing all levels of your life not just one or two. You can see most of the work happens on the cleanse and build levels. Your reward for the work is the state of being at peace and joy-full. You then automatically live the "Eightfold Path".

Make note of where you spend most of your time and energy.

More importantly write down areas you avoid and take steps to work on those areas.

Dharma Living Chart

EFFORT

Most people that get into spirituality or the new-age have all heard of characteristics like compassion, non-judgment, love, honor, and respect. The truth is that one of the highest characteristics of a spiritual person is the willingness to put forth EFFORT. You do not get to live the good life by sitting on your behind and doing nothing.

Effort is one of the most overlooked and avoided aspects of spiritual growth. Effort is involved in every area of life from Abundance to Health to Prayer to Relationships to Work to Zen-Meditation. The chart above that shows an example of the balanced spiritual life takes effort.

The lazy mind wants big return on no effort or little effort. That is why the Lotto is so popular. When the lazy mind receives little return for the little effort it put forth, the lazy mind becomes pessimist and views life more and more from the “poor-me perspective”.

To put forth effort is engrained in our very being by God. Effort makes us feel good!! When we put forth effort to do what we know is right we feel good about ourselves. Here is an example, when we eat the right things for our bodies or exercise we feel good about ourselves. When we don’t put forth effort to do those things we feel bad about ourselves.

How many times have you eaten one too many pieces of cake and after the momentary feel-good passes you start beating yourself up?

We all instinctively admire and respect effort. There is much effort needed to become a doctor and very little effort needed to wash dishes. Not that either one of those services makes a person better or worse, we just instinctively respect effort.

 CHART REVISITED

This is not a complete list of things you need to do, but you get the idea.

Body: 3+6+8= average of 6

Mind: 5+2+3= average of 3

Spirit: 3+1+10= average of 5

Overall Beingness/Resonance = 4.5

Hopefully, by this example, you can see the importance of working on all levels.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Enlightenment is highly over rated and misunderstood. When people hear the word "enlightenment" they get images of levitating yogis, walking on water, never having any problems or challenges  in their life.

Think of the word light. What does the word light represent? To shine a light on something means to be able to see it. To be able to see something means you are aware of it. Therefore the word "enlightenment" really means to be "In Awareness Of"! To be enlightened is to be aware of your "stuff". What I mean by your stuff is your misperceptions, judgments, false beliefs, etc. Those aspects of yourself that cause you to act in inappropriate ways.

Looking at the chart "10 Worlds" below, enlightenment (in my personal opinion) happens in the 7th and 8th worlds. Enlightenment comes from study and then taking that understanding and awareness into your personal experiences. Enlightenment helps you get to Buddahood (in line with the purpose of God) but it doesn't make you a Buddha. When you begin to see your "STUFF" through 'In Awareness Of' , you then need to take steps (effort) to cleanse yourself so that you can move into the highest two state of being. Enlightenment (satoris) comes in stages (small satoris and big satoris)- like peeling an onion.

Enlightenment is not the end of the spiritual path but the beginning of the path.

10 WORLDS

(states or conditions of life)

The chart below is based on Buddhist belief. It is a great example of the states of being through which we fluctuate daily. Don't get caught up on the wording or that it is a Buddhist perspective. Keep your mind open and you will learn something.

How we balance our life based on my "Dharma Chart" above dictates which one of the worlds we will find ourselves in. From moment to moment we fluctuate between the worlds based on our "stuff" and how the environment (people, places, events, and things) affects us. We are at the mercy of outside circumstances until we get into the upper two levels. In the upper two levels we are in control of how we act in response to the world.  Until we reach the higher two worlds our actions are really reactions we don't SEEM to have power over. These reactions reflect the level of the world we are living in at any given time.

Through the unfolding levels of enlightenment, we begin to see what our reactive responses are rooted in. Once we see the roots of our problems we need to take action through EFFORT to rise above our reactive nature to the world and get in control of ourselves. Doing this, we line up with the world at large/God and express ourselves at the highest level. When we all do this the world will be in perfect balance.

You fluctuate through all of these worlds but there is one that you tend to dwell in. This is called your "fundamental state". Which one of the worlds or houses do you tend to live in - what is your fundamental state?

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