Spiritual Pearls

It is the impurity in the oyster that creates the pearl. I was recently reminded of this fact when I was musing about my spiritual development. God knows, I am hardly a saint. Still, you cannot help feeling that we live in the age of spiritual empowerment. Impurities or not, we still need to strive to attain enlightenment. I would like to learn how others have overcome theirs. You never know, some of these stories might be spiritual gems.

A little background about my spiritual resume. I spent the first 25 years of my life wondering whether Jesus really was the magician the bible claims he was. I just wasn't sure what was fact and what was fiction. I then discovered the lifestory of the same spirit (Sri Ramakrishna in my case, who lived 150 years ago, but rest asure, there are many others) and suddenly understood that the sons and daughters of God can move mountains if they so choose. But I also felt that you have to be a saint to become this eternal spirit. Today, I am no longer so sure. I feel an ever increasing number of people connect with the Source these days. Chances are, you and I are among the chosen as well.

This brings me to my title. Perhaps we can jumpstart our spiritual careers a bit by focusing on our remaining not so spiritual tendencies. You cannot suppress or attack them, you have to let them run their course. I would love to hear what other people do. I think the best way to succeed is to bring your tendencies out into the light.

When I wrote this blog, I remembered something that happened during my teenage years. When I was dreaming, I suddenly became aware about this state. Do you know the feeling when you are running away from somebody in your dream and you have difficulties moving your legs? Well, this was a recurring dream of mine then and at one point it just registered that I was dreaming whenever this scene occurred. When this awareness happened, I suddenly started creating my own plot. In a sense, I woke up within my dream. As I said, I was a teenager then and mostly tried to do some hanky-panky with girls. This actually never worked out. I always woke up just at the time when things seemed to get interesting. Apparently, you are limited in creating your literal dream destiny after all.

You can develop a similar kind of awareness about your interaction with others. When you recognize certain pattern in yourself, you can step outside of yourself and see and hear your ego in action. When I spot him these days, I welcome him with a gentle "hallo, little fellow". Similarly, I sometimes see myself lecturing others, in which case I warmly acknowledge the Al Gore in me. Lastly, and somewhat embarrassingly, I have been called a peacock more than once. Well, when I see myself acting up in front of women, I suddenly hear a loud "cock-a-doodle-do"- that's pretty deflating as well. Marianne Williamson remarked that spirituality is the art of embracing your contradictions. Please tell me how you got your spiritual pearls.