Tuesday, December 9, 2014

When Spirituality Meets the Real World

Both the Agnostics and Atheists dislike us spiritual folks at times. We cannot deal with life, they say, or we are just want to escape the tough choices, or we want to run away from real life. Well, you may be surprised to hear this, but sometimes they have a point; the desire to stop the pain is indeed often the beginning of a spiritual journey.

We started our spiritual journey because we found that the world we experienced didn't quite work for us. We did whatever our societies, parents and spouses wanted from us, but we felt a heaviness inside. So we set out our respective journeys to find new answers but often we fell into yet another trap. We thought that happiness is ours to capture along the Way, but after a few years of running after a seemingly elusive goal we in fact realized that we exclude some aspects of life that way; responsibility, sadness, stress, anxiety, and emptiness also knock on our door, so shouldn't we open it? What’s really the difference between us and the drug-addict folks if we cannot handle all the emotions that life brings our way?

What we were doing is just walking from one extreme to another. Still, that is part of the spiritual experience as well. So please don’t worry if you find that you have been doing something like this. We are all still learning anyway. Go and find out what truly matters to you. Why is there still a restlessness or sadness within you? Maybe you have not been willing to grant something that is truly important for you just because it doesn't seem to be spiritual; maybe you have shied away from a conflict in the name of spirituality; maybe you have repressed some dimension of your personality because you consider it as too ugly. Well now is a good time to do something about it. You can avoid doing it anyway as life has a habit of confronting you with whatever it is you still need to deal with. Just get it done with. Once you embrace it the struggle will be gone forever.

The longer we walk on our spiritual path, the more we realize, it is really not about leading a worldly versus a spiritual life; it is also not about chasing happiness or success. Walking the Way is the realization that everything is perfect as far as our soul development is concerned. Join the flow of life; acknowledge and welcome everything life brings you. Life gives you the opportunity to bring spirituality into your real life just as the real life always gives you the opportunity to meditate on our spiritual being. Bring the light into the darkness and let the remaining darkness help you appreciate the light even more. 

A spiritual path is really a journey towards wholeness. Let's complete our life by bravely embracing our worldly responsibility just as much as our spiritual connection. When we include all aspects of our life, the Way will always be at our disposal. Enjoy!

By Christian and Su Zhen

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