The Last Temptation

I keep a collection of goals, aspirations and dreams that I change and flexibly adjust when I feel that I have outgrown certain things, or when my perspective changes on some of my goals. The collection has both spiritual as well as personal goals, such as publishing my spiritual books, or making a name for myself in my current profession as a financial strategist.

The idea of the collection came from Kerry Speckman's "The Winner's Bible", and I can only recommend this approach to you; it certainly helped me clearing up things for me. Initially, I mostly focused on my spiritual goals in my personal "bible"made the classic mistake that many of us spiritual travelers do; we somehow have a "holier than thou" looking down on our soul-longings. Well, life reminded me that this approach doesn't work for me.

I realized that my so-called ego goals, professional recognition, success, physical attractiveness, also really mattered to me, so I started taking care of these goals with as much passion. In my personal "bible", I write down goals like seeing my creativity appreciated, or getting a promotion at work for example, and work on them just as much as on all my spiritual goals.  My approach is to go after what is meaningful for me and let the Path show me how and why these goals end up being consistent with my spiritual ones.

At work I am quite ambivalent about what I want. I realize that getting recognitions and promotions is meaningful to my soul, but I also understand that every step up in the corporate ladder comes with strings attached. My resolution to the problem is that I am quite specific about my spiritual goals where my mission already seems pretty clear, but am somewhat open-ended about my professional career: I write down my perceived soul-longings, but leave it up to the Way to show me what works for me and what doesn't. Writing them down nevertheless is helpful though. Leave them out and your soul starts reminding you that you aren't quite as spiritually advanced as your ego likes you to believe.

I titled this note "The Last Temptation", so how is that related to everything we discussed this far? Well, every spiritual traveler is likely to run into a wall at some point. It is the ego struggle that just doesn't want to let go. Either you don't grant yourself what is truly meaningful to you under false spiritual pretense, or, you have one earthly longing that just keeps colliding with your spiritual mission.The last temptation is the symbolic acknowledgement that you are about to move to a new spiritual dimension. All but one step across the bridge. Jesus faced the last temptation when he stood up to the power hunger he felt inside. It is tricky, isn't it? How will you ever know what constitute an authentic goal, and what is a last temptation? Well, relax, that is what your spiritual path is all about. The Way will show to you what is meaningful and will also show you how to get it in a spiritually kosher way. Do you already know what your last temptation is?