Gratitude, Thankfulness, Praise

January 15, 2022

It is better to light one small candle of gratitude than to curse the darkness.
– Confucius

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
– Cicero

Wise men appreciate and are grateful.
– The Buddha

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
– Paul

A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.
– Plato

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.
–  Meister Eckhart

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
– Nietzsche

Your depression is connected to your insolence
And refusal to praise
Whoever feels himself walking on the path
And refuses to praise
that man or woman steals from others everyday
Is a shoplifter.
– Rumi

I can no other answer make
But thanks,
And thanks,
and ever thanks.
– Shakespeare

A lot of attention has been given in the last few years to the value of gratitude in aiding one’s life — to improve mood, attitude, and even health — and those effects are real and valuable. There has also been increased recognition of the importance of being grateful and thankful toward those you care about — which improves and deepens relationships — and this is extremely valuable.

But I want to focus on another value of gratitude and thankfulness in this essay — how they can help us grow emotionally and spiritually. If you want to become more psychologically and emotionally mature, and especially if you want to grow spiritually, one of the most important traits to develop is gratitude — thankfulness for the good there is, for “what is.”
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The Love that Moves the Universe

December 31, 2022

      At the beginning of the 14th century in Italy, there was much political turmoil. Dante Alighieri, who had become a successful political figure at the precocious age of 36, was on the wrong losing side in a conflict and banished from his home in Florence. He spent the next 20 years in exile, never returning home. He suffered much. But through the suffering, as well as much deep inner work, he gradually gained the insight and wisdom that led to his writing of one of the most influential works in Western thought, the Divine Comedy.

The book describes a metaphorical journey, with the main character traveling down through many levels of Hell, making his way up through Purgatory, and finally ascending to the top stages of Paradise. He reaches the highest point possible for a human being, but he can see there is more, and he longs to glimpse the highest pinnacle. Because he is a living person, however, he cannot move into or see that highest realm. Yet his aspiration to catch a glimpse of the highest truth is so strong that his longing is fulfilled — not as a thought, but as a vision:

As I wished, the truth I wished for came
Cleaving my mind in a great flash of light.

What he glimpsed in that instant was that at the pinnacle of Heaven was not a figure, but a force, which was love. And his own deepest will and desire had always been drawn by that same love to the journey he was on, even before he was conscious of it. He felt that the love that moved his life and his journey was the same love that moved “the sun and the other stars.” In his vision, it is this love that moves the whole universe, and everything in it.
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Just Be Kind

Essay 9

September 10, 2022

In the ninth essay of Our Highest Possibilities, we look at one of the simplest – and most powerful – practices one can undertake to move toward meaning and fulfillment.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

Skeptico: You have talked a lot about the great wisdom figures, but I feel so inadequate in comparison. Give me something simple I can do right now.

Wisdom Seeker: Several traits are most often associated with the saints and sages of history, and working to develop one of these is a good way to move toward fulfillment.

Those mentioned earlier include love, compassion, inner peace, getting to know yourself, becoming clear about your intentions, thinking more about others, working toward something you feel is worthwhile, and learning to direct your attention. But the simplest one I know is practicing kindness. It is something you can do right now: Practice kindness toward everyone you meet as often as you can.

Skeptico: But the world is a difficult place, and it seems to be especially difficult right now. There is so much anger, bitterness, suspicion — even hostility and violence.

Wisdom Seeker: Yes, but if there is a way through to a better place, it will involve finding a way to be kinder to each other.

Skeptico: What about the law of the jungle — kill or be killed; look out for number one; the survival of the fittest.

Wisdom Seeker: Those instincts are definitely a part of us. But a number of other currents in human beings intrigued Darwin and continue to confound behaviorists: the strong tendencies toward love, compassion, and kindness.

These currents form the heart of the message of the founders of all the great wisdom traditions: Confucius, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and Socrates, to name a few of the most influential. All gave love, compassion, and kindness a central place.
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Finding Guidance

Essay 8

August 28, 2022

A Personal Reflection

In the eight essay of Our Highest Possibilities, we explore where people for thousands of years have looked for guidance in seeking meaning, fulfillment, and happiness.Countless travelers have left hints and clues.

They speak of Love, Peace, Wisdom, Joy
— with Consciousness as the mysterious glue.
Their methods?
Practice, Service, Attention, Gratefulness, Courage, Devotion, Study,
Humility, Intention, Honesty, Kindness.
They teach that all share in this thing called life
and communion with others will help our journeys
will help in discovering our own way, too.
Follow the thread of the path of the wise,
and perhaps one day you will know what is true.

The Issue

The issue at hand is the meaning and fulfillment of your life. That is, actually, always and ever the issue.

But it leads to a question: What brings meaning and fulfillment? Is it pleasurable experiences, good sex, wealth, power, fame, success, children, strong family ties, authenticity, having a well-paying job, long-term security, doing your duty to family or tribe or country, avoiding pain and difficulties, being of service to those in need, trying to save the world from climate disaster or some other problem, good health, comfort, adventure, using your creativity, some combination of the above, or an alternative not yet named? Continue reading “Finding Guidance” →

Ancient Wisdom

Essay 7

August 13, 2022

In the seventh essay of Our Highest Possibilities, we look at examples of “knowing” and successful ways of living in ancient cultures and societies.

Robert Wolff, as described in the last essay, had one of the most powerful moments of “knowing” I have read — while being guided by a shaman from a tribe that lived as people lived beyond the mists of time.Numerous healthy societies flourished in the distant past, and various members of those cultures experienced the satisfaction of a shared world and a shared life. Many had lives that were rich and fulfilling. Not all ancient societies were healthy, of course; there were dysfunctional groups in the past just as there are today. But many early peoples had deep currents of communication between members and with the world in which they lived. They were embedded in their communities and in nature and had the ability to read natural signs, know things about other people, and track and communicate with animals in amazing ways.

All these abilities, and more, have been lost to most of us in the modern world. It is therefore a little surprising to learn that ancient people were anatomically and neurologically the same as we are. Human biology does not seem to have changed in 50,000 years (probably much longer). Current understanding suggests that if you took a newborn from a remote tribe several thousand years ago and raised it in a family in New York or Kansas today, it would develop like other children in that family. And vice versa. An infant from a modern family transferred to the Malaysian jungle at birth would develop all the skills of the people it grew up around. Continue reading “Ancient Wisdom” →

Making It Personal

Essay 6

July 29, 2022

In the sixth essay of Our Highest Possibilities I share some of my own thoughts and experiences on the journey, as well as valuable counsel given by others

Many years ago I answered “yes” to the call to try to find a direct experience of “knowing,” to make a serious attempt to open into the highest possibilities that wise men and women have talked about through the ages. Many twists and turns, ups and downs later, one thing I have discovered is that it is necessary to make that decision again and again if I am to continue on the path. There are so many distractions in our world today: enticements that allure, glittering and bright; troubles all over the world that seem endless but demand a response; and the daily, mundane, time-consuming problems, attractions, and distractions of living in modern society. Continue reading “Making It Personal” →

The Mystic in Each of Us

Essay 5

July 17, 2022

     The fifth essay in Our Highest Possibilities continues with the nature of mystical experience, its connection to intuition, and begins to explore how each of us can find ways to experience these dimensions more fully.

     There is no doubt that many saints, sages, philosophers, scientists, artists, and athletes have reported mystical experiences. But so have many “normal” people, people like you and me. Mystical experiences can arise in an instant in anyone, sometimes with no warning or expectation. For instance, an ordinary guy named Muz Murray was on vacation in Cypress, looking at the sea in the afterglow of sunset, when suddenly, without any warning, everything changed. In an instant, the world was new:

“I was shown that every cell had its own consciousness which was mine. And it seemed … that the whole of humanity was in the same condition: each “individual” believing in his or her separate mind, but in reality still subject to a single controlling consciousness, that of Absolute Consciousness Itself.” Continue reading “The Mystic in Each of Us” →

Mysticism to the Rescue

Essay 4

July 2, 2022

The fourth essay in the series begins the exploration of how we might find truly fulfilling answers to the question about how best to live.

“One conclusion was forced upon my mind, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is, that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence, but apply the right stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness.
“In the main these [extraordinary] experiences and those of the ordinary world keep discrete: yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.” — William James

Extraordinary experiences are often called mystical, and the word mysticismencompasses every moment any one of us experiences a deeper way of knowing, or feeling, or being. Mystical moments actually happen with great frequency, whenever a person opens into a dimension beyond normal, everyday consciousness. One of the greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century, Baruch Spinoza, talked about what it was like to touch this broader knowledge, saying that in the upper reaches of intuition we can gain “the highest stage of human knowledge, in which the whole of the universe is comprehended as a unified interconnected system.”

Although many people have mystical moments, most of us do not pay much attention to their meaning or know how to integrate what they have to say into our everyday lives. Mystics, however, are those who pay attention when “higher energies filter in,” and begin to organize their lives around the wisdom that comes from these experiences. Continue reading “Mysticism to the Rescue” →

Searching for Truth in an Unmoored World

Essay 3

June 16, 2022

The third essay in the series, Our Highest Possibilities, involves the difficulty of knowing what is true in a world that has come unmoored from the foundations that have been the basis for peoples’ lives and civilizations for centuries, even millennia:

Searching for Truth

     What most of us take to be “true” is that which was generally agreed upon within our birth family, tribe, or community. No young person is able to create a set of foundational beliefs out of thin air, so our beliefs are constructed from the stories, images, feelings, thoughts, and prejudices of those with whom we grew up. Some of us, of course, rebel against the ideas we were enculturated to accept, but we quickly adopt beliefs from another group, otherwise our lives fall into chaos and confusion. To live a life in the world we need a set of ideas and beliefs upon which to stand. That is what cultures and civilizations have always provided, by way of stories, religions, philosophies, myths, and other methods of giving guidance for living.

The result is that almost everyone has one or more groups of people with whom they share assumptions and views, those with whom they check out what “truth” is. If most people in our circle believe something, we tend to take it to be objectively real. Of course, no two people have exactly the same views, but we are all members of one or more groups with whom we identify, from very small to very large, and our identity circles go a long way toward defining what is real and true for us. Continue reading “Searching for Truth in an Unmoored World” →

Stepping Outside

Essay 2

June 3, 2022

The second essay in the series, Our Highest Possibilities, involves a crucial step we must take if we are to get in touch with that which is truly important: Stepping Outside.

A poem by Jalaluddin Rumi:

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then, I walked outside.

One question this raises: What did he walk outside of?

When I am looking out at the world from within my individual point of view, it is usually the “me” that I was enculturated to identify with, an individual separate from other individuals and from the world. This is my normal identity, the person I seem to be to myself during most of my waking hours. The traditional way to describe this person I think I am is “ego self,” and the best short definition I can give of ego is “everything I think of when I think of myself.”

Most of us identify with this image of who we are a great deal of the time. When we do, the ego is the center of awareness as well as our identity. There are, however, times when we are outside this identity. Ralph Waldo Emerson explored this “outside” throughout his life:

“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.”

“The great nature in which we rest is that Unity, that Over-Soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other.”

“Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of Universal Being circulate through me.” Continue reading “Stepping Outside” →