By Kaye Cooper From the Joyful living Program
Spirituality is the process we follow to discover our values, grasp meanings and develop good, strong and loyal character. I had better repeat that because I probably took you by surprise. Spirituality is the process we follow to discover our values, grasp meanings and develop good, strong and loyal character. Personal spirituality is the individually directed path each person follows in attending to her own spiritual needs. There lives within each of our minds a perfect spirit who is there to guide us to perfection by enlightening our experience with insights into meaning. It is entirely our choice whether to pay attention or not. The most exciting adventure of our mortal lives is to explore our inner experience of the spirit within to find the insights of Spirit, and to bring that influence into our lives progressively so that Spirit’s love saturates everything we think, feel or do. As we progress in expressing the spirit’s loving nature, the spirit’s courage, integrity, sincerity, fairness, and compassion are reflected in the way we treat others. This way of life is a self-discovering and self-creating adventure. We begin with no knowledge of the goal, no knowledge of the techniques of discovery and no knowledge of the certainty of success. As we succeed in living the Spirit-reflecting life, we come to recognize that we are becoming the person we have dreamed of being by means of our own decisions and loyal expression of our values. We are fulfilling our own deepest yearnings of what we wish to be. What does it mean to be spiritual? It is to lead our lives out of a spiritual core—seeking and following inner wisdom. Inner wisdom is not just applied experience. Experience teaches us the rational cause and effect patterns that improve our decision-making. But what we learn from experience is lifted above knowledge of cause and effect into truth, values and meanings by insight. Insight is the sense from within ourselves about what is true and right—not just what is factually accurate, but what is true, what harmonizes with our inmost convictions and what is consistent with reality as we know it should be.
To Be Spiritual
Spiritual living means to encourage growth in ourselves beyond the physical and intellectual. To be spiritual is to move beyond living life to clothe, feed, and shelter ourselves; to move beyond using our intellects to solve problems and direct our material achievements. To be spiritual is to live beyond the goal of understanding the rules of the material world around us and manipulating that world to our benefit. To be spiritual is to live the adventure of becoming morally the best we can imagine—and then imagining farther to even better and higher selves. Spirituality is to become the ideals and values that we see and admire. It is to discover who we really are and who we can become. To be spiritual is to appreciate beauty—physical and emotional—to recognize truth, that which is God’s will and way, and live it, and to become good—and progressively better. To grow in spirituality is to let go of the weaknesses, failures and inadequacies we recognize in ourselves so that we may grasp and adopt higher values and meanings. The human condition requires imperfection so that we can choose to improve. We will not destroy our faults. We will outgrow them, leaving our faults behind; discarded, outgrown and eventually forgotten.
Tools to be Used Daily
We call our program Joyful Living. Joyful Living provides you with the tools to pursue your personal spirituality—tools to be used daily. If you put the tools to work, you will evolve and grow toward a very achievable goal. Joyful Living will help you to reach within yourself to make contact with your Spirit Within. We each have within us a source of spiritual insight and revelation that speaks constantly to us of unselfishness and the urge to help others. This program will provide you with easy techniques to open yourself to awareness of these insights.
The Spiritual Family
All of us who pursue the adventure of seeking the wisdom within us and living the spiritual life form a spiritual family. We are, after all, children of Spirit. This family is based not on our genetics, but on our choices to live out of our spiritual selves. There is a type of magnetism that emanates from a person who has fallen in love with higher values and is on the path of growth. It is more than our recognition of each other. It is a divine mystery we are blessed to experience. The love that develops as the family members recognize each other and grow in relationship is an amazing thing to experience. It is a love that feeds us with spiritual food and nurtures our spiritual growth. The love we give and the love we receive becomes our spiritual life-blood. Because we are engaged in growing spiritually, all members of the family strive to treat each other well. We encourage and support each other in our efforts. We take great joy in the successes of each other. And each person we encounter is a potential brother or sister in this spiritual family. Each person we meet is full of spiritual potential waiting to be discovered and unleashed. And how gratifying when we are privileged to help someone to discover the spiritual potential within themselves and join the spiritual family. Sometimes there are vast differences between family members. As brothers and sisters, we can enjoy and appreciate these differences as a part of a master plan to enable each of us to have special gifts we can offer to the family. We brothers and sisters love and value each other despite the differences—sometimes we even appreciate and enjoy the differences. End Back to Top