Orthodoxy Transforming Spirituality

Episode #24 — Right Action = Right Acts

Most religious systems demand and teach behavioral norms and use fear as an incentive. If you do a bad deed, one can be expected to suffer at the hands of God. Therefore, if you do not want to be punished, do not do the forbidden deed. The laws of most countries are the same way — fear driven. Break the law and get the punishment – if you get caught.

However, spirituality seeks to participate in right actions and discontinue negative actions not based on fear but on a person’s own best interest. This is a great difference. Fear only causes us to want to do things and see if we can get away with the action. Fear is a negative emotion and causes resentment and lack of freedom to act.

However, if we really believe what we have studied in these podcasts so far, then doing right actions and avoiding negative actions do not flow from fear, they flow from wanting to grow in spirituality and flowing with the way things really are.

What we do, good or negative, every little thing we do, pushes over dominoes that go in every direction pushing over other dominoes. Finally, the ring of dominoes will come full circle and hit us in the head. The difference between our push of the first domino and the one that hits us in the head is that the one that finally makes full circle has momentum behind it. In other words, the things we do will come back to us with much greater force than our original action induced on the first domino.

We, as we have seen in the past podcasts, live in a closed system. Everything is connected. Therefore, there is no such thing as an act simply flying out into space with no consequences. Every act will have its consequences. It is not a matter of getting caught, it is a matter of the way things are.

Episode #23 — Right Thoughts About Thoughts

Now, let’s take a look at Right Thought. In order to escape the misery of the unsatisfactory world which is impermanent, we must have Right Thoughts at all times. We must, at all times, think, “This world is impermanent and any situation I am in is impermanent. If I am patient this will pass. I must quit insisting things and people be different. All things are as they must be. They cannot help it.” These are thought of compassion, understanding and mercy. These are thoughts of connectedness, wisdom and acceptance. Why is it so important to constantly have these thoughts? Because all things are connected. So any thoughts you have will instantly affect everything in the universe in some way. It is said that when we sweep the porch, we affect the butterfly on the other side of the world somehow no matter how small. It is a grave error to assume that we are all separate, disconnected beings like marbles in a jar rolling around sometimes hitting and sometimes not. We are all one, giant concoction of energy.

What are Right Thoughts? Thoughts of compassion for beings who cannot help but be just as they are because of cause and effect. Mercy on those who offend us because we realize they are simply grasping, trying to make things different than they are. We send thoughts of acceptance, joy, happiness, inclusion, wisdom and understanding. All negative thoughts of hate, greed, and aversion are poisonous not only to us, but to the energetic fields around us thus setting up the conditions for a NOW we will not enjoy in the later NOW.

Episode #22 — Right Thinking or Right View

I cannot overstate this: when we remember that everything is impermanent and has a beginning and an end, nothing will be able to upset our happiness and peace. What could? This we will call Right Understanding or Right View. We must develop this through knowing the facts with our minds and giving mental assent and then knowing the truth of this by experiencing it deep in our understanding. Think of it this way: if everything is changing all the time, everything beginning and ending at different rates and different times, then we live in a swirl of change, a cloud of emerging and dissapating. Including us. However, in our minds we can stand within the tornado of change and knowing it is all changing, we simply do not suffer at all. Why? Because we know the truth: Everything will be different in a moment and that is the way things are and how they shall always be in this reality.

Episode #21 — Making Better Nows Now

Wisdom teaches us to accept the NOW, as it is with no judgments, no pretty and no ugly: just IS.

ISNESS. NOWNESS. RIGHT NOWNESS.

Do you remember a single moment in your life that wasn’t right now? Can you say, “Wow. I had a good time yesterday today.” Or, “I had the most wonderful tomorrow today.”

Of course not. All we have is NOW.

Accepting the NOW frees up all the energy you have been using to resist the now. Think of all the regret you have expended over your past and worry over the future. That activity of regret and worry caused you to not have a good now. So, you tried to fix it with more worry, fretting or going to buy something or fill the void with another person for a short night of avoiding right NOW.

However, we assured, you will never escape right now.

We can make our nows better though, even blissful, if we accept everything as it is and then act in ways that will produce better nows.

All our thoughts, words and actions are like tossing sand into a fan: they blow right back in our faces. If you don’t want sand in your face, throw flower petals in the fan. Then, you will be covered in color and fragrance and happiness.

Make the commitment to change your NOW, NOW.

Episode #20 — Happening to Life — Orthodoxy Transforming

In the last podcast episode we revealed the fourth great spiritual truth that everything is exactly as it must be. Since the entire world as we understand it and all relationships in it are interconnected by infinite causes and effects, nothing is out of place. Everything is exactly as it MUST be. We might not like it, we might chafe at our circumstances and relationships and the disappointments they may or may not be delivering at this moment, but everything, absolutely everything is exactly as it must be right this very moment. Unless the universe suddenly dissolves, this is inescapable.

The only spiritually mature response, the only reasonable response, is acceptance of how things are night this moment.

You have been trained all your life to believe that life happens to you. Oh, yes. You have been carefully trained to forget that you happen to life. Because you have believed that life blows you around, whisks you away in its wake of circumstances leaving you to dog-paddle or sink, you most likely have felt quite victimized most of your life.

This leads to the belief that your life, your problems, your circumstances happened to you and left you stranded on the desert isle you call your life.

The difficult truth is this: your life is totally and absolutely your doing. You did this to yourself. Either you directly caused your circumstances or you failed to respond in a spiritual way to the circumstances that assail us every moment, day, year and second.

Your life is exactly as it MUST be based on the causes and effects in your particular life. You life can be no other way than it is right the moment. Taking responsibility for your own life is one of the greatest spiritual steps a human being can make in their lives.

Victims cannot grow, they can only go with the flow of what happens to them.

Now, since you sought out this podcast series and have listened this far, you obviously want something different in your life. You don’t like where it is going or where it is stopping. That means you want to change. The good news is this:

You can remake your life because you made the one you have now. If you made it, you can remake it. However, most people never take the leap of responsibility. They can’t imagine they are responsible for their own unhappiness.

Episode #19 — Everything is As It Must Be — Orthodoxy Transforming

In the last episode of this series we saw that everything around us, including us, is the result of cause and effect. Because of that, this. Because of this, that. Nothing escapes this third great truth of spirituality. Now, we will look at the fourth great truth: one most people find very difficult to accept.

The ramification of this truth that everything is the result of cause and effect is the fourth of the great truths that lead to a truly spiritual lifestyle. This truth, unlike the others, is harder to accept. It takes maturity to cross the bridges of this and the next podcast. Spiritual maturity is the ability to accept the obvious truth without running away; without hiding and pretending the truth is not so.

Here is the fourth great spiritual truth: everything is exactly as it should be. There can be no other conclusion unless you undo the universal truth of cause and effect. Perhaps this truth would be easier to bear if we say it this way:

Everything is as it must be right now. Right this moment, everything you see, feel, hear, experience, know, expect, want, long for, dream of…everything right where you are including listening to this podcast is exactly as it must be. Due to causes and effects, they can be no other way

This fourth truth that everything is exactly as it has to be erases blame and inspires fantastic compassion. Compassion causes us to overlook the actions of others. Compassion understands that people are as they MUST be as a result of their causes and conditions.

Hatred, blame, anger, resentment, and desire for revenge are all very negative emotions. To have them inside us, they become causes and we radiate them for we have no other choice. There is no hiding these powerful causes. They will produce effects in our lives no matter how we try to suppress them or hide them or put a bandage on them.

Think of all the people who have hurt you, frustrated you, mistreated you, used you, taken you to the cleaners, deprived you or molested you. Feel the hate and dismay. Now, look at them this way: because of causes and conditions, they acted as they had to act at the time. They really had to choice because, most likely, they were unspiritual and in the dark about reality truth and wisdom.

Episode #18 — Because of this, that — Orthodoxy Transforming

In the last podcast I promised we would look at the third great spiritual truth. Let’s review. The first great spiritual truth is that everything has a beginning and an end. The second is that nothing is as it seems. These two truths are undeniable, obvious and observable by anyone who will be quiet long enough to remember them. The whole universe knows these truths from the farthest Collapsar to the nearest quark of energy on the tip of your finger.

The third great truth is just as obvious. It is not a secret truth or something hidden from the eyes of people. It is not something you need to search for on the top of a mountain in a monastery or at the feet of some guru.

The third great truth is this: everything is because something else is. Let me say that again: everything is because something else is. It is the nature of the system. Scientists and physicists call it cause and effect. For every cause there is an effect. Yet, every cause is not independent; it also is the result of a cause. Every cause is an effect and every effect becomes a cause.

Because of that, this. Because of this, that.

Episode #17 — Immediacy — Orthodoxy Transforming

Now, let’s look at another benefit of these two truths we have learned. What are those truths we have learned so far?

I. Everything has a beginning and an end.

II. Nothing is as it seems

These two truths, so fundamental and self-evident have wide implications for the spiritual life. They are available to everyone! They are part of Universal Spirituality. They are reality. They are obvious. You don’t need any revelation from anyone to know that these two truths are foundational to what we see and who we are. And, they will change your life if you believe them and retrain your brain through meditation to remember them.

Let’s look at another great benefit of the truth that everything has a beginning and an end.

Knowing this, remembering this and accepting this, believing this will bring into your life a beautiful new perspective. When you realize and accept it, you will have to admit you yourself have a beginning and an end. When you quit fighting that truth, you will open your eyes to the wonder of Immediacy.

Immediacy. Right now-ness. Your time is limited. There is no reason or value in wasting time. Time is short. Life is short. Time-wasters are blinded to the simple truth they have an end coming as surely as the sun will rise on us like it did on the Egyptians and Mayans.

Most people cannot take this. They turn their eyes away from it. They choose the darkness because they cannot bear the light of truth. It is too painful and frightening. Most people spend most of their lives trying to forget it or get out of it somehow. Death, they think, happens to everyone else, not them…at least not now.

So, they live a life either dwelling in the past (which cannot be repeated or erased) or they dwell in the future trying to prepare for what doesn’t exist. By dwelling in the past and the future, they forget the now which is the only time any of us really have.

On the spiritual path, we experience the boon of immediacy. Now. Right now is the time for everything. If you have goals, now is the time. Concentrate on the now and put your whole heart into it. Throw yourself into the now and you will not believe how your next nows will be.

Episode #16 — Gratitude and Wonder — Orthodoxy Transforming

I want to keep you motivated on this spiritual path. So, like the last podcast, let’s look at more practical benefits of our new understanding and steps toward a spiritual lifestyle. We have already seen that by embracing the temporary nature of everything that anger will vanish and delight will fill our daily moments if we are in the here and now and not the then and when. This benefit alone is worth meditating and retraining our brain to remember the obvious.

Now, as we look at the connectedness of all things, we will see that even the simplest act like “running to the store” becomes a wonder and exciting journey…if we are awake and if we understand.

Spirituality’s goal is to relieve suffering through understanding of the way things really are through observation. Listen as we take a small “run to the store” and see the wonder of the world around us that will fill us with gratitude.

Episode #15 — Embracing Others –Orthodoxy Transforming

I remember watching someone cremated on the banks of the Ganges River. The only things left of the loved one were a pile of brittle, burnt bones. Minerals. Get rid of the water and the air, and you have minerals. And rocks are definitely non-human parts. Or at least we think so until we begin to tread the path of spirituality.

How can all this be? Wonder. Awe. These are the wonderful emotions that flood anyone who really believes these things and allows them to dictate their behavior. Remember, belief brings behavior like clouds bring rain. Or should I say, non-clouds bring non-rain? See? The world we live in is a wonderful place if you lift up your eyes to the truth you were born with.

You have simply forgotten and now you are beginning to remember.

Look at the one you love or the one you hope to love someday. They are a miracle. They are an assembly of parts that are not them, yet, there they are. How precious they are! What a miracle they are! How they should be honored and cherished because they can never be again! At least not like they are right now! Air, water, minerals – all non-human parts – yet, there they are in your arms or the arms of your imagination!

Spirituality will lead you to embrace others in a new, awe-struck way. They are all, along with yourself, miracles: unique, wonderful miracles even if their understanding is faulty and they have failed to remember. If anyone gets on your nerves, don’t get angry at them. Be patient. Remember, they have failed to remember. But they will. Why?

Because misery will drive a person to spirituality eventually. There is no need to preach at them or force anything on them. Misery will drive them like a merciless cowboy drover forcing the cattle to the slaughter. Eventually, misery will either turn a person hopelessly bitter and disappointed, or will drive them to remember the obvious and become the spiritual being they were born to be. Simple as that. Complex as that. Be spiritual and let other people’s circumstances drive them to spirituality.

Episode #14 — Patience and Delight –Orthodoxy Transforming

Everything is temporary, the first great spiritual step. If you really believe everything is temporary, that everything has a beginning and an end, what will your behavior look like? For one thing, patience will increase 100 fold. Why? Because you know that whatever you are facing will change if you wait. Since everything changes, negative situations need only be outwaited.

That is what patience is. Out-waiting negative situations and doing nothing until they change…and they will change. They must. Why? Because everything changes.

Anger will vanish from your life. Why? Because anger is the result of impatience. Anger tries to make something change before it is ready to change on its own. Anger resists the normal pattern of the birth, life and death or situations. You simply cannot get angry if you have patience. Anger wants change right now, right this minute. However, the changes that anger sets in motion usually creates more negative situations you will have to out-wait. Therefore, anger is useless if you really believe that everything changes and that everything, every little thing is temporary.

Also, your delight will increase! Delight. When was the last time you can say you were truly delighted?

Start today with your new belief system of everything being temporary. If you believe this obvious truth, then everything you experience that is good is precious. It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be savored, delighted in and paid attention to in great detail. Delight is the positive side of patience.

Patience out-waits the negative until it changes. Delight enjoys that positive because it will change! Let’s see, are these things, patience and delight spiritual qualities? Absolutely. They are perfectly in harmony with our new remembering of old truth.

Episode #13 — Conventional and Ultimate — Orthodoxy Transforming

The extension of sight by technology has offered more to spirituality than Galileo, persecuted by the so-called spiritual people of his time could ever have imagined.

At the heart of observable reality through an electron microscope, everything seems to be made of the same stuff. And that stuff is energy. Energy and nothing but energy.

No “I”” and “they”. No, “We” and “them”. No “this” and “that”. Just “IS”. It all just IS. We have learned to perceive the IS as this and that; I and them; you and me; chicken and goose.

The scientists, by expanding human sight, have climbed the mountain of spirituality and found others already at the top: those who sensed these things might be so throughout all of human history.

The ISNESS of everything is ultimate reality. The THATNESS of everything is conventional reality. And they are both real.

Episode #12 — Two Realities — Orthodoxy Transforming

One: Conventional reality. We speak conventionally when we say, “I will stay here forever because I like it here” or “I will love you” or “I will go to the store” or “ Please talk to me right now.” We communicate conventionally to make sense to each other. There is nothing wrong with this at all. It is the way it must be because of the nature of language. We get caught up in non-spirituality when we imagine our way of speaking is the only reality, the only way things are.

Two: Ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is the other way things really are. This is where the technology of Physics and Quantum Mechanics have opened doors of understanding to us beyond what we may have expected.

We all are too acquainted with conventional reality. We have been deluded into thinking this is the only reality. Conventional reality is real. No doubt. But, so is another type of reality out of which conventional reality grows.

Review Movie for Podcasts 1-11

We have covered quite a bit of ground in the last 11 podcasts of Orthodoxy Transforming. I thought it might be helpful to my listeners to have a video movie with summations of each one of the podcasts to refresh your memory about how we are making progress in our path to a deeper spirituality. Enjoy the review and we will meet again in the next podcast to take our next steps to a deeper spirituality and understanding of Orthodox Christianity.

Episode #11 — Who Are We Really? — Orthodoxy Transforming

However, when we look at the world around us and use the wonderful gift of observation, we realize we are much more alike than we are separate. We all eat, drink, sleep, love, dream, walk, get dressed, brush teeth, bathe, run, read, listen, see, feel the sun on our faces, have parents, notice the sun and the moon and eventually die. In the meantime, we move place to place, see this and that and distract ourselves by achievements or lack of achievements.

However, we are all much more alike than we are separate.

In fact, take this challenge. Notice someone walking down the street. Think very carefully for a moment. You know 99% of what there is to be known about that person. 99%. We are all very much alike which will lead us to compassion and mutual understanding.

Episode #10 — Non-You Parts — Orthodoxy Transforming

Where is the me? Were is the I? Look for it all day long and you will never find it. We have been told all our lives that we are independent “I” people. That we are separate, we are “here” and all the rest of the world is “there”.

Yet, we all feel as if there is an “I” in there somewhere. Some people think their “I” is their soul or spirit or other invisible part of them. One woman I know thinks here “I” dwells between the center of her forehead extending about three inches. Yet, when I asked her to please show it to me, she couldn’t.

Where do we get the idea that “we” exist apart from all of the non-we parts that make us up? The first time I thought of this question I was terrified. I had fear run through my veins like ice. We have been trained since youth to understand “yours”, “mine”, “theirs”, “ours” “over there” and “over here.” In actuality, we are all hard pressed to show anyone the “I” we so dearly defend.

Episode #9 — Insights on Meditation — Orthodoxy Transforming

So many people have the wrong idea about meditation. They imagine it will lead to bliss. They concoct in their mind it will alter their consciousness and the will emerge after a while looking and talking like Yoda from Star Wars. They imagine that meditation will lead to otherworldly connections with the “other” part of the universe.

But, let’s take a good solid look at what meditation is. First, meditating comes from a Latin word that means to “chew the cud”. In other words, meditating means to mull over something you have learned and mull it over and over until you make it a part of who you are. Meditation has to do with reprogramming your own mind to think different thoughts based on the new presuppositions you are learning on the spiritual path.

Meditation is like physical therapy for the mental world. In physical therapy, we learn to use a limb that has been damaged. In meditation, we learn to repair and relearn to use a part of us that was taught incorrectly about the universe. Meditation, reprogramming how with think by reflex is not something can do for you.

Episode #8 — Nothing Is As It Seems — Orthodoxy Transforming

Orthodoxy Transforming #8. Spiritual thinking is seeing things as they really are. In this podcast, we see that nothing is as it seems. Why? One, even though something looks permanent, it is not. Two, there is nothing that exists as an independent entity. Consider a table. The table is made up of non-table parts. Trees are not tables; varnish is not a table; carved wooden feet are not tables; glass that may be on top is not a table (in fact the glass is not glass but is made up of non-glass parts: sand!) and the screws and nails are not a table. However, when we assemble all of the non-table parts, we suddenly proclaim we have a table! Absurd! There can be no independent table. Although many may think these distinctions are simply semantic, they are not. Understanding that everything we see is made up of non-everything we see parts teaches us a spiritual truth worth gold: everything depends on everything else and nothing exists by itself. Everything is connected although everything appears to be separate and disconnected. We have been trained to skip over the connections and embrace the illusion of the separateness. In this podcast, we begin to examine the truth that nothing is as it seems. Once we can see this truth, we are well on the way to spiritual thinking that will ultimately culminate in understanding our own connectedness with everything else and our entire perspective will change. Ready for the next step?

Episode #7 — Our Illusory World –Orthodoxy Transforming

Orthodoxy Transforming #7. If everything is temporary, why do we imagine the world is permanent? What makes us so convinced that everything is forever? We are tricked into believing that the world is permanent because everything decays at different rates. In other words, the sun decays slower than a bad piece of fruit, so, we are forced to admit the bad fruit is temporary, but we make the big jump to thinking that the sun is permanent because we cannot watch the decay. However, we know the sun is temporary and is decaying…we simply cannot see it happen. Therefore, we conclude since we cannot see it decay, it MUST be permanent. We have literally tricked ourselves into the false security that we live in a permanent environment. Spirituality demands we accept the truth and learn to live with and in the truth no matter how frightening it might seem at first. Everything is in flux. There is no security. Let go of the world that is in your head and open your eyes to the world that really is. This is not only reasonable, but it is profoundly spiritual. Most people will never cross this bridge. Let’s cross it together in this podcast.

Episode #6 — Denying Denial — Orthodoxy Transforming

Orthodoxy Transforming #6. Most people live in denial of the most simple truth: everything is temporary. They prefer to keep themselves distracted and deluded instead of accepting the truth. Meditation is the practice of retraining our brains to remember the obvious. We have all been programmed to deny spiritual reality. Most people never get beyond living a lie. Spiritual people accept reality and learn to embrace the truth. Spiritual people want the light, the truth, more than they want to remain in self-delusion. Unspiritual people simply live an unexamined life on auto-pilot. They deny life by denying death. Yet, life cannot exist without death nor death without life because of the self-evident truth that everything has a beginning and an end. Most people are so frightened of this, they would rather life in a fantasy that the real world. You are not one of these self-blinded people or you wouldn’t be listening to these podcasts. In this podcast we examine the truth about temporariness and how meditation reinforces re-learning and remembering the truth of this life.