May Musings

This post is more of a journal-stroke-musing entry, as I reflect on where I'm at currently.

For a long time I've really struggled to find either suitable or even just ongoing work, not just with the economic climate but really throughout my life since university. I have a lot of interests and fields of study that I engage in, but my biggest theme has been trying to integrate my passions and interests into some kind of meaning and also into work.

I'm glad to say I have an interview today for a job and I feel my prospects are good. To try to cover my bills I've been doing a lot of temp work but boy am I tired of that. When you temp you never know from week to week if you'll have an assignment, and therefore an income. The job I'm going for today is a 9 month contract to fill a role vacated by secondment. It would be great, if the role seems suitable, to have that kind of rare stability at this time!

I find that parallel with my economic situation, my inner world is just as active and in a process of flux. Right through my life and especially now I find I am really continuing to question what is real and what is true, in terms of the world of spirit and how it applies to actually living your life. The Buddhists say, before enlightenment, chop wood carry water - after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. This is so true! Its the human condition to carry on living one's life even while undertaking an internal spiritual quest. It doesn't make the inner world any less meaningful - in fact I consider it a blessing to have the external world in which to anchor my senses and my perception of reality even while I search my inner self for meaning.

One thing that frustrates me about the "modern" world of ours is the materialist interpretation of reality. So many so-called "experts" peddle the line that all things - including our consciousness - have emerged from matter. As well as this being philosophically absurd, to me its a deliberate insult to the human spirit. I feel grateful that I carry a knowing within that the spirit world is very real - the realm of clear knowing that we all originate from exists, and it has no need to justify itself to the world. I can't help but feel angry when the militant, scientific materialists deliberately downplay the importance of the clear light of the spirit world because right now I believe as humans in a materialistic age we need to be connected to our spirit more than ever. I know it's silly of me to take it personally but occasionally I can't help feel that way.

There are so many thoughts, theories, and unnecessary diversions today clouding the knowing of spirit. Just as our cities are being clogged with physical pollution, the mindstream of human consciousness is logjammed with extraneous thought. Fortunately I am of the conviction that most people have a deep-down sense of what is true and right ~ it may be only a whisper within their souls, but I am convinced that it is there. To me it's vital to maintain this kind of tentative optimism even in the face of a seemingly heedless march into a technologically-based false ecstasy. Personally I look forward to a time when this orgy of technology is replaced by a more sensitive, receptive and thoughtful outlook, based on a knowing that something higher and more "true" is there, just outside our noisy, rushing lifestyles, waiting for us to simply tune in and acknowledge it is there.

So while we chop wood and carry water, we can at least carry an inner joy, an inner peace, content that the true reason we are here is to grow in wisdom, to refine our inner knowing, and to bring more of that quiet joy and peace into our world. That way, no matter where we are or what we do for a career, we can infuse this world with more of the spirit of consciousness that flows from the finer realms. And to me that is the reason we are here ~ to help gently uplift and refine this material world, and our very being.

Peace be

Anthony