by Volker Brendel
We would do well focusing on the characteristics of Life, the characteristics of God, and expressing those. But how do we determine these characteristics? Who can tell us about them? The answer is obvious: we didn’t create ourselves; Life created us, and Life, or God, created us in the image and likeness of itself. And, therefore the characteristics of God, of Life, are immediately accessible to us. The key is that we need to express them to know them. In fact, there is no one else to tell us. Why is that so? Because Life creates in the image and likeness of Life, and one of the obvious characteristics of Life with respect to human beings is that Life doesn’t impose. Love does not impose. Here we are, with the facilities of feeling: touching awe, sensing the wonder of the universe and experiencing the wonders of thinking, of speaking, of expressing ourselves. In these experiences, we discover what the wise life choices to be made are, and new insights come to us each step along the way.
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There are some fanciful ideas along the line of people saying to themselves, “okay I get this, from now on I’ll get hold of my life and I’ll do the right thing, and that’s that. After all, all spiritual disciplines tell us to live in the present moment. That’s what we have; I will change my habits right now and be done with it.” It’s true, we must live in the present moment. But we also know that life is a process. In the northern hemisphere, we are approaching the winter season; there’s nothing we can do about it. There is a cycle: only after winter, will spring come, and it will be a different season. And so it is with our expression. It is offered in the moment, and yet each moment is in the context of something large with which we must learn to become aligned. Superficial affirmations have little or no bearing on any of this.
For example, if we’ve kept a bad diet for a few years and we have not exercised, can we snap our fingers, say now we recognize that this has not been good, do the right thing now, and instantly find the ill effects from the prior years of neglect are gone? The answer is of course not. We reap what we have sown. What is true is that we are planting new seeds in every moment for future harvests. Everything emerges from our rightful expression now, which will in season bring a resulting harvest.
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Of the many words spoken over the years it is often thought that some of them are very special, conveying very deep insight. People can tend to revere such words, feeling they hold significance something of cosmic proportions, revealing a deep understanding of the powers involved and of our tremendous responsibilities and role in the world. I, for myself, often feel blessed by having a relative lack of understanding of such words. Why do I say that? I think, in the end, it’s not the words, it’s our living expression of the character of Life moment by moment that makes the difference. These characteristics are immediately accessible from within. And thus I call my spirituality “practical spirituality.” It is in the doing, moment by moment, that the larger work gets done. If as part of the larger work, we need to access larger insights, deeper understandings, it will happen. We might say Life works on the principle of “need to know.” Do I need to know how all these different galaxies in the universe operate and fit together? Do I need to know how Life will proceed in a creative cycle over the next 50, 100, or 5000 years? I doubt it. I do need to know what I should be doing now, and in the next moment, and I need to know that in each of these moments I sow a seed for the future. As that is taken care of moment by moment, then whatever the next level of understanding is that I need in order to continue will be there.
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