|
Return to
Main Page
Return to
Shopping Mini-Mall
Current Sunday
Journal Menu
Archives menu
|
|
FLOW FROM THE CORE
4-18-10
In
my Chattanooga Times column of 11-26-96 I wrote, “We minister by who we
are just as a rose ministers by its own distinctive aroma. Not one
person on the planet is without something unique to give. Every person
is a one-of-a-kind miracle of creation ... Whoever you are is special
and whatever flows from that core originality is your glory.”
To me, this is the bedrock spiritual idea upon which spiritual lives
must be built. I will go so far as to say no person can built a
spiritual life of any quality and beauty without believing in the value
of their core essence.
Paul Williams was an old rock and roller and edited a rock magazine
called Crawdaddy but he will always be a spiritual teacher
to me because of his wonderful book titled Remember Your Essence.
When I first read it I bought a whole box and gave them as
gifts. I can’t remember ever doing that with another book.
The central idea of the book is to get in contact with our core, our
essence, and flow from there.
Some truths are so powerful they can pass right through a wall of
resistance. I gave a copy of the book to a lady who claimed to be an
atheist and she loved it. She said it was something she needed to read.
There really is a difference in religion and spirituality. Religion is
paraphernalia of a complete belief system. Spirituality is the
experience of any value, idea, concept or truth that transmits spiritual
power and energy to us. The lady to whom I gave Williams’ book received
that spiritual power and energy.
I have no idea of Williams’ religious affiliation or history but I doubt
he is affiliated because there are none of the telltale signals in his
writing. I can read a few paragraphs of any book and usually tell you
where the writer comes from and where he is trying to take you. All I
feel when I read Remember Your Essence is a man sharing a
deep truth that has been directly revealed to him.
In rsponse to my recent column praising mysticism a person asked, “How
does a mystic know what is true if he or she does not believe in divine
revelation?” What can you believe that is more solid than your own
lifetime body of experiences? Over time we learn the experiences that
are truth to us and those that are spurious. Can’t God reveal your
truths to you through experience more convincingly that through words
written thousands of years ago? The most powerful experiences I have had
in my basic Christian orientation asnd even with my more limited study
of Buddhism were direct experiences and not based on words someone had
written about them. Christ spoke Arabic Greek and Buddha wrote in Pali
and I find that languages themselves place some limitation on the
ability of the writer to be understood.
If we cannot understand that God has given us a completely unique inner
core -- one unlike anyone in the word -- and that through this core we
are able to express our truths and essence to the world, what can we
believe that has any real spiritual significance?
Everything else is diversionary. It just takes us away from finding and
using our gifts.
|
