Theos-Talk Archives (October 1993 Message tl00098)

Mike G:

I would not say that having a wife and three kids is a distraction to
the spiritual path. It is an excellent opportunity to learn
unselfishness, self-forgetfullness, and service.

Family life is an excellent training ground if we don't forget the
spiritual. Setting aside a little time every day for higher study
and contemplation, we can carry the inspiration into the other
activities. We can be in a grand place within even as we change the
diapers or drive a carload of noisy kids to the park.

The higher consciousness is an additional quality of awareness that
is experienced along with everything else in life. It does not come
by negation, by blocking out life. It is additive, it is in addition
to the other experiences as they happen.

Some approaches have you meditate with your eyes closed, to shut out
the world and visualize other things, to excape to other planes of
awareness. In Mahayana Buddhism, like in Zen, you meditate with your
eyes half-open. The world is included in the meditation, although
it is not specifically focused on. The intent is to *stay on this
plane*, and tune in the higher faculties of consciousness, rather
than to go to other planes in search of the spiritual. The lower
principles are down-played, and the attention is focused in the
higher. This is different than going to another plane and dwelling
in the lower principles on that plane. And it is unnecessary to be
on another plane to realize the higher principles.

The Buddha is an example of someone who has learned all there is to
be learned from human personal existence. Although he was married
and had a family, he was totally ready to die to the world, and
left them as well. He was ready, in a sense, to graduate. This is
different from our situation. We are closer to beginners, to newly
admitted students, than we are to being ready to graduate. Being
in the midst of personal human life is our learning experience, and
we have much to benefit from it.

We haven't learned this world's lessons until we are able to give
full expression to all our seven principles, as much as possible
given the limits of globe D existence. Then we will move on to
globe E and continue to learn there. Were we able to excape to
globe E at this moment, we would be no closer to understanding
our higher principles, because they are qualities or types of
consciousness, not place-specific senses.

Look to the silence. Look to that deeper part within that contains
the seeds of the higher. Dwell in the presence of the Inner God.
And we will be uplifted, enobled, raised, and acquire the deeper
parts of ourselves that we now lack.

                                 Eldon Tucker
                                 eldon@netcom.com