Category: Philosophy

Everything Happens for a Reason

“Everything happens for a reason.” I’ll bet most of us have uttered that phrase a few hundred times in our lives.

Often it’s in a moment when something happens that doesn’t make sense or seems unfair. It’s a way to buoy your spirit in a tough moment.

I wonder, though. Do you really believe it? Do you believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason? That would mean that literally nothing happens without a reason and literally everything serves a purpose.

It’s a challenging belief to hold in the face of tragedy and injustice, but it’s also a transcendently powerful belief. Hers why.

If you believe it, then this moment, whatever it is has a purpose. Your life and all your experiences have a purpose. The same is true for every other person and living being around you.

Life has a purpose. The spin of the solar system and the galaxy has a purpose. The universe itself and whatever lies beyond has a purpose.

Their are no accidents, missteps, or mistakes. Everything, despite how it seems, plays a role in the utter perfection and perfect timing of everything else.

For we mere mortals, stuck in the push and pull of time and space, it takes profound wisdom to see the perfection of the big picture. That’s especially true when that perfection means challenge and heartache for us.

Yet, the big perfection requires us all to sacrifice a little for its achievement.

So, the next time you use that phrase, consider the power behind those words and strive to see the bigger perfection beyond this self and this moment.

Wherever you are on your journey today, you are awesome!

Ray

What Comes Around…

It’s a simple principle of our multiverse. What comes around goes around. What you put out into the world comes back to you, not as punishment or reward. It simply comes back the way a boomerang does – because of the laws that govern it.

If you fill your world with negativity and a lack of concern for those around you, then that’s what’s headed back your way. Maybe not today, but one day.

If you fill your world with positivity, if you truly love your neighbor as you love yourself, then that’s what’s headed back your way.

It’s a law of our multiverse. It’s as certain as a rock dropped off a building falls to the ground.

This , perhaps, the best control mechanism we have over our future. It should be noted, that many believe that these principles apply over many lives.

What are your thoughts? Have you seen this at work in your life?

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are awesome!

Ray

More great content on my website – AffirmationSpot.net

Lao Tzu’s Four Cardinal Virtues – Day 241 of 365 Days to a Better You

We’ve mentioned Lao Tzu previously in our journey together. He said to have authored the Tao Te Ching and founded Taoism. He’s considered among the great spiritual masters of ancient China.

He wrote:

“To realize the constancy and steadiness in your life is to realize the deep nature of the universe. This realization is not dependent on any transitory internal or external condition, rather it is an expression of one’s own immutable spiritual nature. The only way to attain the Universal Way is to maintain the integral virtues of the constancy, steadiness and simplicity in one’s daily life.”

What are the virtues he’s speaking of and how do you and I apply them to our lives? There are four main virtues or spiritual rules he lays out in the Tao Te Ching.

  1. Reverence for all life – this first virtue drives the others. It lays the foundation for harmony within and from there spreads to all living beings. It recognizes that all living things rely on each other for their very survival. As such, we should approach all other beings with kindness, respect, and gratitude. The Buddhist metta meditation is a very effective way to make this virtue a practical part of your day.
  2. Natural Sincerity – our ability to spread harmony into the world begins with our ability to find it within. According to Lao Tzu, we find harmony within through sincerely and authentically being ourselves. He’s essentially encouraging us to live our truth. Stress and unhappiness come when we are living in insincerity. Peace and happiness come when our thoughts, feelings, and actions align.
  3. Gentleness – this virtue is practiced by relinquishing our egoic thinking and action in the world. We cease needing to be right or to control others. We become sensitive to the needs of others and choose to live in harmony with them.
  4. Supportiveness – Because we revere all life, we live with sincerity, and we practice gentleness, we’re able to be supportive of ourselves and all other beings. This virtue promotes love and service. It’s focused on what you can give rather than simply what you can get. It’s the energetic glue that holds us all together through our care for and commitment to each other.

Four simple virtues that are simple and profound. They took minutes to read and a lifetime to master. However, even imperfect application begins to yield results. You operating by these principles will change your life. Many people living this way would shift the world.

May we achieve change in both!

Just in case no one else tells you today, you’re AWESOME!

Ray

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Conscious Becoming – Day 239 of 365 Days to a Better You

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

~John Ruskin

It’s happening every moment of every day. There, it just happened again. With every sensory impression, thought, word, action, experience, you’re becoming something different than you were the moment before. So is everyone and everything else around you.

This is a natural process of our universe. As far as we know everything is subject to it. To say that you are this or you are that is not a static definition. It’s a snapshot captured in an instant of constantly unfolding process; one that never ends.

However, this is more than a philosophical banter on a Monday morning. This universal process can be harnessed toward your objectives.

If you’re constantly changing, why not change into what you choose? Why not make the process conscious?

You certainly have control of your thoughts, words, and actions. You can modify them before and as they occur. You may not have complete control of your sensory impressions or your experiences, but you do have some control over how you respond to them and who you become as a result of them.

Things aren’t just out there randomly happening, though it can seem that way. What you’re becoming, consciously or unconsciously, is the result of your active participation in the process. Your expectations attract like experiences. Your pattern of thought generate more similar thoughts. How you precess your experiences becomes your reality.

You are becoming. Don’t become accidentally. Be conscious become who you choose.

Thank you all for stopping by and for your comments, likes, and support!

Ray

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Morning Meandering on the Topic of Profit

img_5873-2Supposition…what are your thoughts?

Conscious, ethical profit is a wonderful thing. It’s the return on your labor and your genius. It’s wonderful, that is, until it becomes the sole motive in society. That can turn the noblest endeavors into pure evil.

The wonder quickly becomes a massive negative incentivizing things that ought not be incentivized. We often refer to profit as the bottom line, forgetting that in an enlightened society people must always be the bottom line.

Ray

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