How is Contentment Gonna Get me ''Ahead'' in Life?!

For some time now, I've struggled with this idea: Get up and work, or realise ''true contentment,'' and do absolutely nothing constructive...because you don't need it to be content. You don't need anything at all to be content.

To get up and work, because there's work to be done, or to realise ''true contentment'' and side step the ''rat race,'' just sitting there, never changing or accomplishing anything?

I've put myself on either side of this issue:

1.) I strive for riches, wealth, power, prestige, fame, etc.
Spiritual atrophy comes by means of:
A.) I'm too busy for things of the spiritual nature
B.) I'm totally locked on physical symbols as ''my reality''
C.) I'm broadcasting the vibrations of lack/scarcity, which never return void.

-OR-

2.) I realise ''true contentment,'' side-stepping the ''rat race,'' accomplishing nothing at all
Spiritual atrophy comes by means of:
A.) The idea that work and striving are to be avoided for the sake of cultivating contentment--all means of striving are halted
B.) There is absolutely no progress, physical, spiritual, or mental. Movement has stopped.

...and found no peace, no contentment, no happiness in either one.

Contentment elicits the cessation of greed. You can't chase happiness and ''get it,'' because it's a state of mind. Chasing operates with a mindset of lacking--the opposite of contentment/fulfillment. Being content, there is no longer any imagined need for chasing contentment. Happiness or at least contentment/peace can happen at any time/all the time.

But there's also a need to progress in a spiritual sense. Maybe you've heard the song ''God-Shaped Hole.'' We can always ''do the human thing,'' climb the corporate ladder, save lots of money, buy nice things, etc. All of this striving for symbols of ''greatness,'' while still feeling the lacking of ''something,'' describes a situation in which the spiritual has been allowed to atrophy.




Contentment and progression can coexist: Our strivings and work are not to be a reaction/response to lack/limitation. Everything we do is, potentially, a deeply spiritual act, so that our work and strivings are our own steps as we progress spiritually.

''The actions we do, do us...'' ''Three men were laying bricks. When asked what they were building, the first one answered 'I'm building a wall.' The second answered 'I'm making a living for myself.' The third man answered 'I'm building a house of worship for God.' '' -Mother Rytasha

Regardless of how you feel about God, the previous quote points to the different ways we can approach the ''work'' of our lives. Everything we do is potentially a deeply spiritual act, with the potential to help us progress along our spiritual paths. Everyone is already on such a path, just as there are as many versions of God as there are souls. The need for contentment to halt greed, alongside the need for spiritual progression and development serve to underscore the notion that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

About Progress:

Until we move forward, we're either moving backward, or simply marking time. And until we're ready to understand all the whys and wherefores about ''progression,'' the things that happen to us during our times of ''backward movements'' and ''marking time'' are as teachers and wake-up calls. (suffering and trials of life)

Reaping what we sow is sort of like echo-location to those who pay careful attention to it. As Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith says, ''pain pushes you until insight pulls you.''

The Law of Belief: a Work in Progress

Denying the relevance of faith is essentially a blind faith in the irrelevance of faith.

Beliefs can be determined by experiences, but they also determine the experiences. Like this:

Logical way: Hypothesis-->test-->result-->knowledge/future expectation/belief.

New way: Belief in the context of a deliberate feeling tone-->events/effects corresponding to the belief-->knowledge. (it ends in knowledge because there is proof--no doubts.)

I got some feedback from a friend on the sentence ''belief can't be 'tested,' only trusted, because belief is not the same as knowledge.''


So, what I mean by ''belief can't be 'tested,' '' is this: if you approach belief with doubts/uncertainty, as are intrinsic to ''testing'' something, then you're already putting those beliefs of doubt and uncertainty to work, as they taint a ''test'' which is really designed for a theory, hypothesis, law, etc. Beliefs accomplish something--always-- even if it's to deactivate the power of belief. Beliefs ''begin'' things. Knowledge needs something to happen first, and then it can exist. Beliefs are creative, knowledge is reactive.

Beliefs are creative, hypotheses/theories are responsive. To set about testing a belief is to instantly convert it into a hypothesis/theory, because you can't out-think yourself.


Belief is not necessarily dependent on observed conclusions, but it can be, if we choose for it to be so. Belief is influenced by anything we choose to believe about it; and choice is a function of awareness, and belief affects awareness and potentially much more than anyone has ever imagined before. If you try to disprove the power of belief, you will be inundated with proof that belief is powerless. So, basically, our belief about belief affects the power of belief, whose effects and fullness of potentials are yet unknown.

Belief is an inescapable creative action, in that it is an action that is always chosen, one way or another, and it always produces effects after its own kind. It is a law unto itself that knows only its own fulfillment. The most ''effective'' belief is the most unadulterated, free of even the tiniest little weeds of contrary beliefs.

Free Will?

An abused dog can't say to himself ''you know what, self? Sure all those years with that abusive owner didn't provide the context for a happy life, but I'm gonna turn myself around. Life's too short, and I'm gonna be a happy dog.'' In order for the dog to be rehabilitated, something from his environment has to ''happen to him.''

Humans, on the other hand, do have the ability to rehabilitate themselves on their own.

Dogs are governed by:
1.) The ''lifeward principle''
2.) Their environment
3.) Something like a subconscious mind, that can only accept what it is told--they are essentially a living, breathing reaction.

Humans are governed by:
1.) The ''lifeward principle''
2.) Their environment
3.) A subconscious mind
4.) A conscious mind

Though not limited to this example, an abused person has the capacity to uplift him/herself because he/she has a conscious, or ''aware'' mind. Choice is a function of awareness. Many people do not experience free will because they are living from reaction to reaction, and everything they do is a reaction to something that happened.