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.

How to Avoid Hell

Who did Jesus come down hardest on? The pharisees, saducees, experts in the law--those who thought they could achieve acceptance of God through works, and having achieved this, felt the liberty to avoid/withhold love and compassion for others. To them, it had become a game of ''kick as many people down as you can, heaven has limited occupancy, and the more of 'them' I can 'out-holy,' the better MY chances are of getting in.'' As well as ''following rules is what God wants, He is demanding, strict, judging, and merciless. I esteem this image as God, and so emulate it, myself, since I'm an expression of God, and this is what I understand and perceive God to be.''

How many times have we heard/read ''God is love?'' No, really, God is love. Were they just speaking in metaphors? ''A new command I give to you'' Jesus said, for the benefit of those who regarded the fulfillment of commandments as the only way to attain ''righteousness'' ''a new command I give to you: that you love one another; that as I have loved you, you also may love one another.'' and ''Love is the fulfillment of the law.''

Jesus said ''he who would save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life, for my sake, will find it.'' and ''It would be easier for a camel to enter through a needle eye than for a rich man to enter into heaven.'' It's not only about wealth. He was talking about those who put something-anything of such great importance that it overshadowed the greatest two commandments. These experts in the law were fighting tooth-and-nail to try to get into heaven with observance of the law to the letter; building riches up in heaven. They were still ''rich men,'' but their currency was a sense of pride, self-sufficiency, and self-righteousness. Even if there was no monetary ''wealth'' involved, it was still a rat race.

Doing good deeds (or even believing in Jesus as the son of God, for that matter), just to try to avoid hell, doesn't make me good or moral in any way. It means I'm self-seeking and afraid of hell. It means I'm striving to build up securities to ensure my own survival. It means I'm still trying to become rich. ''I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father, but by me.'' At that instant, look at Jesus' life. What does he do? He has NOTHING to do with building up any riches. Giving--all he did was give. At all times, he was always giving. Love, the chief ''commandment,'' is not love until it is given.

That is the ''way.'' That is the truth of who we are, since we are expressions of this divine love. That is how to fully embody and exemplify the life manifested by the divine love in the physical realm as ''us,'' because it is the nature of the author of such life.

Hate is nothing more than the chosen cultivation of the void of love. The feelings that hatred bring are the frustrations we feel when our true nature, as expressions of divine love, is denied expression by our mislead logic. Thank God for frustrations, or we might never have any ''wake up call'' to the notion that something's amiss. You've heard the saying ''God-shaped hole,'' maybe even heard the song? It points to the fact that we, as expressions of the divine, have a nature intrinsic to the divine from which we have been expressed. Greed, fear, hatred, all these go hand-in-hand with many others. They never satisfy because that is not what/who we truly are.
All the commandments see their fulfillment in love. Fulfilling ''the laws'' devoid of love only ''kills'' us, because it is ''discipline,'' forced on us from outside, rather than the discipline of our own true nature of love, being expressed from the inside.

God isn't Good, Hate is a Logical Misconception

Good needs bad to define it. If God is good, then he can't exist without ''bad.'' If God is synonymous with ''good,'' then he needs the struggle between good and evil in order to exist. God simply ''is.'' God can be described as the principle which has no opposite. Living things are expressions of God in the physical realm.

1.) ''God is love,''
2.) Hate is the void of love.

If God is love, and God simply ''is,'' then that which is the void of love is the void of what is.

If God is omnipresent--fully present everywhere, then the ''void of God'' is an impossibility.

Hate isn't so accurately described as ''a void,'' as it is ''a logical misconception,'' It is regarded as something, when really, it doesn't exist, except in the mind. Hate's existence is contrived through logical means based on false premises.

Pervasive Religious Equality

I propose that the fundamental principle of agnosticism is a healthy way to approach religion.

No religion is correct; it's just not something religions can be. If a religion could be proven, it would be called knowledge, since faith has no room to work in the absence of doubt. Religions are just tools to help us understand the true nature of reality. People were not made to serve religion; religion was made to serve people. Exclusive devotion to religions can be a very dangerous thing because they're built on faith, not solid facts. No religion ought to be praised and exalted above the rest, as though it is more of a religion than any others--as if its preservation is more important than the founding doctrines thereof. Religions, themselves, cannot be proven, and their interpretations are not always in accord with the religion itself.

Different religions are like shards of a broken mirror, and by looking into each of them, they all point to the same thing. No two shards will look quite the same; there are as many versions of religion as there are people.

Differences in religion are not very important to me, but God, on the other hand, is very important to me.

I used to worry about others' versions of God, whether or not they were ''the true God.'' By the former reasoning, any deviation, no matter how slight, is still a deviation and therefore tragically blasphemous. I would wonder, ''how do I know they're worshiping the same God I worship?'' Well, what that question really asks is ''How do I know they're worshiping the same perception of God that I have?''

But encountering God is a matter of faith--that is, God cannot be known. If God could be known, then it would not be a matter of faith, but of evidence and proof. As soon as I try to perceive/understand/qualify God, who cannot be known, I have put God into a box that no one else can quite mimic. No one's perception of God is quite the same, so no one's version of God is quite the same, so there are as many versions of God as there are souls. I can't perceive God quite the same way as anyone else does.

God cannot be known. It's a matter of faith, and faith has no room to operate in the absence of doubt. God can only be loved. It's not the religion or the practise, or even the name of God that makes any bit of difference. It's the love for God.

Worrying about others' versions of God, then, is not my business. When I ask God to bless someone, is it my responsibility to ensure that God does His part of the job? Doesn't God deal with a person's heart? The most, best, and only truly effective means of helping someone encounter God is to love them.

Love God, love each other.

Bits and Pieces

How I feel is never as important as how I choose to feel.

Belief can't be ''tested,'' only trusted, because belief is not the same as knowledge.

Maybe depression is just "the universe's" way of saying ''you are very much loved, appreciated, and important in my eyes, but you don't yet fully understand how pervasively or profoundly this is true." And maybe depression is like a gift from a coconut tree that must first be cracked open; rather than just toting it around, resigning one's self to it as an extra weight. Not with anger or frustration, but with a nonetheless vigorous attitude of action, '''cause we're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy.''

The specific type of religion doesn't have as much of an effect on you as the way you approach the religion.

The chains of my own mental slavery are nothing more than my own white-knuckle grip on the situation. Love is the only thing that can bring about the cessation of such conflicts because it is, itself the cessation of conflicts—love simply ''is,'' and this ''is-ness,'' is the means by which it accomplishes everything that it does.

Letting my experiences dictate my perception is like trying to make the water calm by punching and kicking at ripples in the water. I am the reason why I suffer, I am the reason I am at peace.


...''imagination triumphs over desire'' - The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Optimism is a choice, not a result of the environment. Then again, it CAN be a result of the environment. That choice is yours, though.

Discipline is not something forced on you, that you have to obey, ''like it or not.'' Real discipline is an expression/manifestation of what is truly in the heart. Success is nothing beyond the earnest application of your best effort towards that discipline.


''Is 'it' all about diminishing the self, or simply trying to realise the truth? Once you do this, you see that what you tried to diminish before was an illusion. There is no need for the former conflict; it isn't real.''


The quest for knowledge, denying the relevance of faith, is all the while fueled by a faith that faith is invalid.

Things that you never find in real love: feelings of greed, selfishness, fear, jealousy, ruthlessness, desperation, etc., are the voids, like holes in the ground. Acting in accord with emotions that are not in agreement with love will not bring a fulfilling resolution. It's always possible to make the holes bigger, but filling them up can only last so long until they aren't holes anymore.

Revenge only seems right, but hate is like a hole in the ground. If I add another hole, I've increased the problem and subordinated myself to the preservation of what actually wronged me--hate. ''Whosoever diggeth a pit, the same shall fall in.''



***1.) Disregarding ''absolutes'' such as mathematical facts, belief is the cause and creator of perception and reality.

2.) Each person believes a different thing.

3.) Then there is no such thing as a misconception.
a.) ''According to your belief, it is done unto you.''
b.) ''As a man thinks in his heart, so will he be.''
c.) ''the thing I have dreaded has come upon me!''

4.) What we choose to believe is never ''true or false.'' There is a diversified field of goals that one has. Goals traditionally reckoned as ''good'' are closer to accord with the lifeward principle, and the loving nature thereof.

-Seeing has never been believing;
-Faith has never been dependent upon proof
-Faith produces its own proof.
-Belief has nothing to do with an intellectual deduction.
-Beliefs are measured by the merit of the things they elicit.
-Belief/faith is a moral issue, not an intellectual one.

''When you are observing your path, you are far from it. Your path is freedom. Name it, and it vanishes.'' - Mike Bann

''don't pray for an easy life, but pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.'' - Bruce Lee

''you know, I've always wanted to invent something someday. ...but i wouldn't want to like, revolutionise the toilet. Thomas Crapper invented that. i wouldn't want people saying ''maaan, hurry up in there! i gotta take a HUGE helfer like, rite now!''

''be not afraid of growing slowly, only be afraid of standing idle.''

''only in still water can a man see his reflection, but only in turbulence can he become more than he is.'' - me

''you can't walk on water if you don't step out of the boat''

''never test depth of water with both feet''

''as a man thinks in his heart, so he is.'' - Bible

''what you feed thrives, what you starve dies.''

''one person with belief is equal to a force of 99 who only have interest.'' - John Stewart Mill

''Contentment and love can't be chased, they must be ''started.'' Just like 'you don't sing nutrition. You take it in.' ''

''Everyone meditates. People who say they meditate just do it on purpose, for certain goals.''

Karma is not a ''bitch.'' One atom of sodium and one atom of chlorine combine to form salt; not because they're ''vengeful little shits.'' It's just what happens. If you eat some really rotten food, you will get sick. Karma which seems to ''pull no punches'' is essential for a reality in which our free will is 100% free. If there were ''divine bumpers'' all over the ''bowling alley of life,'' how could our choices ever be our own? In order for free will to exist, the choices, as well as the consequences must be completely our own.

People were not made to serve religion; religion was made to serve people. Devotion to religions can be a very dangerous thing because they're built on faith, not solid facts. No religion is correct; it's just not something religions can be. If a religion could be proven, it would be called knowledge, since faith has no room to work in the absence of doubt. Religions are just tools to help us understand the true nature of reality.

I say ''lifeward principle'' a lot, and that's mostly because I don't think any religion can be correct, at all; but they each hit on some important ideas....''principles,'' which are pervasively true. The principles are the important things, but the diverse religions are important, too. I may have nailed down some principles, but to hear the interpretation of those principles from a new angle brings the same understanding in a new light that I needed, and that I already had all the pieces to, but never thought to put them together like that.

There is truth in them, just as there is the divine lifeward principle acting in ALL of us. If I make a mistake, or hurt somebody's feelings, does that mean I'm less of a human than anyone else?

So, if a religion presents ideas that seem totally backward from what I'm used to, does that mean that it is completely useless and devoid of ''the lifeward principle?'' I think the caveats of religions serve an important purpose (probably among many others) that no one religion ought to be praised and exalted above the rest, as though its preservation is more important than the founding doctrines thereof.

A “fool” is still my brother or sister, who simply has been fooled. There is no need, no cause, and no room for condemnation or contempt.

If I'm attached to something, I don't really like the thing, I like the feelings that I choose to associate with that thing. If I don't like someone, it's only my perception of that person that I don't like. Hate is a lie. I cannot condemn/judge/hate someone and understand them at the same time. I always make a choice, either way.