by Angela Pritchard
October 10, 2015
from
Belsebuub Website
Spanish version
Angela Pritchard is
a researcher and practitioner of a timeless spiritual
process of transformation, evidence for which is found
in sacred teachings throughout the world and in the very
design of the universe itself.
Writing alongside
her husband Mark Pritchard (Belsebuub), she is co-author
of two books
The Path of the
Spiritual Sun and Return to Source. |
Often in our spiritual journey, and in
the daily course of life, there just isn't the time to sit down and
meditate, pause in prayer and reflection, or do a mantra.
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So what happens when the hectic
pace of life seems to out pace us?
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Who are we in those times, when
we can't even sneak in a moment of calm to recompose
ourselves?
Sometimes it seems like life's
circumstances come to force us to see what we really are, stripped
of spiritual crutches, and to test whether we have built the inner
muscles to enable us to walk without them.
Consciousness is within at every moment, not just in spiritual
exercises.
I think many practices can help a great
deal and are extremely important when used wisely, like crutches for
those who've suffered the loss of their spiritual parts, to help us
find and learn to use them again.
And being in the spiritually blind and
debilitated state we are in, it would seem a little arrogant to me
to think we don't need them.
Take for example what Lao-Tzu says about this in the
Hua Hu Ching:
"Don't think you can attain total
awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and
practice. This is egomania.
Appropriate rituals channel your
emotions and life energy toward the light.
Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble
constantly backward into darkness.
Here is the great secret:
Just as high awareness of the subtle truth is gained through
virtuous conduct and sustaining disciplines, so also is it
maintained through these things.
Highly evolved beings know and
respect the truth of this."
But on the other hand, making
a religion
out of practice can create an illusion, as we become dependent on
something exterior that hides and holds up the lack of our own
conscious development.
It's easier to feel spiritual in a
spiritual practice, but the work of spiritual transformation
transforms consciousness, so that a permanent increase in our
spiritual level takes place, not just the temporal one of a passing
practice.
"Do you think you can clear your
mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not
clear.
Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all
places and at all times. That is true meditation. Who can attain
clarity and simplicity by avoiding the world?
The Tao is clear and simple, and it
doesn't avoid the world."
Lao-Tzu, Hua Hu Ching
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