Beyond the connotation of “Christian.”

Several days ago, I spoke with a good friend about my spiritual journey. I told her that I did not consider myself Christian anymore, (Read Journey to Enlightenment Blog to review my proclamation) and she thought I had gone to the dark side. She asked me if I was Atheist and I responded no.    I attempted to share my research and discoveries to date, but she would not openly listen to me. It seems that the mere thought of me letting go of the title "Christian" dooms me to hell.   

Note: As I began to write this blog, my ego tried over and over to dictate this blog. My Ego had me. I was thinking elitist thoughts and harboring a judgmental attitude.

. As I thought more about denouncing Christianity, I realized that I was completely wrong about denouncing my Christianity. I am learning about eastern philosophies and being feed by Yoga and Buddhism does not mean that I am not a follower of Christ. I believe that calling Me a Christian does not provide the keys to Heaven. Adhering to the word of God (Jesus) and his divine messengers throughout time will provide truth and insight, enlightenment and heaven.

As I continued my introspective examination, I began to realize that I was taking a pompous approach to my personal philosophical and spiritual discoveries. I was allowing myself to manifest an elitists attitude towards professed Christians. I felt that my journey provided me with an insight that no other person has discovered. How EGO driven is that!

I am a follower of Christ, and I am learning from the teachings of Pantanjali and the Buddha. I quite sure once I began to read the Quran I will absorb knowledge from Mohammad and Baha’u’llah. I believe more now than ever. The Lord provides his truth for all to discover and follow.

I am a Christian, but in this spiritual quest, I am learning so much now that I am moving beyond what I defined as the typical connotation of “Christian.” I am a student of God. I am absorbing teaching from Christianity, Hatha-Yoga, Baha'I, and Buddhism.

No one should follow religion blindly, and I hope my friend understands her own spirituality. Ultimately we must make sure we are living a fulfilling life and if our life is not happy, we may need to examine our spiritual path.

That's what I love about this journey for truth.  As your garden grows spiritually, you can continue nurturing and weeding out things that are not good you. Truth is the only absolute thing on this journey.

Note

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Journey to Enlightenment

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Over the past several weeks, I have been doing quite a bit of philosophical and spiritual studies. I am reading to provide insight into God’s purpose for me and my family.

I was born into Christianity and I came up in a church that CLAIM TO TEACH the “naked truth.” The “naked truth” according to this Church was raw without sugar coats. This organization was a hell fire and brimstone Holiness Church. Unfortunately this brand of the so called “truth” left me empty, unfulfilled and hopeless.

As an 8 year old boy, my heart desire was to feel the God as others did. I have now become conscious and I will not fake my beliefs nor will I put on a show, but as God manifest himself to me and through me, I will share my gift with you.

I have now realized that God did not define us as Christians, Muslim, Buddhist or etc.., but humans have provided these titles and the religious bigotry. I believe that God’s truth is constant and true always. It does not matter what label is attached to it, or who proclaims it. It is still truth.

So with that in mind I officially become a student of God and his Truth. I will only follow his design. I will not be bounded by any belief system that promotes closed-mindedness, violence, bigotry, intolerance.

I believe that God has manifested himself through his son. I believe that Christ is the Son of God.

I am reading others such as Buddha, Mohammad, and Pantanjali as a part of my studies.

I plan to update my blog from time to time as I continue my Journey to Enlightenment.

John 5:39
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

Restore Your Love

When was the last time you thought about what you wanted? More importantly when was the last time you pursued your desires? Most people dream about being happy, but they have no discipline and commitment to obtain it. I say this because I fight the same things that everyone fights. No one is alone in the quest for happiness.

These suggestions have helped me find the means to restore my love. I will share it with you. If any of it can help you, please use it.

The things I am going to suggest will take some getting used to, but they are necessary in order to move forward.

My suggestions will move you in a different direction and it will help you achieve your goals and dreams. In order to see the results try this for 30- 45 days and then revaluate your situation.

My Restoration Suggestions.

Give Up and allow God to do what he does best! Guide you!

1. Forgive yourself and learn your own worth. Only your self worth is important at this point. Remember the scripture, "The blind can not lead the blind less they both fall in the ditch." When you are stronger you will help others.

2. Anyone in your life that is poisonous to you or your peace get rid of them now. Do not write, talk or visit them at all. Do not let them visit you.

3. Have a dismissive attitude toward negativity. Do not react to it in a negative way. Remember you always have a choice to get mad or dismiss stupidity.

4. Begin an exercise regiment 3 times a week. You may want to try Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays for at least 30 minutes. Slowly increase the exercise time to 45 minutes or an hour.

5. You have to change your eating habits. What you eat plays a tremendous role in how you feel. White sugars are bad for the body.

When you eat sugars, the body works hard to bring you down off the sugar high. The body is so busy working on that it can no protect you fully from illness (you immune system gets lower) Here is a good comparison. Every time you eat candy, pastries and cakes Etc.., it is like taking shots of liquor. The body is fighting the sugar just like it fights the alcohol when you drink.

6. No more fast food! You must try to eat at the same times daily. The meals must consist of 3 regular meals and two snacks. Watch your serving size. The first week of eating will be the hardest, but I promise you by week two it will be easier. No white sugars or sweet treats. If you get a sweet tooth eat fruit!

7. Write on your Blog as much as possible. Express your true feeling and how your day went. This is important; because this will be the way you can look back and see progress.

8. Do 30 minutes of "personal time daily" Personal Time consists of you meditating and sitting still thinking about the present. Do not think about the future or the pass. Allow your mind to focus on you (not what you need to do or what you did). This time should be done in the morning or before bed.

9. No sex for a month- If bad relationships continue to occur in your life, then this is necessary. You are picking or drawing the wrong people to you. Your vibe is polluted and does not represent your true self. Your vibe may be the vibe of self-doubt, desperateness, loneliness, and fear. So if bad relationships are your "weakness," Sex only complicates it and clouds your judgment. You have to make yourself happy before you can share that happiness with anyone else.

10. No alcohol- same as sex- alcohol clouds your judgment

11. No Dates

Goals-

• Write down your goals and how you plan to accomplish them

• Begin your exercise and meditation (Personal Time).

• Begin your new eating regiment. (No sweets or white sugars)

• Join an online community and chat and blog. Do not do romantic chats. Look for someone who is on the same road as you. You need some one who understands.

• I love yoga. Try to find a yoga school in your area. You may find it satisfying.

What Happens to Love?

When it does not work, what happens to Love?

First, I want to commend all of my new friends for the love you are showing me with my short stories and commentary on Love. I believe that God has provided me with a gift of insight and I want to serve all my readers, by providing information from my heart and soul. So as you read my commentary, bring your “rake”and “pitchfork.”If there is any information that you can use, rake it in for usage, and if you disagree or there is not needed, pitch it away. Now on to the series…….

In Part 1 of this series, I stated that the only way to maintain a healthy relationship is to remove anything that does not foster positive growth or strengthen the relationship. I use a garden as the basis of my analogy. Soil and Field rep resents your spiritual body. The Spiritual body projects who you are to the world. The Physical body acts for the spiritual body. The Soul is the actual you. When your garden is clear of negative substance, whatever is planted will flourish.

As you read this series, you will notice that the majority of information I will provide will be for you and not your mate. The reason for that is simple: No one can make you happy! No one can give you love, integrity, honest, and selflessness. All of these things are in you! All of these things project from you to the world. W e project who we are to the world. God has provided all the ingredients to happiness and joy. We share ourselves with the world. Would you ever try to board a plane on a trip without your plane ticket? When the attendant asks for your ticket would you say that you expect the guy ahead of you to give his ticket? We are all on the same journey. We all must have our own tickets.

If you are looking for someone to make you happy, you will have a minimum amount of happiness in your life. The reason is simple: Your focus is in the wrong place. As you are looking outside your garden, your plot is unattended and overrun with such poisons as insecurity, jealousy, or low self esteem. Those negative substances distract you; poison your garden and choke the seeds of your relationships. Because your search is in vain, you miss out on quite a bit of your happiness. You are searching outwardly for something that is inside of you. Imagine that you misplace d your keys in the house. Where will you look? You will look inside your house. You will not go down the street to your neighbor’s house looking for something that is inside your home!

I wanted to make that point before I move forward. This makes the answer quite obvious to my readers. So let’s state the question again: When it does not work, what happens to the love? Nothing. The love remains constant even after the relationship is over. Remember, the love is a part of you (your soil) and the relationship (seed) is planted. The seed is not the soil and the soil is not the seed. They are both important to one another, but their make-up and roles are quite different.

Once a relationship (plant or seed) is up- rooted, weakened, or cut, and the relationship is gone, t here will be a time needed for healing, because something in your garden with a specific place and role is weak or gone. Now here is when many disagree with me. The average person is hurt or devastated and begins to build protective measures to safe guard themselves from being hurt again and again.

Many people begin to use those negative substances to build the so call wall of protection. The wall does not protect them; instead it creates barriers inside the garden that imprisons you and inhibits the growth of love in your soil. So the next relationship is plagued with the same issues and ends in the same manner or worst: we stay in an unhealthy relationship. If your garden is not address, life will be filled with more pain than necessary.

Here is a fact that I will place everything on: If you have cleaned your garden and you are doing your job in the relationship one or two things will occur. Your partner will begin to clean his/her garden, or circumstances will begin to separate you. Because there will be not be enough common ground to sustain the relationship. For example two Crack heads with co dependency issues are together, and one sobers up. Can the newly reformed addict stay with the current addict? No. If the recovering addict remains, he/she will probably slide back in to that life style. When we clean up our gardens, it is like sobering up. We are new, because we are experiencing intensity of feelings and emotions that we have not felt for a very long time. Our needs, outlook, and desires will change.

Quick Recap: Nothing happens to love when a relationship ends. The love remains constant. Why, because the Love is a part of you. It provides substance (food) for relationships it is not the fruit of the relationship. When changes occur in the relationship, it is important to allow healing after a relationship ends without allowing negative substances to gather and create emotional prisons and barriers.

Next question: Now that it is over, how do I prepare for a new healthy relationship?

What's in your Garden

 

by Hakeem Jamal

After talking with quite a few friends and examining my own relationships, I observed a pattern to my ill attempts at Love. Relationships were not working out for me or any of the individuals I know. I am not referring to callous people, but the average person in our society that should find healthy relationships and real love accessible. Love should be manifested in all aspects of their life.

Love seems so elusive, and somewhat ambiguous, and continued failure means that we are not defining Love properly because we do not know what it is or its purpose.  Because of this ignorance we categorize Love's placement wrong, thus its place and purpose is lost in our lives.

My theory of Love (and positive attributes) is this: Love is a constant in our spiritual bodies it is a necessity for a healthy existence. It exists in great numbers as long as we have the capacity for growth.

Your Garden

Many of us are not ready for relationships. We are not familiar with a healthy relationship. Our spiritual lives or gardens are ill managed. Poorly managed spiritual gardens are cluttered with negative substances and when Life (God's will) sows seeds in our rocky fields and hard soil we cannot maintain a healthy connection to the results of the seeds sown. The interesting thing is that we define the love as the seed, but Love is actually a part of the soil. Love is one of the many minerals in the soil that allows seeds to grow strong and provide fruit. Relationships, emotions, or daily occurrences are the seed sown in our garden. These seeds remain healthy due to the condition of our soil before and during growth. Adversity, Selfish Motives, ill will, negative emotional barriers or detach disposition are the stones and other foreign substances that pollute, obstruct, impede, and/or counteract the growth of relationships.

Our Spiritual bodies are the soil and our soil's richness is determine by levels of our positive (divine) attributes such as compassion, love, kindness, giving, etc.. The ills in our garden are fear, low self esteem, mistrust and jealousy. These traits can only harden you (soil). Spiritual bodies plagued with negativity do not allow the soil to become rich with love. So when seeds of infatuation are sown, they will not grow into a the healthest relationship. The ills in the ground are plague with fear, low self esteem, mistrust and jealousy and those trait can only hardens your (soil).

As I study the sutras of yoga and reflect on my knowledge of Christ. I realized that to discover what fosters love's growth is somewhat obvious, but preparing and maintaining yourself as a vessel for love takes work and dedication. Don't worry because it does get easier.

Love will flourish and enrich your life automatically when you are prepared. When the seeds are sown in an love enriched soil they will grow stronger than you can imagine. For example, God is not plagued with negative traits, so his love is dense and well concentrated.  It is all powerful.  This intensity and richness is exemplified in God's relationship to us.  How else can you give your son?Love will nurture the seeds that are being planted in your spiritual body.

Soil and Field represents your spiritual body. The Spiritual body projects who you are to the world. The Physical body displays or provides action for the spiritual body. The Soul is you

1. Positive Substances- Traits in your spiritual body that promotes emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental growth and positive relationships. I.e. Love, peace, compassion, etc....

2. Negative Substances- ills and foreign substances in your spiritual body that inhibit the positive substances from flourishing. Anger, hate, weakness, and low self esteem are examples of these substances

Examples of seeds sown into your garden are relationships, infatuation, task, ethics, and morals.

NEXT TOPIC: When it does not work, what happens to the love?

To be continued .