Good piece. I like the statement that a good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions but to question your answers. The way I avoid being a spectator and become an active participant in my awakening is by paying attention to what's happening to and within me as I read the book. That is, what the author is saying stirs and triggers reactions within me as I am reading, and I am an active participant by listening to and valuing the reactions within me which include my thoughts, feelings, associations, fantasies, and insights. My inner experience is at least as important as what the author is saying. What the author writes is his awakening, and what happens in me is my awakening. Being an active participant has not been easy or safe when I was in any so called teaching situation that told me what I should get and should learn from what I was reading, which got in the way of my noticing what was awakening in me. I don't think it is the only way, but an important way for me to awaken is to pay attention to my experience, my truth. I have questioned answers I got from organized religion. Someone said religion has come to be accepting someone else's experience or truth, and spirituality is finding and accepting my own experience or truth. Finding and accepting my experience or truth is actively participating in my awakening.
On Oct 4, 2013 david doane wrote :
Good piece. I like the statement that a good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions but to question your answers. The way I avoid being a spectator and become an active participant in my awakening is by paying attention to what's happening to and within me as I read the book. That is, what the author is saying stirs and triggers reactions within me as I am reading, and I am an active participant by listening to and valuing the reactions within me which include my thoughts, feelings, associations, fantasies, and insights. My inner experience is at least as important as what the author is saying. What the author writes is his awakening, and what happens in me is my awakening. Being an active participant has not been easy or safe when I was in any so called teaching situation that told me what I should get and should learn from what I was reading, which got in the way of my noticing what was awakening in me. I don't think it is the only way, but an important way for me to awaken is to pay attention to my experience, my truth. I have questioned answers I got from organized religion. Someone said religion has come to be accepting someone else's experience or truth, and spirituality is finding and accepting my own experience or truth. Finding and accepting my experience or truth is actively participating in my awakening.