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Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

Last post 11-14-2006, 2:54 AM by jwcargile. 17 replies.
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  •  10-28-2006, 6:08 AM 12875

    Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

     

    Can you say your life has been a success?

    Most people today feel the odds are against them succeeding. Success and failure have roots in the famous Sermon on the Mount in Jesus’ closing discourse to a multitude of people who were following him throughout Galilee. He sat on a mountainside known as the Mount of Olives or Olivet, and began to teach them.

    What was his message?

    His illustrations of a tree bearing good fruit and bad fruit, and building a house on a solid foundation or on top of sand are practical Christian lessons. You can find his message in Luke 6: 43-49. Jesus was not talking literally about trees or houses. He was talking about how a person can succeed in becoming spiritually whole for a lifetime.

    If you believe the teachings of Jesus, then most assuredly you have to believe in yourself in a spiritual way. His teachings are spiritual truths. A person who does not see themselves with such awareness will find all kinds of excuses to give as to why their life is far less than they want it to be.

    If you have a spiritual awareness about yourself success comes in spite of all the so-called odds against you. Oneness with God makes all things possible. Without this Oneness with God the odds of success plays havoc with your mind, body, and Spirit.

    Steve Jobs, Apple computer co-founder, was a college drop-out after just six months. He loved the grace and beauty of calligraphy, and he had no idea when he took a class in calligraphy where that would lead him. Ten years later that passion for beautiful type came back to him when he was designing the Mac.

    “The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work,” Jobs told Stanford graduates last year at a commencement service. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

    Jobs went on to tell the graduating class to be mindful for what you wish for.

    “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice – and most important – have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

    Since September of 1990 I have always thought that where my wife and son moved to on Mount Olive Road in western Tuscaloosa County, Alabama was something special. My wife and I followed our heart and intuition up the driveway as the real estate lady showed us our new home. There amidst nature stood our dream home – a two-story log home sitting on a hill, the highest point in the county illuminating enlightenment.

    The house stood proudly upon this summit, and the nature surrounding it gave it a Walt Whitman tingle up my spine. Our heart and intuition knew this was the right place for us.

    Here the leaves of grass sang out praises of song. The stillness of place captured me instantly. This would become my shade and light. I could hide my thoughts or expose them from here. It was and is a writer’s paradise.

    I told my wife long ago that someday I would write about Mount Olive Road, but I did not know it would be in this fashion. “From Mount Olive Road,” is a collection of thoughts I have had over the process of a year. These brief writings can be found on my new website www.21stcenturyministries.com.

      In 1993 when I began the research of metaphysics, I could see an integral spirituality emerging. Since I majored in religion and philosophy at Samford University, and spent a career as a journalist, the integration process began. It has been my hope to translate Biblical scripture from the great metaphysical teachings of Jesus and other spiritual cosmic souls into a language that will serve the 21st Century, and help others who struggle with identity by providing a spiritual road map for them. I have often said, what I do or give, is only a map, it is not the territory. The territory is bigger than me and you.

    Build your life on a rock and not in sand, and be a like a tree whose fruit bears good fruit, not bad fruit. Success is yours if you ask. Your life can unfold in Divine Order.


    JC
    33° 13' N 87° 37' W
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  •  10-31-2006, 2:23 PM 13211 in reply to 12875

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Hi JW,

     

    It was my fate to be raised from infancy in a (fundamentalist) Bible Church; recovering from that experience has been a lifelong task, but your question is about success.

     

    Before entering high school the teacher in our eighth grade class sent around a sheet for us youngsters to fill out. It held a column titled ambition. I entered to be a success; others followed this lead and half the class also entered success. This would not do, so the teacher changed the heading to choice of future occupation; i left it blank –but your question is about success.

     

    As part of my indoctrination process at church (around age eight) i was taught the biblical story of Solomon. Looking back now with my old fart memory it seems that god was engaged in the process of demonstrating his considerable power to the young Solomon, offering him what ever he wished; money, power, position, whatever.

    But Solomon was no dummy, he opted instead for wisdom.

     

    As an eight year old i never even dreamt of a face-to-face with what folks call god, but i did decide then and there that insofar as it was presented to me that i would also opt for wisdom –eventfully to become a wise old man.

     

    Now its six decades later and i’ve got the ‘old man’ part down cold; and my old nose works well too, capable of ferreting out a proselytizer even in cyberspace. So yes, to answer your question, success is mine.

     

    Warmly,

     

    Charles

    88W18'28" 41N58'02"

     

     

     

        

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  •  11-03-2006, 11:45 AM 13596 in reply to 12875

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    I've realized that what you get in life is directly related to what you look for in life.  If you are looking for "all the odds against you" you will find many, many odds against you.  And you are also more likely to find success if you are looking for success.

    Lately, I've found it much more fun and easy to look for all the ways that life is easy and fun for me while also looking for success (in helping the world be a more sustainably healthy and happy place). 

    I used to think that the world was working against me, but then I figured out that it could very well have been me working against the world!

    Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
    Turtle
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  •  11-04-2006, 4:12 AM 13706 in reply to 13211

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    I was in the same boat as you, walking in the same shoes as you. I hope you do not think I am a proselytizing for that was not my intention. I am 62 and, like you, asked for wisdom like Solomon in my early stages of life. I never consider, however, that I have arrived. It's always in process.
    JC
    33° 13' N 87° 37' W
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  •  11-04-2006, 6:49 AM 13714 in reply to 13706

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Charles and Jim, this is really interesting. Same here in so many ways. Not wisdom so much and not as Solomon, but there was a certain very important moment during a Catholic upbringing when I asked just to know the truth. (I was particularly interested in just knowing one way or another if Jesus was really interested in sending folks to Hell or not.)

    Only a few years later, a series a peak experiences and the chance encounter with a calendar version of A Course in Miracles with the daily lesson happening to be "I Am in Need of Nothing but the Truth"-well, helped me feel I was on to something.

    Very interesting.

    (Hey, this may be pertinent to the addition of "Spheres of Existence" to the Integral framework. Check out the thread and concalls if you haven't already. My interest pertaining: What makes someone ask for these things -especially as children-while others simply don't? Not really a state or stage thing there, but perhaps Kierkegaard's spheres of existence which Matin M. calls a transversal quality of consciousness or awareness. Or am I over-dramatizing what you guys have said?)

    Peace, Tim

     

     


    "With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
    . . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
    "You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
    -Constantin Stanislavsky
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  •  11-04-2006, 8:24 AM 13732 in reply to 13706

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Hi JW,

     

    From my view the difference between hope and postponement is so slight as to be indistinguishable; so i prefer to put whatever energy that would otherwise go into postponement and live right now.

     

    It’s a view holds fundamentalism to be a tar baby, a sticky business, difficult of escape and capable of leaving a nasty residue. Part of its detritus shows itself in proselytizing, a form of expression that is imbued with first tier thinking. Proselytizers do not wait to be asked but put forth their ‘precious’ notions with little if any hesitation, having deep-fried them in the vat called belief; where every bit of doubt has been repressed, reduced to worthless pan scrapings or worse, by any other name: sin.

     

    Although i have not read it, i do like the title of the book: What you think of me is none of my business. I am, however, disinclined to read yours, being put off by your use of the term metaphysics, and even more so as with your self-description (elsewhere) as a metaphysician.

     

    And speaking of books have you read KW’s, Integral Spirituality?  Perhaps your definition of metaphysics differs from his. Here is a quote from appendix II: 

     

    "... metaphysics is thinking that falls prey to the myth of the given.  What this means for spirituality in general, is that metaphysics needs to be jettisoned, or at the very least, completely rethought. All of the traditional categories of metaphysics -including God, immortality of the soul, mind, body, and knowing -simply cannot stand up to the scrutiny of critical thinking, not in their fundamental, pre-critical, ontological forms.  In the modern and postmodern world, they are simply obsolete notions that are as embarrassing to religion as, say, phlogiston, St. Vitus’s dance, and phrenology are to medicine."

     

    Finally i quite agree that life goes on, that energy is not lost, but it is also very clear that there are stages along the way; often the prospect of moving forward from one stage to the next looks like a death –alas there seems to be no rebirth, no transformation, without it. This is why i tend to agree with my favorite yogi, Sri Aurobindo, who said, “All life is yoga. Surrender is the key.”

     

    Warmly,

     

    Charles

    88W18'28" 41N58'02"

     

                                     

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  •  11-04-2006, 9:01 AM 13739 in reply to 13714

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Hi Tim,

     

    It's not clear to me exactly how spheres of influence would operate in the human condition.

     

    What is clear, what there is tons of evidence for, is that humans are predisposed right from the moment of birth to tend in certain directions and not in others.  This is not to say that there is no such thing as free will.  Rather that will use is exercised by choosing from within a given range that defines each option. Obviously this is a very complex question and that my views on it tend always to be simple.  Like all other manifest things this shows up in my life as a two-edged sword: often i fail to cut through to the deepest truest understanding, but those Gordian Knot occasions of success do allow for common, readily understood modes of explanation –especially when i manage to avoid the curse of wordiness.

     

    Warmly,

     

    Charles

    88W18'28" 41N58'02"

     

     

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  •  11-05-2006, 8:46 AM 13885 in reply to 13732

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

     

    Working from the center in the thick of things


    I have been asked, and some people wonder why my background includes metaphysics and theology?

    Good question?

    The two disciplines are intertwined with one another like mind, body and Spirit. They are inseparable.

    Early in my ministerial studies I was awed by the metaphysics found in scripture. When I employ the word metaphysics it simply means “beyond the physical.”

    Our Bible is filled with metaphysical happenings and occurrences, so why would someone fail to study or realize that metaphysics is not meaningful when reading Scripture? You have to accept on faith these metaphysical feats both in the Old and New Testament to be a true believer in God’s Word.

    The Burning Bush, the Great Flood, the Parting of the Red Sea, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, walking on water, feeding 5,000 people with three loaves of bread and two fish, healing the sick by the touch of the hand, dying and being resurrected. These are all metaphysical feats. They are “beyond the physical,” or beyond reason and logic.

    The Scripture is filled with metaphysics. When one understands how these things can occur and how God moves in mysterious ways through everyday circumstances, then one becomes a believer in metaphysics. Simple!

    By faith we accept these metaphysical feats as what God can do in people’s lives and in the spiritual interpretation of history from Genesis and the Creation story to Revelation.

    While some modern interpretations of the New Age throw in all sorts of ideas into the field of metaphysics, it is certainly not my intention to practice some of the goof-ball practices that some people identify as metaphysical in nature. Crystal gazing, palm reading, horoscopes, Tarot and other pseudo practices are not what true metaphysics consists.

    When one expresses an interest in metaphysics, that interest may be in any one or a combination of the following subjects: philosophy, religion, parapsychology, mysticism, yoga, ESP, dreams, Jungian psychology, astrology, meditation, self-help studies, positive thinking, life after death and reincarnation.

    The common denominator of these and all similar subjects deal with an exploration of Reality, and how such knowledge can benefit human life on this earth. Many metaphysicians regard metaphysics as a Spiritual philosophy of life as I so believe.

    If you read about how a person evolves into spiritual consciousness, from the beginning states of salvation to the mature stages of Christian enlightenment you will realize that being a Christian is a Spiritual philosophy of life. We tell people everyday we are Christians, but what does that mean?

    Have you arrived yet, or are you still evolving into becoming a Christian? I believe we evolve in our lifetime to being Christians, that it is a life-time process. You are always in the process of becoming.

    Jesus was the greatest of all metaphysicians because he was the Son of God, as we are the Sons of God. “The Father and I are one. All of you are equal unto me. Even greater things than I, ye shall do.”

    One of the great myths is that God is an external being outside of us. God is within you and me. You do not have to look outside your own being to know God. God is the I AM, the spiritual makeup of each person on earth.

    Realizing that truth will set you free. Working from the center will help you in the thick of life’s challenges.


    JC
    33° 13' N 87° 37' W
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  •  11-06-2006, 9:15 AM 13998 in reply to 13885

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Hi JW,

     

    You write. . .  >>I have been asked, and some people wonder why my background includes metaphysics and theology?<<

     

    Hey, i don’t wonder about your background; my view holds that things happen the only way they can happen; however, i am bothered by believers.  But if i wasn't inclined to love the next person who comes along, i wouldn't even attempt a reply to such an ardent statement of belief; full in the knowledge that it likely will prove to be an exercise in futility i offer the following.

     

    Here's my problem with belief. Believers lock themselves into the position of being followers in that they must accept something put forward by others as if it were true in spite of evidence to the contrary. It's an error or worse to assert a thing to be true without knowing it to be so. The effect of so doing has consequences; when we engage in belief we actually undermine our capacity to find out for ourselves whether a thing is really true or not. From my view this looks like dishonesty.

     

    And  even worse than the dishonesty is that it leads believers to condemn that or those about which they know little or nothing, simply because it's outside their purview.  Pity the poor person who's dragged into a court of law that is based on belief rather than evidence; when the judge, caught up in belief, serves as defense attorney, jury, prosecutor, jailor, or even executioner. Is this too strongly stated? I think not; witness the recent case in Afghanistan where cooler heads had to smuggle a recanting believer out of the country while an enflamed mob, led by believing mullahs, demanded his death.

     

    For the sake of clarity, please understand my position here. Belief is one end of a polarity, a syzygy. Its opposite is doubt. Between these poles is a wide range. The extreme forms of doubt approach nihilism, anarchy, or worse; when institutionalized these forms are very dangerous too; consider the regimes of Saddam Hussein, or that of his idol, the bane of the gulags, Joseph Stalin whose spawn includes the infamous Pol Pot, whose killing fields hold the skulls of many whose ‘crime’ was simply wearing eye-glasses.

     

    Is it not wise then considering these extremes, to find some happy place in between, where people can actually be nice to each other, and even engage in civil but honest discourse?

     

     

    Warmly,

     

    Charles

    88W18'28" 41N58'02"

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  •  11-07-2006, 5:51 AM 14103 in reply to 13998

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Is it not wise then considering these extremes, to find some happy place in between, where people can actually be nice to each other, and even engage in civil but honest discourse?

    I thought that was the intention here? I think we are closer philosophically than you actually give it credit for. I live in the South, the Bible Belt, and I write to try and translate what Taoism has given to me. You have not had the opportunity to read some of the columns I have written in newspapers. These are newspaper columns written for people in the deep South. I hope you allow "civil but honest discourse," but I feel there is a lot of bitterness somewhere in your musings?


    JC
    33° 13' N 87° 37' W
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  •  11-07-2006, 6:57 AM 14104 in reply to 14103

    Hmm [^o)] Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Hello JW,

    I'm confused.  Are your posts copies of essays you've written for your Alabama audience?  Or are you witing to us here in the II forum?  You don't have to tell us about the gifts of Taoism, as most of us are the recipient of gifts from similar traditions.

    Your perspective is not clear.  Are you carrying coals to Newcastle, preaching to the choir? I may live in the deep South but I assure you I'm not your Alabama audience.  I guess I'm asking you to talk to us, or at least to me.

    What do you want to say?

    Honestly confused,

    MarkD

     


    Just enough enlightenment for this time around, please.
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  •  11-07-2006, 12:23 PM 14139 in reply to 14103

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Hi JW,

     

    As part of my life practice, including daily dealings with others, i choose to treat them in a certain way, which is to say that all that come my way have at least a slight plus in their favor. This is because in my view they/we all have what i call ‘essential dignity’; this is opposite of what Christians call ‘original sin’, rather this essential dignity is roughly akin to Buddha Nature, where all have undisputable value at what might be called ‘the ground of being’ level. 

     

    Sadly, however, folks tend to live in widespread non-recognition of this dignity; this causes great suffering and prompts the iconoclast in me to make exceptions in this rule.  So i employ a higher standard for two similar yet opposite classes of people; these are the power seekers.  The politicians, office seekers, social metaphysicians and similar types tend to seek power over the outer life of others, while the priests, rabbis, mullahs, gurus, and Doctors of Divinity tend to seek power over the inner lives of others. In practical terms, this means that members of these groups are assigned a neutral or slight negative in my initial attitude towards them. However, i am Taoist enough to honor both modesty and adaptability as a gold standard in modifying this attitude; which means i remain open to them to the extent that they offer evidence of their own genuine openness. This often means simple honesty or integrity, as in being cognizant of and in exercising an integral appreciation of one’s own being, and especially eschewing power seeking wherever it raises its ugly head.

     

    Power seeking is the decisive, acid test. The noble in us, that part we employ when we rise to our own highest level of being simply shines; it glows, when so tested. Nowhere is this clearer than when our actions empower others, and encourage them to recognize and employ their own dignity, and avoid the twin pitfalls of a less than honest polarized belief or cynical doubt, not just here in this forum but everywhere.

     

    Bitterness? Would that it were not so, but what bitterer pill is there to swallow than the painful fact that we humans all too often piss away this marvelous birthright?

     

    Warmly,

     

    Charles

    88W18'28" 41N58'02"

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  •  11-11-2006, 5:19 AM 14577 in reply to 14104

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Forums are for honest discourse, and that is all I am trying to say. I posted a column for the forum that I wrote recently for several newspapers in Alabama. If you think it inappropriate for this forum, or you need further discourse, I am open. I am not trying to preach to the choir, because I do not know the choir here at I-I. I am trying to learn more about I-I as I am relatively new member. This is the first forum of any kind I have participated in, so I might not be aware of policy and etiquette. Apparently, I have hit some type of nerve in this posting. I am happy to receive the discourse from you and others. Most of the people I have come in contact here at I-I are mostly level 6's in Bill Harris' scale of spiritual evolvement. I will be honestly trying to write integral articles for the new print magazine the Institute is offering, as I am an award-winning professional writer of note in my neck of the woods. I am reading all the Ken Wilber has to offer. He and I grew up in 1960's with studies such as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Neibuhr, and some of the best German philosphers and theologians. Apparently, Wilber is trying to establish himself as the "philosopher of the post-modern era." I am glad for him. I will read and decide if he should take the place of such people as Nietsche, Wiggensttein, Socrates, our western role models of the past. I think Wilber is on to something, and I am glad to participate, but the jury is still out on Wilber's post-modern thought processes as far as I am concerned.  
    JC
    33° 13' N 87° 37' W
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  •  11-11-2006, 5:33 AM 14578 in reply to 14139

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

    Charles,

    I have a difficult time with your discourse. It is probably my failing that I do not see a clear statement of who you are, and what your dignity, as you speak of, is all about.

    I am not a traditionalist in the sense of the word that the western world employs. I refuse to be labeled anything but a metaphysician because the Light that manifests itself from Self to the outer world  tends to unite people to seek me out. I am too old to be power hungry. I hate politics. I am simply living out my spiritual awakenings in the sunset of my journalistic and metaphysical career.

    I see myself more as Siddhartha saw himself as he looked into the River as he grew old and wise. What he saw was the Buddha, himself, mirrored in the River. And that's about as close as any of us come to true Nirvana, Enlightenment, when you see yourself or the God within, and practice meditation daily to continue to see what the River shadows each of our Higher Selves.


    JC
    33° 13' N 87° 37' W
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  •  11-11-2006, 12:51 PM 14605 in reply to 14578

    Re: Succeeding in spite of all the odds against you

     

    Hi JW,

     

    The essential dignity about which i've written is not an exclusive thing.  But it's the birthright of each and every human being, including you and me. The problem is that we live in various states of non-recognition that this is so.  If it was something that could be given away, something contagious like a virus, then it would only take one realized being to incarnate, disperse the ‘virus’ and the world would be transformed. Obviously, considering the state of our world, things do not work this way. This is why enlightenment is sometimes called self-realization. In simplest terms, our small self, our contracted self, drops its resistance, and realizes that the Big Self and the little self are one.

     

    If a person were interested in understanding the scope of this roadblock they could do worse than this little exercise.  Try going 48 hours without saying (or writing) me or I or mine.

     

    Refusing to be labeled seems to be pointless.  Folks will view us the only way they can; which is to say through their perspective.  Rather, the trick is not to get locked into any given perspective; but to be flexible, to be adaptable.

     

    When we realize, when we are enlightened, we are ennobled, like gold. In its natural state, gold is hidden.  It is modest and does not clamor for attention; when refined and purified it is adaptable. It carries electricity, it's supple in feel, and it’s subject to being wrought, or cast, into various forms, and even hammered into leaf. Yet in spite of this utility, remarkable, lustrous, in a word: beautiful.

     

    Warmly,

     

    Charles

    88W18'28" 41N58'02"

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