Short Story: The spiritual path, forgiveness, and love

Thanks, Scott. That might seem a hard question to answer, but the answer depends, on what we think the spiritual path is. If we think we are the path, we might think that we need to stay on it until the end of it. If we think that it is more the path that is serving us, and our spiritual needs, if it is not serving us, we can simply veer off it, and go another way instead. Why stay lost on the wrong path? If we are climbing a ladder, which we have placed against the wall that we think that we must climb to get over, and halfway up it we see, that it is leading us to a lion cage, rather than to heaven, do we keep going, or not? Is the saying, the grass is always greener in the other paddock, sometimes true, and so we should leave our paddock to eat greener grass, which will help us to grow faster, in our life? If I am playing a game of chess, and I make a bad move, usually, I might keep playing a few more moves, to see if I might recover from that position, that I have placed myself in, but if it turns out that the game is really lost, I can simply resign from that game, or path, and start a new path, or game, hoping that my mistake, now learnt from, will help me do better next time. A lot of spiritual travellers, walk more than one path at a time too. We have Jews, who are also Sufis, Muslims that are also Jews. Buddhists that are Jews, as well (JewBus). I myself, have changed my spiritual paths many times in my life. What stops serving us, we should move on from, even if we have not reached the end of that road. If a large wall appears on this path, after a while, how long should we bash our head against it trying to get through it, before we try something else instead? Perhaps, get some new learning that teaches us to tunnel underneath the wall instead. The tunnelling becomes a new part of our old path. How do we know when the end has been reached on our path, or if we have turned the corner on that path, and actually started on a new path? The path is what we make it. The path itself is not so sacrosanct that we need to worship its sanctity, and imagine that we need to stick on it doggedly, stubbornly, even if it kills us, and delays our progress, rather than speeds it up. We are the path; the path is not us. The path serves us; we do not need to serve the path. The path is not greater than us, but it can help us to be greater.

@DocAndersen I guess to God every path is the right path, as every path will lead us back to God, if we allow it to do so. For me, it is about speed of growth. I spent twenty or more years on a certain spiritual path, and I thought that that was enough, as I was not moving through their initiation levels as fast as I wanted to do so, plus, as time went by, it all came to seem a bit of a sham operation to me too. Of course, this old Zen koan is to the point too, I guess. Thirty Years A fellow went to a Zen master and said, “If I work very hard, how soon can I be enlightened?” The Zen master looked him up and down and said, “Ten years.” The fellow said, “No, listen, I mean if I really work at it, how long—” The Zen master cut him off. “I’m sorry. I misjudged. Twenty years.” ”Wait!” Said the young man, “You don’t understand! I’m—” “Thirty years,” said the Zen master.

@innertalks why stay lost on the wrong path? in the end would there be a value in failing? do we learn enough, as humans when we fail? the wrong path, may not be wrong in God's eyes, only our eyes.

Yes, thanks. Forgiveness of ourselves is certainly a big part of forgiveness, but I do think that some of us can forgive others, even before they forgive themselves. They are harder on themselves than on others. They will forgive others, but not themselves. Some people are like that. Some people do not love themselves either. They do not love themselves enough to forgive themselves. Forgiving ourselves does help us to forgive others too though, especially for those proud people, it is a step towards becoming humble too.

@innertalks I totally agree with you. Forgiveness is also another form of humility.

@ihasaquestion Thanks. And both forgiveness and humility are included in love's makeup too, I would say. I can't imagine an unforgiving person being able to love someone fully.

@innertalks

Yes, trying to make a living from writing might be a recipe for despair, if you didn't have God in your mix too. With God included, the life cake will eventually come out to your taste.

@Shiva49 It can be hard at times, though, when we live under the large shadow of our parents. It is hard to get away from the family culture, and become our own self, as Prince Harry did, with so much flack thrown at him for doing it too.

@innertalks We are each unique as others are taken! Let us use our God-given talents than try to emulate others with their own unique talents and characteristics. We would be misfits and also-rans otherwise.

@innertalks Yes, individuality is then subservient to family and societal norms. It had happened earlier too to the royal family "After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, the public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée, Wallis Warfield Simpson." Asian American children find it tough as they are torn between two cultures. We allowed our son to swim with the tide when he went to study in Australia before he turned seventeen. He is none the worse for his independent streak and in fact, it has stood him in good stead.

Yes, thanks. At the end/top of the ladder of love, I would say is the real lover, God, himself. God is love, and God is so kind as to give us a ladder to climb up to him, built from his love, and requiring ongoing love, and the other traits of love, faith, trust, honesty, truth, humility, forgiveness, and more, to be developed in us too, for us too, to keep moving us up closer to God.

@Nakitakona Yes, I agree, Jesus Christ is the way, the means, the ladder, that we must use to get into Heaven. Jesus Christ, himself, told us this, in this verse in Saint John's gospel, chapter 14, verse 6: Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

@innertalks And the ladder that God provides is His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ. We know that we couldn't reach the heaven without Jesus. Do you agree?