JOYFUL WANDERING -- 41

+ updated at 10:15am EST on Wednesday, January 30, 2012

+ A Poverty Awareness Month Quote: Spirituality and Practice offers a quote by  Gustavo Gutierrez on Compassion, Poverty, Hunger, Understanding and Abuse from his book We Drink from Our Own Wells.

+ A Poverty Awareness Month story: Spirituality and Practice offers a story about a woman who stole a loaf of bread and how a Judge dealt with the matter.

+ January is Poverty Awareness Month and Spirituality and Practice offers abundant resources which show how we really can end poverty if we put our mind to it.

+ Fred Brussat of Spirituality and Practice always offers great tweets on his Twitter page.  I often retweet them on my twitter page. Daily he offers wonderful spiritual quotes and usually offers links to great movie and book reviews and book excerpts.  Today, January 29, his tweets led to a book review and a book excerpt I found particularly important.

The review is on Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference by Shannon Daley-Harris, Jeffrey Keenan and Karen Speerstra. | Read the review

The excerpt is from Spiritual Genius: The Mastery of Life's Meaning by Winifred Gallagher. Here is an excerpt from the excerpt:

"All of us use spiritual genius some of the time, but some of us use it all of the time. This book explores our human gift through the lives of such spiritual geniuses, because in them we see our own potential writ large. No matter how extraordinary they seem, these men and women differ from us only quantitatively, not qualitatively. Religion has many names for them — saints, tzaddiks, bodhisattvas are just a few — and describes them as 'holy,' or intensely aware of the sacred grand design; as 'good,' which means not just moral but compassionate; and as 'charismatic,' or able to inspire others. Using different language, psychology describes the same individuals as visionary leaders who share the respected statesman's altruism and social skills and the artist's capacity for transcendent experience." | Read the whole excerpt |Read the S&P review

+ Today, January 29, 2013, I begin a new focus.  I will dwell for a while on stage 1 of my spiritual practice model. 

Stage 1 is STILLNESS which leads to DETACHMENT which leads to HUMILITY.  And, for the first time in a long time, you should begin to see additions, revisions, improvements of the web pages devoted to these practices.  There are four stages altogether leading to our full embrace of our true identity as a heavenly being, far more important, infinitely more important than our identity as a human being. When you practice stillness you begin to realize this.  Maybe only an inkling.  Sooner or later a mystical experience which radically transforms our awareness of who we really are.

Looking ahead, sooner or later I will get to the 3 next stages which are:
STAGE 2: SILENCE which leads to DISCERNMENT which leads to HEALING
STAGE 3: SOLITUDE which leads to DEVOTION which leads to HOLINESS
STAGE 4: SIMPLICITY which leads to DELIGHT which leads to HEAVENLINESS.
Attributes or characteristics of the state of HEAVENLINESS are: ABUNDANCE, JOY, WISDOM, BEAUTY, LOVE, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, FREEDOM. I have a web page devoted to each of those 9. Click on the word.

The Bing search engine lists 65,500 results for STILLNESS DETACHMENT HUMILITY.  The first 2 bring you to 2 of my pages.  How about that?  Connecting these 3 practices as a first stage of spiritual practice seems to be my invention.  I think there is a logic to the progression I am advocating but maybe it only works for me or just a few of us.  That's OK.  If it works for you, please let me know.

I found a lot of wisdom on detachment at 2 of the early results in the Bing search. Here are excerpts:

In Buddha & Eckhart: On Detachment, the blogger G writes: "The teachings of Meister Eckhart (c.1260-1327) have much in common with those of the Buddha. One subject upon which they have the greatest of convergence is that of detachment." | Read the whole post

In Detachment vs Apathy, a forum contributor writes: "Detachment is a word that conjures up different meanings to different people and seldom is associated with being virtuous. In psychology it is referred to as dissociation or apathy. But to some people detachment is the noblest of all virtues. Meister Eckhart said of it, as “He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment.” He also described it as the most noble of all virtues, higher even than humility or Love." | Read the whole post