SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 269

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF HEAVENLINESS

 + This is a post on the style of The Way of Prayer as we continue to explore Heavenliness through the lens of the 12 styles of the Mandala process created by Edward Bastian.  There are 3 more Mandala styles to explore after this: Reason, Relationships and Wisdom. After that, we move on to the 9 Attributes of Heaven.

+ Prayer that is regular confounds both self-importance and the wiles of the world. It is so easy for good people to confuse their own work with the work of creation. It is so easy to come to believe that what we do is so much more important than what we are. It is so easy to simply get too busy to grow. It is so easy to commit ourselves to this century’s demand for product and action until the product consumes us and the actions exhaust us and we can no longer even remember why we set out to do them in the first place.

-- Joan D. Chittister in Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/47093.Joan_D_Chittister

+ If we are too busy to be kind, we are too busy.

-- Allan Lokos in Through the Flames

+ Paying attention to the needs of others requires that we put our agenda aside from time to time.  I invite you to become aware as much as possible of the situations where your plans, your needs, your desires, get in the way of noticing the plans, the needs, the desires of others.  The Golden Rule always applies:  Treat others the way you want to be treated. 

+ Sister Joan Chittister is one of the Spirituality & Practice featured living spiritual teachers.  She is indeed  one of the great teachers of prayer in our midst. She has written a lot and it is all worth reading.

+ The 12 styles of Mandala: Creating An Authentic Spiritual Path: An InterSpiritual Process by Edward Bastian are listed in SE206.

+ The 7 steps of InterSpiritual Meditation by Edward Bastian are listed in SE21 and SE213. They are described fully in his book, InterSpiritual Meditation. 

+ To get inspired and illuminated by Ed Bastian, I invite you to set aside some time for these videos:  Seven Steps of InterSpiritual Meditation (11 minutes) | 15 minute introduction to InterSpiritual Meditation and the Mandala Process | 2 hour lecture & conversation

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post on this practice or any practice.  And, I have work to do on my Heavenliness page.  Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Heavenliness” or “Love” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

+ You can always find a link to any of the Spiritual Explorations posts by going to http://abundancetrek.com/sepostsaccess.html