Spirituality Guide

When you’re down in the dumps, it is so easy to just give up and stop the struggle.

When all your efforts are met with failures, what is the point of striving?

It doesn’t take much effort to fail. It doesn’t take much vision to destroy something good.

A few nasty words. Cruel actions. Evil intentions.

Those are enough to break a spirit.

But the real man is one who is able to rise above the negativity. To strive despite the obstacles. To keep believing despite evidences pointing to the contrary.

The real man does not turn his back on challenges. Instead it eggs him/her on to do better. To overcome.

In the end, he does not only achieve greatness but more than that, he finds fulfillment in baring his soul.

Overcoming is not only a manifestation of mental and physical strength. It is the soul passing thru barriers and being purified in the process.

When you wake up in the morning, you have two choices - be happy or not.

It is as simple as that. The implementation may be complicated but it all starts with a simple choice.

Make up your mind that today is going to be better than yesterday. That today, you will look at life positively. That today, no matter what happens you will keep the faith and not let circumstances put you down.

Happiness is a choice not a destiny, that we must bear for better or worse.

Much of things in our lives are choices. Choose life. Choose happiness. Choose to live the best life that you can be. Then you are halfway through the solution.

Being positive is easy. Staying positive, well, that takes a lot of will power and determination. Will power is the stuff that great men are made of.

And it all begins with making a choice…..

I’m the type of person who pays close attention to what people say and most of all to what they are NOT saying.

One thing I have noticed is among friends who always talk negative, their quality of life seems to be negative too. They complain about the littlest things and get intimidated on the bigger problems. When they finally feel able to face their problems, they already expend much of their energies worrying.

For those who are always upbeat and look at life positively, their lives seemed more positive. They choose to highlight the positives in their lives and downplay the negatives. They look for solutions. They spend their energies wisely with more than enough to spare.

From this observation I gather that there is truth to the adage that “what you think you become”.

Of course, I’m not saying that everytime you think positive, life would automatically be rosy all the time. Life never offer us any guarantees. The wheels of life turns unpredictably.

I realized that the lives of my positive friends are in reality no better than the lives of the negative ones.

They just look at life differently. And it is easy to tell which ones enjoy life more!

”The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is a heart-wrenching tale of a young man named Gregor who worked so hard for the welfare of his family. One morning he woke up and saw that he was no longer a man but metamorphosed into a vermin probably a roach. He wanted so much to continue working to help his family but his present state prevented him to do so. His metamorphosis proved to be a huge adjustment for him and his family. Later, he experienced alienation from them. Until, he lost his desire to live and perished.

Metamorphosis is an allegory to Gregor’s struggle. Gregor’s uncommon sacrifices to provide for his family’s needs forced him to lead a life similar to that of a bug long before the transformation actually occurred. Gregor’s transformation first occurred within and it manifested physically when he metamorphosed into a vermin.

Gregor willingly sacrificed his welfare for his family but when he transformed into a giant insect he became a burden to them. Gregor therefore no longer serves any purpose for his parents. He was treated as a commodity. He was exploited to be able to support their expensive lifestyle. Yet, in the end, Gregor did not even get the respect and care he so richly deserved.

Equally disturbing is the last paragraph of the story. After Gregor died and the family was finally able to resume normal life, they turned their attention to daughter Grete whom they have overlooked during their struggles. Since the parents had no use for Gregor anymore, they now focus their attention on his younger sister.

The Metamorphosis could be intended by the author to be satirical indictment of the bourgeois society and its demands. Or it could be Gregor’s feelings of alienation and unspoken needs. These unspoken desires were probably crushed by authority and the boredom of the daily grind as attested by Gregor’s sad fate.

Whatever reason could be behind Gregor’s metamorphosis, it all boils down to the fact that it occurred because he allowed himself to deteriorate. This in turn reduced him to a state at par with the insects robbing him of his unique traits and identity as a human being.

When we think of love, we often feel a general warm, fuzzy feeling inside, so gentle it makes you a smile.

True. Love is often associated with feelings. But Love isn’t all cuddly and smiles. Love could be tough too.

Married couples who have been together for 10 years often find that feelings wear off. One day, they wake up and find themselves asking “where has the magic gone?”

The sad fact is couples often associate love with emotions. When the emotions subside, they often go to great lengths trying to recapture the past. If their efforts fail, they turn to other people to find the magic. Then they say, “they’re in love”. The marriage is wrecked.

Of course, after several years, the feeling subside and the vicious cycle continues.

Before you get to the point of no return, please try to remember that love is not just based on feelings.

LOVE IS A DECISION.

You decide to fall in love.
You decide to marry the person.
You decide to be with the person for the rest of your life.

Emotions come. Emotions go.
It is the DECISION to stay together that remains.

When the magic is gone, then the need to exercise free will in the form of deciding the fate of the relationship comes in.

Saying goodbye is the easy way out. It is the coward’s way. There are no struggles. No painful weighing of consequences required. Just whims and wishes.

Remaining to be with one person for the rest of your life is not easy to choose especially if temptations knock on the door. But… it shows strength of character. It shows will power as opposed to mere practice of free will.

I am not saying that separation should be excluded from the options. If it is, it should be as a last resort.

If you leave just because the magic is gone, then you are in for a rude awakening. The magic will always go away. Things change. People change. It is not possible even for feelings to remain the same.

Only the DECISION to stay in love will make the relationship stay the same.

Making a decision is not just a basic human right but a necessity.
Why so? You may ask.

When Adam and Eve sinned God meted to them the greatest punishment. Being cast out of paradise is actually a very minor punishment compared to being given free will by virtue of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Due to the sin of our first parents, free will becomes an indispensable tool of being human.

By exercising your right to decide, you are in essence exercising the free will that God granted you since banishment from Eden.

Therefore, making a decision as an illustration of free will is a necessary aspect of our lives. It is one that should be approached with caution but use without fear.

Arriving at a decision just like art takes a lot of skills and strategies. A decision maker has to formulate ways to find and tread the path of least resistance.

Learning to decide is an essential skill in life. Everyday of our lives we meet situations that require decision-making. Be it as simple as choosing the color of your shirt to as complicated as deciding to marry a person.

Daunting as it may seem, decision-making is actually not as hard as it appears.

A word of caution though, the art of decision-making is not to be taken lightly. Every decision we make today affects or determines our fate tomorrow. To put it bluntly, what we are today is the result of an amalgamation of decisions in the past. Of course, it depends on how important the decision we are about to make is.

The most important thing to consider in deciding is to be clear in our aims.

What is the decision for? What is the end you desire? What is the purpose?

Knowing the answers to these questions make the decision easier.

When in doubt, postponing to make a decision is, in fact, a decision in itself. Taking time to make a decision is essential in order to gather facts clearly. To get things straight and to weight things carefully.

Once you decide then you should act on it. There is no point agonizing whether you’ve made the right decision or not. How can you tell if you won’t act?

Whatever you decide upon, it is important that you should be man enough to stand up for your decision.

If in the process you discover that you commit error in judgment resulting to poor decision then decide to change your decision.
That’s it!

The whole point of this exercise is a decision is needed to arrive at a solution. Right or wrong, deciding is better than not making a decision at all. There is nothing more pathetic than to be in a condition where you are continuously in the midst of struggles not knowing what to do or where to go. Once you’ve made a decision, the direction is clear. The path is paved. It is up to you to decide to continue following that path or to swerve to another direction.

Sometimes, it is easy to consciously make an effort to put a lid to emotions … BUT… the subconscious manifestations could not be controlled that easily.

No matter how much you consciously strive to control emotional responses, subconscious reactions could not be helped sometimes.

A friend narrated how she feel so lost after the divorce that one time she found herself waking up in the middle of the night and contemplating suicide.

This is not a conscious decision on her side but subconscious reaction to her plight.

The Subconscious manifests what you keep thinking or what you feed to your mind. Even if you try to control emotions but if you don’t believe that you can actually overcome the situation or deep down you feel totally helpless and beaten, emotional disturbance would still manifest later.

The best way to counter this subconscious emotional manifestations is to FEED POSITIVE THOUGHTS TO YOUR MIND RIGHT BEFORE YOU SLEEP.

I tried this a number of times because I noticed I found it hard to sleep whenever something bothered me. To solve this dilemma, before I sleep I make it a point to think only positive thoughts.

For instance, I would remember the positive things that happen to me that day.

Or, I would count my blessings.

Or, I would repeat positive affirmations over and over again such as “God is love”; “I believe”; “God is helping me”. Etc., etc.

Mutter a short prayer just before closing my eyes.

Mutter formula prayers such as “Our Father”.

I noticed that since practicing this very simple technique, I always wake up refreshed, happy and light hearted every morning no matter how tough the problems I faced, at that time.

Whenver I did the opposite, I would invariably wake up feeling depressed, negative and anxious.

So you still have a choice.
Which would it be?
To wake up feeling refreshed and happy?
Or, negative and gloomy?

The choice is YOURS ALONE to make.

Talking to people from all walks of life, I realized that anxiety is a prevalent condition in our lives.

One person told me how she suffered from insomnia for days because she was anxious over a problem.

Another narrated how she would experience tremors and palpitation whenever she gets anxious.

In this instances, I was surprised to learn that anxiety is not just an emotion but could also be an illness.

The strong connection between mind, body and emotions is undeniable. Consider this fact, when we are faced with a huge problem such as a mountain of debts, we naturally become anxious. Our anxiety clouds our judgment forcing us to think negatively of the situation. This, of course, leads to error in decisions. Consequently, because of the anxiety our bodies suffer. Our anxiety manifests in physical illnesses such as palpitation, headaches, tremors, etc., etc.

Looking at this very simple example, it can be gleaned that putting a rein on our emotions is as essential as physical and mental fitness.

Emotional control should be a foremost consideration in order to attain mental and physical health.

How to control emotions?

Now that is the $64,000 question.
When we are in the midst of a stressful situation it is hard to contain our emotions. It is hard to stay positive when you have no money and you got mouths to feed.

Or, when your kid is in critical condition in hospital.

When you lose your job and you’re the breadwinner of the family.

When you fail in a major exam in school.

So on and so forth.

These situations are truly stressful. I agree. Obviously, we feel anxious when confronted with these problems. It is hard to remain positive when all conditions justify your need to be negative.

Right?

I say NOT necessarily so.

Your reaction to a situation is YOUR DECISION.

You have the POWER to decide to remain positive or not.

Just because the situation is gloomy it does not necessarily follow that you need to feel gloomy too.

I read somewhere that emotions last 10 minutes maximum- anything beyond that is luxury.

So you are allowed to feel gloomy or anxious for 10 minutes. Don’t let the emotion drag on. By being anxious, do you think your problem will go away? No.

You need your mental faculties to function fully be able to get rid of the problem.

Detached yourself emotionally to the problem. Examine it at all angles. Find an angle where you can attack. Examine your options. And keep at it until the problem cracks. Start small. Chip the problem away little by little until you get to the bottom of it.

The goal is - in the end, it is not you that would crack under the pressure. It is the problem. You crack the problem open and eliminate it effectively.

The Inferno is an allegory to Dante’s journey through life towards salvation. In the story, Dante journeys through the different levels of hell and encounters all forms of chaos in each.
Dante’s depiction of hell complements the teachings of the Bible. One of the most oft-discussed themes in the story is the eternal justice of God. The sinner reaps what he sows during his lifetime. His punishment is intended to fit the gravity of his crime.

A vivid example of this principle is shown in the border of the 8th and 9th circles of Hell. A Count sits on his friend whose brains he rips using his teeth. It was the fault of his friend that he starved to death and was forced to eat his children to survive.

Life, as Dante sees it, is a continuous test or struggle between right and wrong. If you commit sin and falls short of heaven, you reap eternal punishment. Dante believes that to be able to go to heaven, one need to experience hell first. Dante may not mean this in a literal way. Figuratively this means that in order to be purified or to receive salvation, a person needs to undergo sufferings first. This is the moral of the story.

Dante’s depiction of Hell is an allegory of life, the role of religion in our lives and the need to choose right over wrong. It does not stop at depicting the fall of man but rather it help shows the way to salvation and happiness. To be able to reach the summit, you need to start at the bottom. That is the essence of Dante’s depiction of Hell.

At some point in our lives, we all face difficulties, problems, temptations. These drive us to the point of desperation and commit sins. At the lowest ebb of our lives, we are often forced to look back and ask ourselves where we have gone wrong.
By going through Dante’s Inferno we realize the need to ponder on our every step and choose the best way before we hit rock bottom.

Dante’s Inferno is a fascinating tale of sin and redemption. It depicts the need to attain deeper spirituality in an abstract way. Hell represents not just a place for sinners but also a state of a sinner’s soul. To be in hell is to be in utter agony and to be in a state far from God. This story shows us the way to heaven or eternal happiness by keeping the faith and doing what is right. It offers us a chance to re-examine our lives and change for the better.