Pitfalls by Jesse Wolf Hardin

I don't know if you will be much interested in this, but I found some valid points here. It said post freely, so I did. I wanted to hold onto it to look at later.

In other news, my coworker is still in the hospital, but has been chatting happily on the phone and seems to be in good spirits. I don't ever want to be around when someone quits breathing ever again!!!

Pitfalls
On the Animá Path of Self Growth, Self Realization, Service & Purpose
by Jesse Wolf Hardin
http://animacenter.org/
Part 6 of 7

The following is the sixth in a series describing dangerous or limiting pitfalls on the path of personal growth and purpose, misconceptions and maladies that can hinder our understanding, development and manifestation. Please feel to share these with friends:

• The Goal Of No Suffering
Religions have long promised an end to suffering in the “life after death,” while some New Age and Eastern dogma promises techniques to rid us of suffering right now. Avoidance of all suffering in this life, however, can be counterproductive. The expression “no pain no gain” is true in matters of personal growth as well as bodybuilding. Pain is not punishment, but a call to attend. It is not our duty or karma, but rather, the balance to exquisite pleasure. It is the counterweight against which we pull, and it is that pulling which provides the strength of our joy. Pain is not how we pay the fine for past crimes, but how we pay the dues of our membership in the rolls of the aware. It is, in one form or another, one of the prices of heightened sensation, and part of the reward of being a heartful feeler. And beware the draw of drama: The trick is to be awakened and deepened by it, not addicted.

• Misconstruing Illness & Vilifying Death
It is wrong and harmful to imagine that good health and long life is proof of one’s spiritual level or personal powers. At its worst, such thinking can cause the ill to feel at blame for their maladies, and make death seem like a defeat instead of a teacher and unifier. Additionally, while healing oneself physically is important, it’s not as essential as learning from our every illness or disability. It is the practitioner’s sometimes painful lessons and trauma-instigated transformation that affords her the power and wisdom to assist others.

• The Cult Of Happiness
In the pursuit of happiness, some spiritual approaches recommend we avoid negative influences. However, it is exposure to the so called “negative” that tests and fortifies the positive. Systems, habits and regulations are potentially more dangerous to one’s spiritual path than chaos or disruption could ever be. Besides, nature teaches that happiness is too easy a goal for our fleeting finite lives, too low a mark for our aims, too little to ask for one’s primary prayer. Better we covet childish exhilaration and sensual ecstasy, strive for quiet contentment and raucous excitement, pray for the realization of our truest, responsive, sensate selves! Better we seek the fullest expression of that being, suffer the price of our increased awareness, and bear the utter joy that is then our reward! After all, joy and suffering are polar twins, pointing to the same capacity and willingness to feel. Together they widen the scale, expand the measure of how alive we truly are! Happiness is the mind freed of immediate worries, the basket of our lives emptied of all disruptive input. Joy, on the other hand, is an ecstatic disruption – that together with longing and sorrow – fills that basket to the brim. Happiness is comparatively shallow and inevitably conditional, whereas joy is so deep it remains undefeated, even with our honest embrace of the saddest of events. Animá teaches us to embrace both, and to give thanks. For to really enjoy, one must fully enjoin… and fully rejoice!

• Transmutation Of Desire & The Distrust Of Instinct
At times bosses, husbands, priests, politicians and gurus alike have taught that we can’t trust our intuition, because it’s what tells us that “something’s wrong with this picture.” All vested authorities should fear the power of our inherent, native intuition, for it’s what warns us when we’re being disempowered, and what begs us to strike out against what binds us. It’s a red light designed to warn us about the hours of our lives burned up without engaging in truly meaningful activity, the days spent stuck in artificially lit boxes, our earth damaging or soul deadening careers, and any partners we might live with who don’t love and honor us like they should. Intuition is simply “body smarts,” ancient corporeal knowledge directing us to what best serves our real needs and authentic selves — and away from anything failing to serve us in this way. It’s fulfilled by mindful food gathering whether in a store or a field, but it recoils at standing in line. It’s attracted to learning, but suspicious of schools. Our deepest instincts are the still-valid messages echoing the cumulative experience of our evolutionary past, and the forward looking intentions of the Whole. While ideas can be independent of and even contrary to the direction of earth and Spirit, instincts are inseparable aspects of anima inclination and will. Teachers can pass on all the best ideas and processes in the world, but we still need to develop intuition, instinct and discernment in order to personally know how, where and when to apply them.

…to be continued

(To further deepen your study and practice we recommend enrolling in the various Animá 8 Week Courses described on the website, especially the introductory “Orientation, Principles & Pitfalls” and the new course on “Awareness”)

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