Why are you alive? What are you doing here? What is your purpose? These are all questions we have asked ourselves from time to time. Some of us have taken the time to search until we found satisfactory answers. Some of us just followed what others were doing because they seemed to know, without truly discovering it for ourselves. Some of us just shrugged our shoulders and carried on with life without knowing or bothering to find out anything. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance actually creates a great deal of harm.
You won't find a complete and total explanation for your life in this one podcast. Things are far more complicated, vast and deep than you may realize and it takes time to discover all of it. I will make other podcasts to share the knowledge I have gained. I haven't even discovered everything for myself yet, but I hope I am on my way to finding out.
What is the short answer? Well, you are here to make progress on your spiritual path. We all are. Whether you are choosing to go up, by striving to improve yourself and to do good in life, or you are choosing to go down by engaging in negative behaviours, you are shaping your own spiritual journey. All of the actions you take in life, all the decisions you make, take you further along on the spiritual path you are carving out for yourself. The direction you are heading is your choice. So what defines negative behaviour and what makes something positive? The very basic definition of negative behaviour is anything you do for completely selfish reasons and anything that harms others. That covers many things. Good behaviour is when you do things to benefit others, which can include yourself, but should not be solely for your own benefit.
Right now, you are here in a human form, in the human realm which is the best place you can be to make spiritual progress. You are able to learn and understand spiritual teachings and to put them into practice. Animals, for instance, are not able to learn these things. You are able to make your own choices in life. You can choose to do good or do bad. Everything you do in this life will make a difference in your future. Your actions in this life, shape your future existence. To ascend towards higher being you need to strive to engage in actions that will benefit others. You can help other living beings, all of them, not just human beings. For instance you can help animals and even insects. You can ease the suffering that others are going through. You can give. Giving can be donating your time, your money, and your support. You can do your best to help other people learn spiritual teachings that will benefit them. These are just some examples.
To those people that are choosing to descend to lower realms in the future, they will eventually learn from their actions and begin to ascend. If we know of people that are choosing this way of life, then we can help them as much as we can, to try to change their behaviour. However, if we find that they are not at all interested in changing their ways, then we need to let them go, so that we do not get tangled up in a world of negativity. The more time we spend with negative people, the more we get dragged down with them. We will not be abandoning them, as we can still love them from afar and pray for them, knowing that this will help them in the future, if it doesn't take effect right now.
We have to be cautious because if everyone around us is engaging in negative behaviour that doesn't mean that we should follow the crowd and do what everyone else is doing. If the community you live in values things that are harmful, you need to be careful not to value those things, too. If the society you live in expects you to behave in negative ways, you need to be alert to that and try your best not to be like that. After all, if everyone was jumping off of tall buildings to their deaths would you do what they were doing? Just because something may be popular doesn't mean it is correct or a good thing to do. It can be difficult to behave in ways that most people find strange, but when you gain the confidence that you are doing virtuous things that will benefit you and others, then you won't mind what other people think of you so much.
The other day we had a big rainstorm. When it stopped and the sun came out there were many puddles. I actually picked up a half a dozen worms out of a deep puddle on a road that they were stuck in and put them in the grassy area next to the road. Things like that make a difference. Sure people saw me doing that, but it didn't matter to me, because I knew I was trying to benefit those worms. If I saved their lives then that not only benefits them, but benefits me spiritually as well.
You are here to find out where you are on your spiritual path and make the choices you need to in order to improve your outcome. You can choose any spirituality or religion you wish. Whatever suits you or fits your life. You can change to another path later if you want. When looking for a spiritual path make sure it is benevolent, that it will not cause you or anyone else any harm. If it has harmful ways of thinking or acting then stay clear of it, for this will cause you to descend rather than ascend. And don't follow something just because it is popular. In this day and age, the most popular things tend to be false and negative things, so be extremely cautious. Investigate things thoroughly before committing to anything.
It will be difficult to find anything that is perfect, as that is nearly impossible in this day and age. Find the best fit for you and work towards improving yourself and helping others. The other very important thing is to do the work involved to improve yourself. No one else can do that for you. You need to find the truth of all of this for yourself first hand. Don't just follow what someone else is teaching without finding out that it is absolutely true. It is too easy to follow someone because they are charismatic or good looking or they have a lot of people following them even though they may teach false things. Make sure you don't end up on the wrong path or stuck in a cult. Please, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to verify the truth of things for yourself.
Even though I am doing my best to be completely honest and tell you the truth of what I have experienced and discovered in my life, doesn't mean you should blindly follow whatever I tell you. Look for the answers yourself and find the truth for yourself. You need to question things you learn. Please ask me questions. I love answering questions. I am always fascinated to see if I know the answer. If I don't I will seek it out. So, if you are following a path or person and they do not allow you to question anything you learn or anything they say, then please get yourself out of there. If you are not allowed to question anything, how will you ever find the answers you are looking for? Something is not right if you are not allowed to question things. At best it means they don't know the answers and won't admit it, which is highly dubious, at worse it means they are hiding things and that is a recipe for disaster for you.
I am not trying to start a cult. I do not have all the answers to everything. I am still on a journey of discovery and working towards ascending on my spiritual path. I am not asking you to follow me, but if I can help you in any way with your spiritual journey, I will gladly do so. I was raised as a Christian and still like the things Christ taught, although I had difficulty with the Christian concept of God. What I found there wasn't enough for me. It was like the tip of the iceberg. Since I was a teenager, I have searched for the truth and I found what I was looking for with Kadampa Buddhism. I have also found truth within Shamanic work. That does not mean you have to become a Christian, a Buddhist or a Shaman. You need to find what is best for you at this time. I hope you find it. We are all on a different part of the greater spiritual path and we need to respect that.
You have this one life right now. Do your very best with it, by finding your spiritual path and work towards ascending by doing positive things with your life. Use this precious time you have now to find the truth you seek. Learning, practising, prayer, meditation, purification, dedication, and journeying, will all help you to attain the truth. I wish you all the success you can achieve on your path through life.
You can find the recorded podcast here: https://youtu.be/swxVKr8mlh0
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