More Questions
By moving up the spiritual ladder, we encounter challenges that are more difficult, for our own good and to stimulate even more gain...
We continue with the inquiries of people who strive for emotional and spiritual improvement.
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Question Number Two: Why has my life become even more difficult since I've started my quest for spiritual improvement?
The answer is simple: Where is the competition tougher, in the C-League Minors or in the Major Leagues? Naturally, the better the league, the more demanding the competition is. Minor league successes are normally below the level of major league setbacks. Everyone understands that the loser of the world boxing championship is a better boxer than the local college champion. Likewise, now that you've attained a higher spiritual level, your challenges are also more difficult than they used to be. Don't forget, though – a national league athlete earns ten times more money than a minor league athlete. Similarly, your spiritual rewards for succeeding on a higher level are also much greater.
By moving up the spiritual ladder, we encounter challenges that are more difficult, for our own good and to stimulate even more gain. Without these challenges, we wouldn't realize our own magnificent spiritual potential. If we don't realize our potential, then we never discover our real selves! Many people once thought of themselves as weaklings, and later discovered that they were capable of becoming emotional and spiritual giants. That brings us to question number three:
Question Number Three: How do I know if I'm making progress and moving up the spiritual ladder?
The latter portion of Chapter Four answers this question, so let's go back and review briefly. There, we learned the eight parameters of spiritual awareness, which are a superb self-check of our progress. Here they are again, in a nutshell:
Parameter One: Courage and inner security – the higher our spiritual level, the less we fear anything other than the Almighty.
Parameter Two: Happiness – the higher our spiritual level, the happier we feel.
Parameter Three: Peace, both internal and external, the opposite of anger – progress up the trail to tranquility goes together with progress up the spiritual ladder.
Parameter Four: Improved physical and mental health – a fifty-year-old Canadian woman visited a cardiologist after having suffered for several weeks from severe chest pains. She informed me that the doctor diagnosed a dangerously clogged artery, and wanted to perform heart surgery. I asked the woman if she suffered a trauma recently, and she answered in the affirmative – her son had recently been through a nasty divorce. At my suggestion, she agreed to try the seven-day plan for spiritual awareness. She implemented the plan in its entirety. The day after she completed the plan, she returned to her doctor. All traces of the arterial blockage simply disappeared.
Parameter Five: Body – soul priorities – The higher one moves up the spiritual ladder, the more one prefers the development of the soul to the appetites of the body. A spiritually aware soul won't let the body partake of potentially dangerous substances, such as alcohol, drugs, or the neighbor's spouse.
Parameter Six: Giving – receiving priorities – Takers are low on the spiritual ladder. Givers resemble God, and are therefore higher up the spiritual ladder.
Parameter Seven: Efficiency – Efficiency goes hand-in-hand with spiritual gain. For example, the spiritually aware spend less time on extraneous matters when performing a task.
Parameter Eight: When I begin to realize that I know nothing – Arrogant people think they know everything. Humble people think they know nothing, and therefore have tremendous learning capacity. The more one moves up the spiritual ladder, the more humble one becomes.
After we've reviewed the eight parameters, let's try the spiritual litmus test:
The Spiritual Litmus Test
Choose one of the following activities (whichever is most distasteful for you):
* Driving for an hour in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic.
* Listening to your mother-in-law's small talk for an hour.
* Folding laundry, pressing shirts, or cleaning bathroom fixtures for one hour.
If at the end of this test, you're smiling and a lot calmer than you ever were in the past under a similar situation, you've made outstanding spiritual progress! By making spiritual progress, you're accomplishing your real challenge in life and doing yourself an everlasting favor.
To be continued . . .
(The Trail to Tranquility is available in the Breslev Store.)
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