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Back to the Forum 2006
Archives For those who do not know, Minerva is my spirit-guide. Minerva is just a name I have given to this mechanism that operates within me. I usually think of her as my soul-self, my connection to the super-conscious. I still don't know if she is internal to me, or external. When I see the universe as a single energy field, that becomes irrelevant. There is no internal and external. There is only one. Whatever the reality, I get input and guidance from her. This guidance has not been a constant thing for me, but it is getting better of late. I am convinced that is because I now meditate regularly. In truth, I'm not sure if I meditate or if I ruminate. I'm not sure it matters. Rumination is not valueless. Something is happening when I do it. I can resolve the difference simply by calling what I do practice. At any rate, the more regularly I practice, the more helpful Minerva becomes. It's as though I am freeing her to participate. It has something to do with anger. The more I practice or meditate, the less angry I am. Minerva won't help me at all when I am angry. When I calm down, she comes right in. It's as though she were waiting for me to get real. Anger, of course, is a phony emotion. It has to be worked up. It is not natural, at least to me. However, it can become something of a habit. I think, for a while, it was getting that way for me. I was in danger of becoming perpetually angry. I'm sure you have encountered people like that, the perpetually angry person with the permanent grimace. Hey, it beats thinking. We are net expected to think or act rationally when we are angry. Believe me, it's just a dodge. There are much better ways to approach life. One good way is to develop the habit of attempting to live consciously. For me, that means to pretend to be super-conscious even though I am not. To do that, I must pause to consider what a super-conscious person would do before I act. I am getting better at taking that momentary delay between stimulus and reaction. When I can do that, everything in my life seems to work better, including my connection to my soul-self, spirit-guide, Minerva. Here is just one example. Over time, I have been making changes to the electrical circuitry in our home. One day, I made some changes on some breaker panels to rearrange load and distribution. I turned the main power off to do that. I get enough surprises in life without causing them through carelessness. When I finished, I turned the power back on and everything seemed to work. Later that evening, just before bedtime, my wife discovered some of our upstairs lights did not work. Oh boy! My first reaction was what I always do when frustrated. I cursed loudly. Mr's Gaffer is used to that and did not react at all. She knew the anger was not directed at her, but at myself. Then I got in charge of myself and sat down. Instead of thinking about the problem, I sipped some Chianti and closed my eyes. I just sat and waited. Suddenly, I knew what was wrong, the only thing that could cause the symptom. I got up from my chair, replace a plug I had accidentally knocked out and the lights came on again. Not all over the world but in our upstairs bedrooms which was more important to me at the time. That is how Minerva works in me. I have to be calm and quiet to get her help. I think similar kinds of things happen to people when they pray. Prayer does work. When people concentrate in true prayer, I think they make a connection to the same mechanism I call Minerva. Let me differentiate between true prayer and bull prayer. True prayer is an opening of the conscious self to whatever power you perceive in the universe. In some cases that would be Allah or God. In others it could be Jesus or Krishna. Which power you invoke matters less than the mindset you have when you do it. So, true prayer is an opening or accepting. The prayer is not requesting that the world be a certain way. The person is opening to and accepting guidance. Bull prayer, on the other hand, is a con. It can be a person trying to con the public into thinking well him, or it can be a person trying to con their deity, be he Jesus, God, or some other. It is always in the form of a supplication sometimes with an explicit or implied bribe. Even if I believe in God, I cannot imagine trying to bribe him. Whenever we hear or see someone praying in public we can be sure it's of the bull prayer variety. We often see it in sports figures, either before or after the event. True prayer is not a supplication or a thank you. We don't ask for or expect miracles. We seek the strength and understanding to deal with what is. We can scoff if we wish, but true prayer does work for many people to enhance their lives. They somehow make a connection to their inner self, what I call the soul-self. The only difference for me is, I see no need to attribute this connection to some supernatural entity or power. In fact, I think it is a very natural part of an evolving human. Anyone can learn to do it and no special belief system is required. What is required is an ability to calm down and open to the inner self. As I said, anger is out. In fact any strong emotion will inhibit
this connection. All emotion, even amour, comes out of some kind
of temporal need or want. We want something and it influences
our mindset. That keeps us from opening to our inner self. That
is the big problem with any practice. It requires us to divorce
ourselves from emotions and simply accept reality the way it
is. We must part with whatever we are clinging to. That ain't
easy which is why we continue to practice. Believe me, it does
get easier with time. In that respect it's really no different
than any other kind of effort. Imagine that?
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