I have always struggled, or been frustrated, with the ascetic life. Being a spiritual person, having studied many different cultures and spiritualities, studied with elders and teachers, I come back to the same question I had when I was a little girl. Why come here to this place if you don’t want to be here? Why come here if you want to deny, ignore, make bad, all the wonders that this world has to offer. I don’t believe in the dichotomy between physical joy with emotional happiness and a spiritual life. Some people choose a path that takes them out into the desert to eat bugs, make flat bread on rocks and drink weep water and not only do I respect that, but I would be more than happy to help and support them in that endeavor. However that is one type of path and there are a million others to choose from and nothing that I can find makes the desert path more spiritual than hiking in the wilderness on a weekend or spending an afternoon playing with your children. Or someone elses in a non-creepy kinda way. No stalking and no abduction please as those would definitely rate as nonspiritual activities in my book.
Anyway, so I was reading more Brian Weiss, MD to see if the book was something I would put on my list on the website and came to a passage where I went AHA!!! I’m not alone in this and somehow I think that it’s the healers that see spirituality in being earthy.
From Same Soul, Many Bodies page 13:
“I think many of us spend too much time worrying about what the higher levels of comprehension might be. The question is fascinating to contemplate, but our goal here is to heal ourselves as we are in our physical world. I see a lot of people, particularly New Age people, who aren’t well grounded in this world-being right here, now. Progression in the areas of contemplation and meditation is important, but those who spend their lives in seclusion should understand that we are a social species and those who do not experience the joys of the physical, the pleasures of the senses, aren’t learning the full lesson this present life has to teach them.”
Now go out and dance to some music, have some good coffee, eat a great meal and enjoy.