GRATITUDE MONTH: DAY 29:
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
We judge a lot of life as either good or bad. There is no such thing. We make it up…there are analogies in many spiritual texts about this. But, I prefer plain language. We make it all up.
Judgment does not exist in the Universe, only in our minds. Because we are so vastly ego-driven, we are living life with a made-up framework that judges.
Many interpretations of Christian texts have handed down blanket rules that govern human behavior, and we judge each other by it. I prefer the more general tenets of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, which admit for a wider room of actions, behaviors, attitudes and life in general. Either way, it is a huge breaking point for many people to be taught “Thou shalt not kill” as one of the most important precepts in life and then be sent to war to do just that.
That horror NEVER leaves a combat soldier. NEVER! They are internally and mentally destroyed by a culture that can justify ANYTHING if there is enough capital gain in it.
We make up a great number of socially-acceptable (??) justifications for the violation of absolute rules that govern us religiously and which, in my mind, never work in the first place.
There is no black or white, there is only each life and what that contains. None of us is free from doing things that violated OUR OWN INTERNAL SPIRITUAL CREED. We know that, it is the source of our shame and remorse when we come into this thing.
So, it is imperative, in this recovery thing, that we lose our sense of right and wrong, good or bad, evil and saintly, all dichotomies which dictate what others should or should not be doing or how life should or should not be going.
Our version of what life SHOULD look like is completely crazy! Why? Because we always star right in the middle of every scene. This would leave out about 7-1/2 billion people! At least…can’t be done. And, if THEY all have a vision for themselves, it completely screws up everything! That is why we are always bumping into each other. It IS a mess!
So, what if we just thank EVERYTHING that comes into our lives and let it sit with us until we see what it brings to us. We don’t have a real clue about those things that will teach us the most.
I am mindful of my own perceptions when I got here. I believed that my WORST day ever was the March 17, 1986. Turns out to be the best day I have ever had, because I was at a horrible bottom and had the last drink and drugs I would ever (so far) engage in. Shows you what I know about judgment or knowing what is wrong or right.
I have done a lot of things that looked “wrong” to some, even called them mistakes until I understood, deeply, how these were the building blocks that brought me to RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. There is nothing wrong in any of it. ANY OF IT! And that is beautiful and makes me happier than I can ever say!
Dolphin Hug 