Goal setting in the inner and the outer

More than half a life time back I came to Eckankar. At first the goal was clear I wanted to become a HI, an Higher Initiate. When I finally reached that goal my live changed, which was to be expected - in the inner and the outer. It took me about 6 month to master the mayor changes and deal with it in the inner. And then?
Yes!
And then I realized I had no more goal!
You might think "And? What is the problem?"
You define a new goal!
 I agree and that is easy as long as you can imagine what is within your reach.
Imagine you die, reach the pearly gates and St. Peter asks you what you want to do the next million of years. If you do not know what the heaven really is, it is difficult to image what to go, where to go.

About 2 month ago a long term contact ended and I was a freelancer again (without regular income) and about 1 month aho I came across Cashunite. Gathering the available information together with my knowledge if the net, I immediately saw a huge potential for me and for others. So I decided to go for it and as a side effect help others.
As a spiritual being in a certain situation I tend to see something for me to learn and something to give. For a beggar a coin might be worth much more than a friendly or wise word.
Well, I have more wisdom to share than coins.

Now with Cashunite I could do both. If you know the Philippines you know that beside miles and miles of endless empty beaches and a beautiful landscape, there are also lots and lots of social problems. What I referring too is that schooling/eduction is expensive and that there is no divorce law. So many women are dumped by there husbands, together with their children.
Being an online worker I also do a lot of chatting and meet a lot of those women.
There is hardly a week I am not asked if I have work for them. With Cashunite I thought I have.
I admit I am a dreamer, a careful dreamer. Cashunite, like many other Internet businesses promisses a lot. So not to give false hope I was thinking up what to do if Cashunite did not work out. With this in mind I started to promote and offer this chance to the dumped mothers and ex-wives.
I had expected that they more than willingly would grab this opportunity.
I was wrong.
And I had problems understanding!
But with questioning the ones I knew from chatting I realized most of them had a fairly close horizon. It is like  living in a small valley. What I was offering them was behind their horizon and hardly imaginable. Like I was when I finally had reached my first spiritual goal in Eckankar. To make things worse, things we do not know create a feeling of uncertainty and fear. But fear is something we try to avoid instead of confront.
So here I was with a solution to their problem. In a way this is a frustrating situation.
But frustration is not a solution! They could not imagine and hence could not set it as a  goal!
Then what is the solution?

Well, as Richard Bach says in his book "Illusions - the adventure of a reluctant Messiah" we are looking for problems because we want the gifts hidden in the solution.
One of my gifts is to realize that this outer experience is a reflection of something inner I go through.
And the solution for these women and their children?
That is NOT my problem! Hence my solution would deprive them from the gifts they learn by solving their problem?
So I am an egoist?
It may seem so, but I think it takes more love to let people do what they need to do for themselves than to insist on a solution which is not theirs.
I would not be surprised if this is the reason why so many development projects fail.

I already learned a lot by joining Cashunite. I invite you to join me in this adventure - no matter where in the world you are! It can solve your financial problems, but even if not you know often walking the way is what matters, not (only) reaching the goal.

Spirituality and Vulnerability

I read an interesting blog  (Ethics for doing Good) which inspired me to write this:

I do not think God makes mistakes, but this would be bad for God (no mistakes means no learning means no growth). Let me correct myself: "God makes no mistakes in the area we humans can understand."

Vulnerability has to do with self-esteem and how I perceive the others especially the offender. If a little child shouts the worst insult at me most likely I will not feel insulted, but if the president in a kind voice would say:"Oigen, I thought you could do better!" I might not be able to sleep for a night or two. I assume you get my point. But for me the outside is not important, because I cannot control it. Don’t get me wrong, the outside is important not not in connection WITH "my life" but rather as a mirror OF my life. What I mean is that I live basically in my (inner) world and the outer world is an indication of what I have to attend to and what I have achieved.

If I am angered by my neighbor, he behaves in a way which creates a resonance in my inner. If it is anger for example, it is something I have to attend to, or if it is something I like, it shows me what I have achieved. And for your brainies out there this resonances changes. What gives me comfort now (meeting with drinking bodies) might make me sick at a later state of my development.

Years back, when it was time to go to the Philippines, God lured me into it by placing love on my path. We westerners tend to follow our heart, but because I am not a heart person rather a mind person, I also needed an argument to follow my hear. I got the argument and then followed my heart.

In a way which I did not realize at first, it was like being taken out from one petri dish and placed into a different one. From one of the leading countries of the world and time (Germany 2005) I was placed in a location with fast differences.

Whatever I will write might sound judgmental, but this is not my intention. If I apply the mirror technique described earlier, I have to start crying. But then things we do not see, not necessarily do not exist. It is a complicated sentence, but I like it. What I like less is the realization I just had.

I used to apply the mirror technique on specific issues like lets say punctuality, which is a big issue here too, but I was referring to the big picture. Hmmm judgmental again. Do I know if God prefers a certain petri dish (like Germany/US) or 3rd world countries like the Philippines? I am engraved with the German way of life, society, work and the like and hence the Philippine way in a way is the one I compare it too and it falls short of course. Now you could say "Why not go back?" I think that is is not the question and not the point. I am here for a certain reason, and I have to fulfill a certain task. I mean I need a realization, need to learn what I came here for!

Maybe I am a slow learner.

When I started to write I had a different intention of the outcome. I wanted to write for you but ended up writing for me.

So what about this vulnerability?

I think on a physical level we all are vulnerable. What happens if we are hurt? In a way the other shows us our limits. Is that bad? I had an interesting realization this week and it is connected to what we are talking about here: "In our comfort zone we grow fat, if we leave it, we grow personality". 

So why are we hurt if someone tells us the truth?

Thinking about it shows me two options: 1: My ego tells me "I am better!" and my ego feels falsely accused or 2: I did not give my best. If I give my best it was all I could do, so even if the president is kind with his words, he is wrong. And let's be honest, deep inside we "know" the truth and how often we fall short of our best - but hope for the best.

And what is the connection between spirituality and vulnerability?

For me spiritual does not mean doing good in a sense of charity, of giving. Spirituality means living an inner life parallel to the our life or at least of being aware of the inner side of life which in the out often mean letting the others be where and what they are just now.  And this at least at the beginning of the journey means being more vulnerable.

The ego learns to make itself strong or makes us to feel strong and with this strength the outer world loses it challenge and we evolve to become a spiritual being, a spiritual baby. And babies are very vulnerable!

So the vulnerability Callaghan speaks of in his blog is a sign of mankind evolving? Yes!

To become more spiritual?

I am not sure. In the last century Sri Harold Klemp, the leader of Eckankar talked about that mankind is at the brink of evolving to the next level. A few years later USSR went down history lane, war started in former Yugoslavia and other places all over the world then even the war against terrorism started (which was - and still is - an attempt to instill fear into our hearts and minds).  I do not think mankind as a whole evolved. I see it rather like in a chemical reaction. You add a substance to a solution and the more you ad the closer you come to a saturation point where the reaction starts. Or you ad the base substance and the system moves away from the saturation point.

For me this is not good or bad. It simply IS.

I think God infused the base substance and we moved away from the saturation point.

What does that mean for you or me, for those on a spiritual adventure?

Nothing!

Maybe it is even good. Basically nothing changed. IF mankind would have evolved, a lot of things would have changed. Imagine the driving force no longer would be fear but reason. Imagine you are not hurt if someone insults you but you stop and think "Why does he say that?" Or "What is God telling me through this person?"

You might even think you have reached the end of your journey! Richard Bach the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977), made me realize the world is perfect as it is (like the field for a ball game) and Eckankar made me realize God loves us so much IT allows us to make the same mistake again and again until we are no longer vulnerable and start learning.