This blog is about having or living a spiritual life. Do you remember in my blog from the Dec 11. I had a picture which states that a religious life is following the experience of another person and a Spiritual Life if is following yours own spiritual experiences.
This blog is about my spiritual life. I still like this statement and I think it is a really nice way to explain the two terms or to differentiate them
As a spiritual person I like to be good. No, not so good that I can walk over the water, but so good that I do not hurt other people willingly.
Last week I published a book (How to Find a Foreigner Husband) and published it as a live event in my facebook page.
I got a fancy remark and answered in a similar way, which I found quite funny. After all a spiritual life does not need to be a dull life or as my father used to put it: "No need to show off by wearing sack and ashes."
A short time after that I got a private messages from a dear friend telling my that people might think I am a human trafficker because I used the term "importing"! Have a look yourself if you like. (you need to scroll down a little!)
I am know to be overly frank and direct and I am sure my friend only had the best intention.

Living a spiritual life, does it mean I do only what I like?  I am not sure. But I am sure doing what I love to do is nice. I like to write and if I write I sit at my computers for days and weeks . Some years back I liked to do programming, and as a Programmer I was sitting at my computer for days and weeks, sometimes month. Don't get me wrong like that, I am perfectly happy - being alone. And for me not to forget that me too are part of the human race I do some chatting. And to grow spiritually, aside from my spiritual exercises for 30 min a day, I watch films to see patterns of human behavior and I like movies when the character is confronted with a dilemma.

But by living a spiritual life I cannot ignore truth! And truth can be painful. At least for me here and now. I live in my perfect writing universe and truth is knocking at my universe telling me !Pay the bills" and the universal quake re-vibrates and tells me I am an "Escapist"

Maybe it would be easier to live a normal life?

But ---- do I have a chance?

Are Sex and Spirituality like Water and Oil?

I have a long time friend in Germany. He knows about Eckankar, but years ago chose a different path.

But he reads books from Eckankar, and to say the least, he is a friend of Eckankar. Recently we had a short encounter and he mentioned that in the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, the main Book of Eckankar, it is mentioned that man shall not become animalistic and dwell in sex to satisfy his/her lust.

Love and sex always had played an important part in my life. But I had felt my mind played a more important part. I was lucky to have my first sexual encounter at a very early age. No, I was not abused, I was probably the one using the other person. But it was also a time where I was a very good christian. Probably not from a moralistic point of view, but in a spiritual sense.

God was part of my life and so was the puberty. But due to my early experience in contrast to my "friends" I did not speculate to much about sexuality but has my mind free for God.

Before I was 15 I was thrown out of the paradise we call faith. It was lunch time at work and we workers gathered, ate our lunch and discussed various things of course woman and also God. One of the older Workmates made a statement which as a consequence made me an atheist. As far as I can see now, out of croup of maybe 10, I was the only one affected. Strangely then also began a long drought in love and sex (about from 15 until 19). Writing this, it occurred to me, that there might be a connection I had not seen earlier.

About 40 years later

Maybe my falling out of faith had made me more critical towards the christian teaching. Maybe because of my strong sexual drive the body hostility of the christian teachings rebuked me. Why would God give me "Lust" if it was a sin.
Correction: Why would God give me a sexual drive if it was not to be used. Even Eckankar says that a seeker should not indulge in lust! For me Lust is satisfying my own desires. And if my desires control me I am addicted. 

Maybe it is not really wrong to say that I had an addiction to love. But when I hear the word Lust, I become uneasy. Is it still lust if my desire is not to satisfy my desire but that of my partner? Is it not an act of love to hold my satisfaction back to allow her to have hers?

At the end of my sexual prime not only my lust declined but also my desire to get involved, in love. In German there is a green joke

A man basically is surprised twice in his  life: 

The first time when when he cannot perform a second time

and the second time he is surprised when he cannot perform the first time.

With the declining sexual desire I observed a new freedom. It was a shocking experience. I always had thought I am a spiritual being (not a moralistic one), but now with the lessened desire I had a choice! Did I not have it before?

Yes, I could chose if I go after her or not, but I had no choice to find her attractive (fairly independent from her looks).

Do I enjoy this "new "freedom?

Of course I do, but I also miss the desire.

So the Church is right to say lust is bad? Body hostility is good?

I do not think so!

God gave us the hormone level we have to fight with, so it is good. 

If it declines in later age we are free to focus on other things. We can look back on our life and learn from it, or we can prepare to go into the other world and are not so much distracted my the hormonal needs.

I like to think that the churches favor a sex free life to control us via guilt. But originally before, when the church was a body of love, not one of power,  it meant the freedom from sex, older men and woman experience. They did not know that we are under hormonal control. And the more sex we have the lower our hormonal level, or without sex and masturbation the hormonal level rises and more and more controls us. The more we become less ourselves".

So, if I am right, if the churches asks us to refrain from sex, they ask us to more and more become subject to our hormones.

But what if the hormones are the real evil? 

Nice line of thought! I invite you to follow it!

If there is reincarnation,why do we forget our former lives?.

Not long ago I was  asked: "If there is reincarnation (being born again), why do we not remember it?" A good question. Let me ask you:"Would you want to remember?"
I do not know how old you you are. But I guess at least 20 years. 20 years makes 7300 days,if you are 40 about 15 000 day. How many days do you remember?  Lets look only at your birthdays. This are special days, but I assume you do not recall all of them!
With this 7000 days there were very special days, day you were very happy and days you were very very sad.
How many can you remember? A hand full? 10 or even 15? Not that they are important anymore, they are gone! We forget them, most of them. But we do not forget the lessens, not the questions they bring us, to make us look for the answers.
If I look at my life, I had a few life changing experiences. No, nothing dramatic.
In my first part I was a normal German becoming an electrician. Then as it was custom by then in Germany I was requested to join the German volunteer army. I did for a short time and then became a legal conscientious objector (Kriegsdienstverweigerer). There I was confronted with a new set of people and a new set ideas and new ways of living. I did some schooling and then became a member of the German Volunteer service. I was sent to Africa for 2 years and there I had a new set of people and of ideas again.
I like to think that each step build on the previous one. But when I cam back from Africa, it was not a clean cut as it has been from the electrician to the Conscientious Objector. I kept the friends and  acquaintances form my time as a Contentious Objector.
I went to university (I was already 27 when I started) where again I met a new set of people but now I did not mingle much. They all were much younger and I had a certain goal (I wanted to go back to Africa and build a farm together with am guy from Austria I had met there). By then I still was an atheist, but had started to look for a (different/real) meaning of life (again). You could say I was looking for God again whom I had lost at the start as an apprentice for the electrician craftsman ship.

I had left my parents place when I was 18 and only occasional went back there - mostly for family celebrations. During one of this occasions  it was the Eulogius Fest, a procession with horses. As a boy this had been a very special day, but now I was there as a spectator. Like hundreds of others I stood at the roadside occasionally changing the position. It was a sunny day I think second Sunday of June, so it was fairly warm and I looked for a place not so exposed to the sun.
There in the half shade, I was addressed by a stranger. A stranger? Well to me. It turned our that he was my colleague and fellow apprentice when we became electricians. We had worked together for 3 and a half years and also spend some of our spare time together, but I could not recognize him. Of course I did not show!
It was a shocking experience. I was studying by then, so my memory was fairly good, but this man, this former friend, was erased from my memory?
Even now, I remember the occasion but I do not remember him. I mean if I would meet him in the streets I would not recognize him!
Maybe because we had no special experiences together. No fights I recall and no special highlights. Maybe he was like a normal sunny day in my life, in our lives.
If this can happen in one life time, what more so if we die and reincarnate in a different body? What if we change race and sex?
But there is more to it!
If we extend out question "Why" and look at the spiritual side of life, we may find another piece of the puzzle.
Again if you look back at your life. What come to mind first? A happy experience  and second a bad one? Or is it vice verse? From the 10 days or events you remember how many are happy and how many are sad occasions?
And to go a step further, which of the 10 events had a bigger influence on your live?
Eckankar teaches that we are now at the peak of our spiritual development, even if we are a beggar or a criminal in the outer life. Now if you dwell in the esoteric communities or New Age groups you find a lot of people claiming to have been Jesus or saints,  kings or heroes.  I do not say it is not true, but I like to ask you how many saints, heroes or Jesuses do you know? I never heard a person claim he or she was a beggar or criminal! This is the hard side folks!
Before you can enter the realm of the primal force, no matter of you call it God, Allah or Sugmad you have to look a your dark side too.
If we look at all religions, and Eckankar is not difference here, we learn that God is almighty all encompassing - but the negative force is not part of it!
But this leads to a new set of questions, so lets go back to you and me and the HERE and NOW!
We do not like to have a dark side. We ignore it if we can, or keep it to ourselves if possible, we even like to forget it.
Now if we try to forget the bad things we did or want to do in this lifetime, how much do you think we shut this off when we reincarnate?
Btw. if you want to start to recall some of your former life times or if bad dreams hunt you, Eckankar offers a number of exercises to to put the Vail aside.

What is a spiritual life?

Is this an easy question? What actually is the meaning of "Spiritual". I have a very simple definition, but because I like to write not only out of my head, but something based of fact, what people can comprehend, I went to Wikipedia and to the Wiktionary. I grew up in a post war German which was basically free of English (at least for the average people). By browsing the Wiktionary looking for the word Spiritual I came across the religious songs basically of black American making. I am sure at least the last 10 years, probably longer, I had completely forgotten about it.
It was somehow an amazing experience. It was like browsing an old photo album and you find a picture that once meant a lot, but you had forgotten about it.
For many years I had observes it was a rare word. Then some groups like Eckankar  and others used it and more and more the word found its way back into the main stream and actually - on my impression - replaced the word religion/religious.
Let me give you my definition of spiritual: Spiritual refers to the invisible side of life, the force behind it.
For me it is a force maybe only a matrix that exists in the lives of every person, but at the same time is very personal and differs from person to person. I like to think that this spiritual matrix is based on the individual karma.

You might say say: Well, nice " And?"
Did you ever wonder why certain things in your life did not turn out as planned? Did you ever feel that you had to do a certain action, or maybe say a certain word, but you could not? Like you want to apologize to a certain person or say "I love you" to another? Live changing moment, but somehow, something held you back. Made you to stay mute, made you be an observer of an action and at the same time a puppet on the strings?
[Did you ever have such a moment? Where you were actor and observer? If so, did you ever wonder how it could be? ]
Maybe, maybe it would be sufficient to use the term karma. But maybe I am not good enough with words. Actually while writing this, I also do a lot of thinking. And this writing process now is at least as much for me it it might be for you.
I cherished the Term "Spiritual" and now in the first step I had to broaden its meaning and now, only minutes later, by linking it directly with karma, almost make it obsolete.
On one side, this makes me a little sad, like loosing something precious, but from a spiritual point of view I also see that now I can let go of something I no longer need on my journey home to God, something I have outgrown.
Maybe you too have outgrown words or images, once precious to you, but now only are a burden, often an invisible one, on your journey home to God.

A spiritual life

The start of a journey

Welcome to my new adventure.
My name is Oigen and I try to live a spiritual life. It is a struggle - often - sometimes - but no always! The name of the blog A spiritual struggle is less because I think it is a struggle, but due to the lack of available names!
But then a struggle might not attract us, because it is "work".
But most likely you also will agree that an easy victory means little to us, but a struggle where we had to give our best, also is a sweet victory!
Some time back I wrote a Blog Make love work. I like to write and I liked the discipline, the effort to write it regularly. I am not sure if I can maintain it with this blog. Not because I am less disciplined or lazier, but in my opinion because a spiritual adventure is not sequential. I might have a lot of advantures or realizations in a short time and then nothing for a long time.
I think it takes time for our human understanding to adjust to the spiritual adventures and their effects it has to our understanding (of the word).
I invite you to join me. You are welcome to become a regular reader, but I would appreciate it even more if you become a traveler on the quest to your own realization of what you are and maybe even further on to get a personal realization of God.

Today is Eid al Fitr mubarak, (I am aware that there are numerous ways to spell it) the end of the fasting month of our Muslim brethren. A good day to start a blog!

This is not a religious blog! But often our religion is the base from where we start our spiritual journey.
I invite you to comment my ideas and adventures, you are also invited to comment on comments, but kindly be aware that there is no right or wrong! Even if you feel something is wrong don't start with accusations or inappropriate comments, tell your side of the story, tell about your adventure.
IF you move towards a place in the inner world and you see and your Holy book says you will see an "orange light" And someone else with a different holy book states it is an olive light and s/he sees it - simply none of you might be wrong, you are just approaching it from a different direction. Imagine the truth or the Light of God is white

At the other side of the prism it is still the light of God, but spread into lots of different colors. Not everybody on the search for God sees the light right away. So if you see it, be happy but also be aware that you do not see all the light ( the full spectrum scientifically speaking), just the light that is visible from where your are (spiritually not locally).
This blog has no intention to lure you away from your religion! If you are not yet a saint on your path, then there is lots of space for you to grow withing your religion or believe system.
But if you have doubts or even if are full of doubts, feel free to explore the worlds of God on this side as well as on the other side of the Vail.


Oigen