Tying Up The Strong Man

In this podcast, I give my own meaning of a parable that Jesus told that I call "Tying Up the Strong Man" and interpret this in the light of other spiritual teachings. I also explore why we need to label thing, people and experiences in our life and what it would mean if we stopped doing so.

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Victors In Life

"We are victors in life when we receive bad news with as much joy as good news and see the blessing in trials. You have risen above this world and cannot be moved."

This is part of the paradox of spirituality.  To many, they look at a statement that we can be happy during sad times and do not understand it.  This is foolishness to many.  This is because there are many hidden truths that undergird this statement.

Since we are spirit, in essence, we do need to fear anything.  We will live eternally without any effort on our part and we cannot lose our lives.  If we consider our earthly existence to be our life, then we have something to fear.  However, our earthly existence is but a shell for our spirit.

A recurrent theme that I am experiencing now is learning to think outside of duality.  Some say this is how supreme consciousness thinks, and that this is the ideal we should all aspire to.

The essence of suffering is attachment to outcome.  Attachment to outcome is being tied to our earthly existence, that is duality.  In its basic form, duality consists of labeling things.  We label this good and that bad.  However, labeling prevents us from experiencing the "subject of our labeling" fully.  We do not see it as a unique experience but want to categorize it with prior experiences, even before we get a chance to experience it!

We are victors in life when we receive bad news with as much joy as good news and see the blessing in trials. You have risen above this world and cannot be moved.  To not be attached to outcome means that we truly our joyous in all things, which is our basic nature anyways.  If we are filled with joy in trying times, how easy is it to be filled with joy in the normal, everyday life?

To have attained such an ideal, is truly living in heaven while you are still on earth.  An undercurrent to this topic, which I will touch on briefly, is the reason why we have trials.  A trial is only "trying" if it touches a part of us that is identified with pain.  The blessing in a trial is the opportunity to heal this pain through forcing us to confront why we are feeling it in the first place.

Once we receive healing for this pain, we then break the cycle of karma that led us to put ourselves in a situation that would stir the pain up.  That is the joy we must have when in a difficult situation.  Feel the associated pain but realize that it is really joy that has been disguised and that you are making progress on your spiritual path.

Be an Alchemist in Life

"We can change any life circumstance into supreme goodness if we realize that every circumstance is perfect in and of itself."

Good and bad are just labels that we assign to things.  Rather than label, we should just look at the object or circumstance without judgment.  As soon as we judge, we stop discussion and internal dialog about it, which blinds us to reality.  In fact, good and bad are the yin and yang of our earthly existence.  They are necessary and complimentary of each other in this world.

The place where we want to get to is a place where there are no opposites.  Our hope and our faith is in our Higher Power, where there is only supreme goodness, happiness and joy.  In a word, Love.  How do we get there?

We drop judgment and drop labeling.  We let things be as they are.  We learn to hold both the "good" and "bad" in our Being simultaneously.  There is no conflict, because the good and the bad are illusions of this world.  If we label something good and truly experience it as such, we are guaranteed to experience the bad.  If we place our happiness on a form, we are guaranteed to experience the associated sadness.  This is because every form is temporary and will disappear someday.  We came into this world naked and will leave naked.  Our happiness comes from the Formless, which is an eternal, unchanging source of Joy.

We need to stop seeing good or bad as outside ourselves.  Inside us, there is only goodness, happiness and Love.  We need to see the world from the inside out.  Look at life through a lens of Love.

We need to learn how to be alchemists.  We can change any life circumstance into supreme goodness if we realize that every circumstance is perfect in and of itself.  It is only our limited human perspective that makes us label something as bad.

We should all be learners in every situation.  See things for what they are, beyond the labels.  Everything in life is cause and effect.  We do not think about making lemonade when life gives us lemons because we are so busy feeling "bad" about the lemons that life gave us.  Being a learner means being open to things outside ourself influencing our thoughts, perceptions and emotions.  If we learn the lessons that life gives us, we break the cycle of our own habits and progress to the next stage.  In short, our spiritual evolution can progress if we are open to change.  All of this is only possible if we are viewing life through our lens of Love.