gari.baldi

As you know by now, a big part of my approach to work is about healing the voices within that keep us from showing up at our best.

So when I got tagged (more on that in a second) for Peter’s “Think Different” challenge, it was a no-brainer; the idea, basically, is to try thinking differently about something in your life that you’ve been holding as a negative… start thinking positively about it, and see what happens.

(The “tagging” debacle? I was told by Tristan Loo of the Synergy Institute that he tagged me, but he actually tagged a different Adam (he has since added me to his tagged list, though!). I sorta put it out of my mind, but then Jennifer Mannion of Heal Pain Naturally tagged me from her post… so that’s when I figured the Universe was trying to tell me something!)

As the wind bloweth

Now, thinking differently about something you’re holding as a negative is good… and, in my experience, it can be like trying to keep a paper cup on a picnic table in a wind storm. You can try to keep your thoughts in the positive, but if you’ve got a strong wind — belief systems, in this case — that keep on blowing the same way they have been, then you can try all you want to keep that cup on the table, but it isn’t going to happen.

If you want to keep your thoughts positive, you’ve got to (more…)

chuckp

The conversation that’s gotten started from “How Do You Orient To The Divine?” is one that I’m really, really enjoying. It’s the kind of discussion (one of them, at least) that I was hoping would happen when I started Monk at Work.

I’ve been touched by the sentiments shared, because it’s easy to see that people are really looking at their beliefs, and perhaps, questioning them. Personally, I’ve been questioning my beliefs for most of my life, and it has been a very fruitful debate.

One of the things I wrote was, “I’ve been both [a dualist and a monist],” The truth is, I could have easily added, “and, I’ve been neither — for most of my youth, I didn’t believe in anything.”

“- gasp – is it true? the monk was once an atheist?”

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cobalt123

This is a huge topic, I realize… one that I couldn’t do justice to in a single post (or a single lifetime, perhaps… but that won’t stop me from beginning the conversation, at least.

It seems to me that there are two primary ways that most people and most paths orient to the concept of God/Divine/Oneness/Spirit. It’s either inside of you, or outside of you.

The “outside of you” folks probably think of you and the Divine, the Divine being ‘out there’, and you trying to reach It. Your quest is to experience proximity to the Divine, and feel what it’s like to merge with the Divine, or, be in service to whatever It asks of you. (Because of the difference seen between man and Spirit, this is called, “dualism.”)

The “inside of you” folks probably think of the Divine in you, as ‘in here’, and you seeking to experience the fullness of It in you and through you. Your quest is to experience no absence of that Presence, to be filled 100% with the seamlessness of the experience of what is. (Because of the lack of difference seen between man and Spirit, this is called, “monism.”)

To the dualists, Divinity is something to be reached.
To the monists, Divinity is something to be realized.

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