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~ There are three mysteries in the world. To the bird, it is the air. To the fish, it is the water. To the human, it is himself.~
I'm not much into New Year’s resolutions. If you're like me, New Year’s resolutions soon fade into the winter cold. What occurs for me as one year ends and another begins is personal reflection. What has been my experience of the previous year? What have I accomplished? What have I experienced? Where have I failed? Where have I succeeded? What do I want to be different -- and how?
As I review my 2009, the defining word that leaps at me is incongruence! I lived 2009 most incongruently. My desire for 2010 - and my promise to myself - is to live with more congruence.
Congruence is a state of harmony or alignment. As a state of being, congruence occurs when Mind, Body and Spirit are aligned.
My 2009 was dominated by thinking one thing, and doing another -- Believing something, but not committing to it. It seemed to show up most everywhere in my life—relationships, productivity, health, just to name a few.
A good maxim to live by is, “Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.” When I reflect on myself in 2009, I can see the incongruence in my self, and my actions.
If you peer into human knowledge, the “technology” of congruence is, itself, rather incongruent. It focuses primarily on alignment of mind and body. "Spirit" is either left to religion, or considered mysterious.
And, when all three—Mind, Body, Spirit—are included, the conventional methodology teaches it completely backwards - Usually, like this:
Mind: Change your thinking.
Body: Your actions and results will follow.
Spirit: You will experience satisfaction.
But this methodology forms an unnatural and difficult path to congruent living. Forcing your thinking to change can be a monumental task…
The natural way to congruence is reversed. And it looks like this:
Spirit: Experience satisfaction.
Body: Your actions and results will follow.
Mind: Your perception, and the way you think, will transform.
As you can see, aligning Mind, Body and Spirit can be a study in life mastery. And one of the biggest challenges of that mastery is logic. It may seem logical that if you think differently (mind), you will create what you want (body) and then you’ll be happy (Spirit). But logic cannot fathom how to be happy for no reason. After all, logic is reason.
And getting satisfaction for no reason at all...? How in the world do you experience that as a way of being? The answer lies in the question…
Your Spirit does not live only in the world that “appears to exist.” Your Spirit is everywhere and your Spirit is nowhere. It’s abstract, and it's clear. It's right there, and yet it eludes us.
But it need not be a mystery...What it actually is -- is a "journey."
And if, as the Zen Buddhists say, the core of that journey is the mystery of finding ourselves…then certainly, it's a journey worth taking.
Stay tuned as I explore this journey -- I'll be sharing my findings often, and posting them right here.
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