You work on every day.
If you stop, the beauty
Will slowly go away.
What if you were at work on a beautiful sculpture but your material reverted or decayed if you ever ceased to progress? This is the unfortunate nature of spiritual efforts.You can never stop trying to purify yourself, improve yourself, strengthen yourself, and cultivate the sacred that is inside you. If you do well one day, that is good. But if you cease your efforts, you will slide backwards. That is why you must strive on every level, from the physical to the mental to the spiritual. Your vigilance must never flag. Your determination must never waver.
Paradoxically, there is nothing to achieve. It is only our minds that convince ourselves that we must do something. We are already pure, already sacred. But we live in a polluted world, we have egotistical thoughts that constantly divide us from the true Tao, and we cannot remain forever in a pure state and still function in the world. If you attained the higher levels of Tao, you would appear to an outsider as if in a trance, and it would be impossible to interact with others. So if you are trying to be spiritual in today's world, you must never cease striving to keep yourself pure. Once you are not with Tao, you must constantly struggle with the impurity of the world.
Personal Interpretation
Spiritual efforts must be ongoing. We are works in progress and we will never be complete. There's a certain beauty in this undeniable truth. What would we be if we could become no more?
We live in a polluted world and must constantly work to purify our spirits, but we must also live in the world. This is why it is so crucial that we seek the quiet of contemplation. Our lives are about falling out of balance and seeking to regain it. When we understand this, when we accept it, the ups and downs suddenly fit into our conception of our lives and things make more sense than they did before.
When we are perceptive and practice vigilance, we can thrive amid the chaos.
No comments:
Post a Comment