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Ideas for Contemplation

August 27, 2017 By Roland

I decided to update this old blog post (Random Thoughts) and add ideas as they occur to me.  I hope one or two catch your attention and are useful for reflection and contemplation.
The Ego and the Mind:
  • Make friends with your mind—or live in a tiny room with your worst enemy.
  • And don’t fight with your thoughts. It’s like fighting with a pig—you never win and only get covered in muck (adapted from G.B. Shaw).
  • Thoughts are the voice of the ego, beliefs are its bones.  Never trust your own beliefs!
  • The Ego’s four dark aspects:
    • The wish to be special and the center of the universe
    • The need to control everything and everyone
    • The urge to judge and criticize
    • The tendency to self-deception and blindness.

Relationship:
  • Love rests on a foundation of tolerance, acceptance and understanding.
  • Relationship is the marriage between Sharing, Loving and Growing.
  • Intolerance and indifference are addictive. Like all addictions, they blind us to our chains.
  • Sometimes an old relationship is only the lingering fragrance of nostalgia.
  • True humility is without self-denigration.
Compassion and Love:
  • Charity is intelligent love in action: head, heart and hands working together.
  • Compassion is the touchstone of a true human being (see Charter for Compassion).
  • Life is the path; love is the compass.
  • Balance compassion with clarity and firmness; compassion without boundaries is simply mush.
  • We cannot be human if we are cut off from humanity; compassion and love links us into one glorious whole.
Pain and  Purpose:
  • Pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional; do not suffer for no purpose.
  • Purpose and happiness are the difficult choices; meaninglessness is the lazy option.
  • Our life purpose is the reflection and manifestation of our Inner Nature.
  • Why struggle; why not dance?
Intention:
  • Ego intentions inflame desire; Self intentions expand the soul.
  • Intention requires effort and surrender; it is the movement from will to willingness.
  • Intention is a message from the conscious to the unconscious, from small-self to soul, from ego to Inner Nature.
  • Vision does not define a destination; it creates a pathway for our intentions to unfold.
  • Embrace everything with gentle persistent curiosity.
Vision and Spirituality:
  • Only words filled with Spirit touch the soul
  • Surrender to the moment; God is in each moment.
  • Dreams: night-gardening for the soul.
  • Balance effort with surrender: do what needs doing – let go of the outcome.
  • Certainty is blind; embrace not-knowing if you want to see.
  • Be inwardly attentive; discover how rich you are.
  • When in doubt, be still, quiet and patient.
  • We are a travelling flame of awareness that illuminates only the present moment.
  • God is the unfolding experience of divine presence; there is no God without experience.

Filed Under: Blog, Reflections, Spirituality

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Roland Evans, Psychotherapist • 303-998-1090 • roland@roland-evans.com • 948 North Street, Suite #5, Boulder, CO 80304