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Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category

No matter how much you advance and evolve as a spiritual being, you will never get to a point where you are completely free of problems, challenges and disappointments. The good news is that we are probably not even meant to get to such a stage in this life, and it is far more likely that the problems we encounter exist for a purpose. When you choose to view your life as a classroom you will be a lot more open to learning the lessons that life delivers on a daily basis, and as you learn, the more effectively you will be able to deal with whatever comes your way.

This is not a new concept by any means. The Buddha said that ‘Life is suffering’ and when you consider the fact that problems and disappointments never cease, he was absolutely right. But by learning from our experience, we can transform even ‘negative’ events into ones which foster our growth as human beings. Our suffering therefore becomes a path to personal growth, spiritual evolution and inner peace.

Everyone reading this article has had many different problems and challenges throughout life, and you will all continue to have problems and challenges in the future. So why make things even harder for yourself by trying to escape this fact? Why not instead accept the reality of problems and view your life a classroom which exists to teach you exactly what you need to learn, in exactly the right way and at exactly the right time?

The nature of the problems we encounter in day to day life obviously varies quite widely. On some days your biggest problem might be that you get caught up in traffic or that your internet connection goes down. On other days you may face problems of a more serious kind – the loss of a job, the breakdown of a relationship or even the death of someone close to you. Whatever the nature of the problems you encounter, you can begin to learn from them by pausing to consider the following question:

What can I learn from this?

Your answers to this simple question can be as varied as the problems that are encountered. You might spill juice on your computer keyboard, in which case the lesson is quite obvious – don’t have liquids around electrical equipment that you value. Or you might receive news that someone close to you has died, in which case the lessons can be multiple and much more meaningful – live each day as if it were your last, resolve differences while you can, learn to love more than you fight, and so on.

Whatever answers come to you when you ask the question ‘What can I learn from this?’ be sure to pay attention and heed the lesson presented. Some problems occur repeatedly only because we refuse to learn our lesson the first time round. Viewing your life as a classroom and actively looking for the lesson that is hidden in every problem you encounter will enable you to grow and evolve at a pace that is ideally suited to you.

The term ‘chanting for benefits’ refers to the act of chanting a phrase repeatedly so that one can obtain some kind of benefit. Chanting is something that is taught in many spiritual traditions, and whilst the benefits are often described in non-tangible terms, some schools encourage their members to chant for tangible benefits too.

Adherents of Nichiren Buddhism advocate Diamoku (chanting ‘Nam Myoho Renge Kyo’) and say that it can bring a great many benefits regardless of whether one believes in the power of chanting or not. Indeed, many followers of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism started out with nothing but the willingness to give chanting a try, and were so impressed with the positive effects they experienced from the practice that they later embraced Nichiren Buddhism as a whole.

Those of you who are looking for a religious or philosophical framework for living a happy and productive life may well be interested in exploring Nichiren Buddhism from the outset. In that case you will find many resources on the internet – simply visit a search engine and perform a search on “Nichiren Buddhism” for starters. The Soka Gakkai International or SGI is the biggest lay organisation in Nichiren Buddhism but there are also plenty of independent Nichiren Buddhists who practice privately without joining any organisation, so do explore all of the possibilities before deciding which, if any, interests you the most.

Of course, many of you may not be interested in pursuing Nichiren Buddhism at all at this time, but in that case you can still enjoy the benefits of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. What those benefits will be is something that every person must discover for themselves. Some have chanted for – and received – new jobs, cars, homes, seemingly miraculous solutions to money and/or health problems and even new life partners, to name just a few of the tangible benefits that have been reported. Then there are intangible benefits such as peace of mind, inner strength, a more positive outlook and greater levels of courage, wisdom and compassion.

Can the simple act of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo really bring all of these benefits and even more? Our advice is to try it and see. Diamoku costs nothing more than an open mind a little of your time, and we think you will be very surprised at just how powerful chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo can be.

So far in this series on the meaning of life we have said that there is one Universal Intelligence or God energy. You are that God energy and everyone else is that God energy. So whose Virtual Reality ride is this life?  Are we minor characters in your Virtual Reality ride, or are you a minor character in our Virtual Reality rides?

The answer to this question is that, in spiritual terms, there is absolutely no ‘you’ and ‘us’. As so many ancient traditions have said, we are all one. Thus it could be said that your life on earth is, in the larger sense, our life. We don’t currently know the details of your ride because we are currently on another ride, but when we go to the spiritual plane we will remember ‘your’ life as one of our own.

Similarly, our life is your life. You might not be aware of taking the particular ride which we are on right now, but that is because you are currently taking another one. Again, when you return to the spiritual plane you will remember ‘our’ lives as your own.

This concept may be hard to grasp at first, but meditate on it and all will become clear. There is no ‘you’ and ‘us’ because there is only one ‘energy and we are all manifestations of that one energy. We just perceive ourselves as being individuals because that is the way the dream is experienced.

It is quite possible that when we – being the one energy – have experienced every possible combination of dreams, we will progress to explore other manifestations of life. Perhaps the human race itself will be replaced with something even more challenging and exciting. If so, we should be looking forward to experiencing a whole vista of new ‘realities’ and so increase our self-knowledge even further.

And so that is one position concerning the meaning of life. We are all aspects of the one Universal Intelligence or God energy. We are all infinite and eternal. We perceive ourselves to be living different lives because we are dreaming ‘dreams’ in which we experience the same ride from the vantage point of different individuals. When our physical body expires, we will find ourselves having completed a particular ‘dream’. And then we will be ready to dream again.

In the previous part of this series on the meaning of life we told the story of Jack and how he experienced life as a kind of virtual reality ride, and the point we want to make today is that maybe you too are experiencing some cosmic kind of Virtual Reality right now. Maybe we are all Virtual Reality dreamers. Of course, our lives seem real enough, but we all feel deep down inside that there is more to it than living on earth for a certain number of years.

Our position on the questions of life before birth and life after death is that this life may not be true reality at all. It could simply be a ‘dream’ that we are experiencing – a dream which we ourselves chose to have in order to learn specific lessons.

The bible says that in the place called heaven, ‘A day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like a day.’ Could this mean that our 70 year lives here on earth are just dreams which take seconds on the spiritual plane? We think that is certainly possible.

If we view our physical lives from this point of view, we can finally begin to understand and cope more readily with the ‘negative’ aspects of life. If a human being dies in infancy then although this is a very sad event from our earthly perspective, we can take heart from the fact that one game is now over for that particular manifestation of spirit and that a lesson has been learned. 

Similarly, if we see other people suffering then we can do our best to help, but understanding that this suffering is all part of the ‘dream’ that they may have chosen for themselves and that in real terms it lasts just a few seconds puts the whole affair into its proper perspective.

Think about your life from this new ‘Virtual Reality’ point of view and note the lessons you have already learned. Every action you have taken since birth has yielded a result. Every decision that you have ever made has altered your path at least a little. And now, right at this moment, you are reading these words. Is this merely a coincidence? Or is reading this an essential part of your own Virtual Reality dream?

We can tell you that out of every one hundred people who read the first part of this series, just a handful will continue reading to this stage. We do not mind this. Every manifestation of spirit must dream their own dream and progress at their own pace. The very fact that you have continued reading to this point in the series signifies that you are working on a similar wavelength to ourselves, and so this final understanding of Virtual Reality as a possible answer to life’s most difficult questions should be coming quite naturally to you.

The idea of reincarnation, and that we must continue having physical lives until our knowledge is complete on a spiritual level, is very similar to our own understanding. The only substantial difference is that we propose that physical lives are ‘dreams’ experienced by our higher selves and are therefore to be enjoyed and welcomed, whereas proponents of reincarnation see physical life as being more of a burden and something to be avoided ‘next time round’ if at all possible.

What happens when we treat life as though it were a ride or a dream? Well, several things. 

Firstly, we tend not to take physical problems such as paying the bills, finding a job and fixing a broken computer too seriously. We know that these things are just obstacles which make the Virtual Reality ride or the dream more interesting and useful.

Secondly, we strive to make every second of our dream count. We know that the dream won’t last forever and so we aim to help those around us develop their own potential and insight so that when we leave this plane, they can use some of what we have learned to help them enjoy their own Virtual Reality dream.

Finally, we no longer fear death, because death is simply the end of this particular ride and there are many more rides to be experienced if that is what we wish to do.