Thorndike Barhnhart Desk Dictionary circa 1950's ;
Radical- going to the root; fundamental. Favoring extreme changes or reforms;extreme. Person who favors extreme changes or reforms.
Reform- Improve by some alteration of form, arrangement. Change from worse to better. Cause to abandon wrong or evil ways of life or conduct, and to adopt right ones.
William James wrote a book titled "The Varieties of Religious Experience" which friends of mine have read and used to compare amd make deductions about spiritual experiences. I have studied this book as well. In the Book Alcoholics Anonymous, appendix B we will find what the founders of that society describe as a Spiritual Experience or Spiritual Awakening. The book explains that it is a personality change and it has manifested itself in the individual- apparent to the eye or mind - plain, clear.
How each person has a spiritual experience or spiritual awakening is debatable and is debated. A.A. holds to a principle that these spiritual experiences or awakenings are of the educational variety. This type of transformation would be more of the practical variety- coming from practice and repetition, if that is possible to explain further?
Anyway, how does one transform from one way to another? This answer isn't a simple one.
The first requirement would be, I feel, that the individual has come to a point in his or her life and concluded that something needs to be changed - maybe drastically. This isn't that easy since it would require an honest assessment of one's whole life and maybe the admission that there are faults, habits or sins that need to be corrected, changed or even eradicated.
Second, this procedure usually comes only after another individual who has experienced a transformation in their own life has come in contact with the one on the journey of beginning to change theirs. This meeting of the minds can take place by referral from one person to another or as it happens today by making inquiries on the internet.
Thirdly there develops between the two parties an understanding and a commitment of sorts, a commitment based on hope. Hope based on information. Information about a transformation, a change of outlook and agreements about certain things and in some cases the unbelievable has happened- a miracle.
But then from our experience, spiritually speaking we have come to rely on a daily discipline which involves prayer, meditation and self-examination. We learn that answers to every day problems present themselves through a variety of sources; other people, a sentence in a book AND by listening to God. You can add to the list.
Fourth we take this new information, couple it with a hopeful attitude and resolve to practice a different way of acting and re-acting. Through trial and error we find what works, what doesn't and maybe as time goes by- making adjustments here and there, tweaking the circuits we have built. Now we have a plan.
As was said, "the well made plans of mice and men often go awry."
( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men )
My experience of late is that certain people reach a spiritual pinnacle if you will and from this mountaintop, all things below become blurry. This had a devastating effect upon me in 2001 when after 12 years of practicing spiritual principles I became self-absorbed and faded into undeniable, irresponsible behavior. For one year or so I managed to manage well and then I fell apart because no-one can hide from the truth for long. For 3 years I malingered and then was "brought" to my senses.
Continuing, should we be concerned that just because our deportment is balanced today that all will be well tomorrow, or the morrow after? When the way I act, or conduct myself and behave, when this becomes riddled with excuse making then I begin to slowly lose touch with reality.
A person who tell lies after a period of time believes themselves to be telling truth and always, always has a reason for others that justifies, in their mind, these unaccaceptable actions day after day. Unfortunately people close to the one who is "out of touch" may become so sickened by it that they resolve to themselves, sub-conciously, to protect the other person who has managed to tranform his terrible, harmful actions to look like HE is a victim!
What then?
Whatever it was that needed to be changed and had in fact undergone a transformation as a result of new information and hope and practice now dissolves and becomes an issue of no importance. "In full flight from reality" as Bill Wilson once wrote.
What , if anything, could possibly bring the wanderer from reality back into the fold of truth, honor and dignity? Who makes this possible?
The paradox is this, just as it took radical thinking to go from extreme anti-social behavior to being content and calm and realistic, it will take radical thinking to get back to contentment, calmness and realistic behavior from extreme anti-social conduct. In other words, you're going to have to admit something is wrong.
And the question needs to be asked now at this juncture, could a person be " educated " back into spiritual form or would it require an act of Divine Providence? To conclude if this is possible would require more radical thinking, if one could possibly do that.
Some folks say we "shouldn't" think so much. I think that depends on what we're thinking about?
The problem with statements like " I don't think very much, my mind is a bad beighborhood to be in" or "I don't go into my head without adult supervision" they AREN'T realisitc at all. In fact, the person who believes these to be truthful and effective is the same person WHO, because he doesn't think finds himself in one predicament after the other. AND if he is clever enough, he begins to convince others that he has done nothing to bring on such reproach, therefore the fault lies elsewhere.
AND, if he has reached that spiritual mountaintop, that pinnacle I mentioned earlier, chances are he won't face the truth and admit the train has derailed. And what is down below takes on a new personification. Those below who once saw him clearly to the top now see him as a blur, and the beacon of hope twinkles, flutters and eventually goes out.
Stop thinking and you're doomed.
That's not a radical statement.
Start thinking and reform, that's radical.
Thanks, the tat2guru
Radical- going to the root; fundamental. Favoring extreme changes or reforms;extreme. Person who favors extreme changes or reforms.
Reform- Improve by some alteration of form, arrangement. Change from worse to better. Cause to abandon wrong or evil ways of life or conduct, and to adopt right ones.
William James wrote a book titled "The Varieties of Religious Experience" which friends of mine have read and used to compare amd make deductions about spiritual experiences. I have studied this book as well. In the Book Alcoholics Anonymous, appendix B we will find what the founders of that society describe as a Spiritual Experience or Spiritual Awakening. The book explains that it is a personality change and it has manifested itself in the individual- apparent to the eye or mind - plain, clear.
How each person has a spiritual experience or spiritual awakening is debatable and is debated. A.A. holds to a principle that these spiritual experiences or awakenings are of the educational variety. This type of transformation would be more of the practical variety- coming from practice and repetition, if that is possible to explain further?
Anyway, how does one transform from one way to another? This answer isn't a simple one.
The first requirement would be, I feel, that the individual has come to a point in his or her life and concluded that something needs to be changed - maybe drastically. This isn't that easy since it would require an honest assessment of one's whole life and maybe the admission that there are faults, habits or sins that need to be corrected, changed or even eradicated.
Second, this procedure usually comes only after another individual who has experienced a transformation in their own life has come in contact with the one on the journey of beginning to change theirs. This meeting of the minds can take place by referral from one person to another or as it happens today by making inquiries on the internet.
Thirdly there develops between the two parties an understanding and a commitment of sorts, a commitment based on hope. Hope based on information. Information about a transformation, a change of outlook and agreements about certain things and in some cases the unbelievable has happened- a miracle.
But then from our experience, spiritually speaking we have come to rely on a daily discipline which involves prayer, meditation and self-examination. We learn that answers to every day problems present themselves through a variety of sources; other people, a sentence in a book AND by listening to God. You can add to the list.
Fourth we take this new information, couple it with a hopeful attitude and resolve to practice a different way of acting and re-acting. Through trial and error we find what works, what doesn't and maybe as time goes by- making adjustments here and there, tweaking the circuits we have built. Now we have a plan.
As was said, "the well made plans of mice and men often go awry."
( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men )
My experience of late is that certain people reach a spiritual pinnacle if you will and from this mountaintop, all things below become blurry. This had a devastating effect upon me in 2001 when after 12 years of practicing spiritual principles I became self-absorbed and faded into undeniable, irresponsible behavior. For one year or so I managed to manage well and then I fell apart because no-one can hide from the truth for long. For 3 years I malingered and then was "brought" to my senses.
Continuing, should we be concerned that just because our deportment is balanced today that all will be well tomorrow, or the morrow after? When the way I act, or conduct myself and behave, when this becomes riddled with excuse making then I begin to slowly lose touch with reality.
A person who tell lies after a period of time believes themselves to be telling truth and always, always has a reason for others that justifies, in their mind, these unaccaceptable actions day after day. Unfortunately people close to the one who is "out of touch" may become so sickened by it that they resolve to themselves, sub-conciously, to protect the other person who has managed to tranform his terrible, harmful actions to look like HE is a victim!
What then?
Whatever it was that needed to be changed and had in fact undergone a transformation as a result of new information and hope and practice now dissolves and becomes an issue of no importance. "In full flight from reality" as Bill Wilson once wrote.
What , if anything, could possibly bring the wanderer from reality back into the fold of truth, honor and dignity? Who makes this possible?
The paradox is this, just as it took radical thinking to go from extreme anti-social behavior to being content and calm and realistic, it will take radical thinking to get back to contentment, calmness and realistic behavior from extreme anti-social conduct. In other words, you're going to have to admit something is wrong.
And the question needs to be asked now at this juncture, could a person be " educated " back into spiritual form or would it require an act of Divine Providence? To conclude if this is possible would require more radical thinking, if one could possibly do that.
Some folks say we "shouldn't" think so much. I think that depends on what we're thinking about?
The problem with statements like " I don't think very much, my mind is a bad beighborhood to be in" or "I don't go into my head without adult supervision" they AREN'T realisitc at all. In fact, the person who believes these to be truthful and effective is the same person WHO, because he doesn't think finds himself in one predicament after the other. AND if he is clever enough, he begins to convince others that he has done nothing to bring on such reproach, therefore the fault lies elsewhere.
AND, if he has reached that spiritual mountaintop, that pinnacle I mentioned earlier, chances are he won't face the truth and admit the train has derailed. And what is down below takes on a new personification. Those below who once saw him clearly to the top now see him as a blur, and the beacon of hope twinkles, flutters and eventually goes out.
Stop thinking and you're doomed.
That's not a radical statement.
Start thinking and reform, that's radical.
Thanks, the tat2guru
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