Life is a spiritual journey. When we look at it that way, we can finally begin to make sense of our world. We can understand why we suffer and how we can ease our suffering. And we can at last find a path to the love, joy and peace that is our birthright. We enrich our lives when we bring an ongoing awareness of spirit into our daily routines. Our consciousness rises when we see and experience new perspectives of how life works. The spiritual growth journey is one of getting to know and experience who we really are: spirit in form. Spiritual growth begins to make sense when we realize we have both a personality and a soul. While our personality identifies with limitation, our soul knows itself to be limitless. Our challenge is to bring the personality and soul together in harmony.
In earlier periods people were capable of direct spiritual perceptions, or clairvoyance, but not yet of rational thought; more recently, rationality has been developed at the cost of spiritual perception, leading to the alienation characteristic of modernity. Steiner proposed that humanity now has the task of synthesizing the rational and contemplative or spiritual components of cognition, whereby spiritual perception would be awakened through intensifying thinking.
A central principle path to spiritual development is that self-development - inner transformation - is a necessary part of the spiritual path: "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to the spiritual philosophy moral development:
•reveals the extent to which a person has achieved control over his or her inner life;
•ensures that he or she lives in harmony with the surrounding natural and social world;
•correlates with his or her progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception; and
•Guarantees the capacity to distinguish between true perceptions and illusions, or to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements and objective realities.
These spiritual messages will:
•help you understand and bridge the dualities of life - the positives and negatives, the higher road and the lower road
•describe both personality and soul and how to bring them together in full, genuine expression
•support you in grounding spirituality in your everyday living
•awaken you to qualities of your authentic self
•open the door to new levels of freedom, power and contentment
"Spiritual maturity is a lifelong process of replacing lies with truth."
Fulfilling aspiration
From the day we are born, we are inducted into, influenced by, awed by the world of our parents. They tell us what is right or wrong, good or bad. This interaction defines our personality and therefore our future like none other. Parents are our first role models. Yet in our own personality, somewhere deep
within, we secretly harbor our own ambition, our own quest for what we like and what we would love to do most. Slowly we realise that whatever definitions we got from our family, were theirs and that we too would like to or may need to form our own definitions of the world and how we see it. It is very natural for parents to have aspirations for their children, for as parents they mistakenly think that children are just extensions of themselves. It is important to remember that children harbor their own dreams and aspirations that may not be in tandem with what parents have in mind.
o Parental power
o Societal pressures
o Most children have secret ambitions
o Parental power
Parents have a lot of influence and power over children. Often parents use this power to control the child by using him or her as a vehicle for fulfilling their own unresolved desires and ambitions. This inevitably results in parents limiting their Childs potential and leaving them with unfulfilled desires and ambitions of their own. A child's individuality is like a flower bud; it blossoms if given the proper ingredients and brings its own fragrance and radiance. A parent has great power over the child. This power can be used to suppress and crush the child or to help the child blossom to his or her full potential.
It is always best to know and understand the child's desires. As parents it is only natural that you will have your own set of wishes for your children but it is crucial that you give value to their ambitions and desires over yours so that the child can move into his or her own potential. This way you will have fulfilled your role as parent and your child will be able to grow up confident and with a sense of achievement since he or she will have been allowed to be true to his or her own being.
o Societal pressures
If we look very closely at how we got our set of ambitions for our own children, we realize that they are either our own unresolved or unfulfilled desires, or they are determined by "what other people think" and perceive as being socially successful. For example, if our son becomes a foreign returned doctor, we are elated because the world validates such success. Likewise there are many other mainstream notions of what socially defined success is; usually in terms of money, fame and power.
If our child decides to develop his or her own set of unique ambitions that may be far removed from social notions of success we are often distressed and resentful. Being victims of society our self we want our children to fall prey to it as well. And we are often willing to sacrifice our Childs happiness and sense of individuality to external expectations and our own trapped notions of success.
When pressure on the child to succeed is based on narrow definitions of success we end up raising limited and unhappy children with stunted hopes and depressed desires. As parents we need to be able to step out of the ugly traps set by society. We need to support our children's interests so that they may develop into responsible, content, mature and healthy adults who were given the opportunity to realize their own dreams and desires.
o Most children have secret ambitions
There is a secret ambition in all of us, which is either repressed as we grow older or it comes out at the strangest of moments in our lives. It could be that a father suddenly takes to clay modeling after his daughter gets married, or a mother becomes a drama teacher after her children leave home. The desire to fulfill the heart's needs is what we all pine for, yet social expectations and norms inhibit us from pursuing what is a passion, in favor of what our "prescribed roles" dictate. At the end of the day we all strive to do the thing which makes us happy, like doing the work we love doing, for then it ceases to become work. Those people who have been in total denial of the heart's desires always rubbish the concept of following one's dream. They do not see it as being a practical thing to do. Practicality or being pragmatic is merely the same social expectations masquerading as herd mentality. Here are some tips towards encouraging your child to recognize and follow his or her dreams.
•Enroll your children in hobbies and leisure activities that interest them and help him or her recognize talents and potential. Don't allow your stereotypes of what is 'appropriate' for a boy or a girl, or someone of your 'background', to stand in the way of supporting your child's interests.
•Spend time discussing careers, dreams, ambitions with your children and familiarize yourself with their thoughts and ideas. This indicates your interest and support to them. Bring in your experience and ideas as well, especially when you feel they require a realistic picture on an issue.
•Let the focus be the child's pursuit of excellence and satisfaction rather than 'making money'. And make this known to the child that the pursuit of dreams far outweighs social standards of success.
•Encourage your child to identify role models to emulate who can inspire them to follow their ambitions.
•Show interest in your child's ambitions and share opportunities or information that would help him or her take their ambitions further.
Children want their parents to love them and validate their beings. One of the biggest gifts you can give your children is the wisdom and the support to recognize and follow their dreams!
