I don't actually feel any older than I was ten or more years ago. When someone recently addressed me as "Sir", and when I was passing down the street and a mom explained to her child that "a gentleman" is going by, I didn't feel like those words matched the reality. :-) I think that my psychological maturity never fundamentally changed. My body grew up and is still subjected to time and its ebb and flow. My behaviour changed as I got used to the workings of society. But the core of what I am never changed. I always felt very old and young at the same time, and I'll probably never stop feeling like that. It feels like the soul is the engine animating the body of clay for as long as that body will serve it. Thoughts and emotions are just a part of that machine.  Once it outlives its purpose, the spirit moves on. But why does it need the body? If the soul can become older and wiser, how does that happen? 

It's interesting how time affects the body, bringing about wrinkles, new thoughts, emotions and actions, but leaves the core fundamentally the same. It seems like our spiritual core is something that needs a different kind of food to be transformed, waiting around  doesn't seem to do the trick. :-)

"If from instant to instant, from moment to moment, someone lives suffering for what people owe him, for what they have done to him, and for all the suffering they caused him, always, with the same song, nothing can grow within him." Samael Aun Weor

"Many people are fascinated by spiritual ideas, but that’s something quite different from real spirituality." Belzebuub

Recently, I've had the the pleasure to participate in a discussion here on Gaia, titled "How do we heal", where I sort of announced this post: http://groups.gaia.com/openness/conversations/view/496216#501920 I'm just posting the link here to give the post some background. 

Now, the discussion was about how do we heal spiritually. I thought, to know what it means to be spiritual, what it means to reconnect with the spiritual, also requires knowledge of what is spiritual.

What is spiritual? How do we reach it? How do we heal from it?  The quotes posted above are an introduction to this story, and it is bound to be long, so consider yourselves warned. :-) It is not my story, it is a brief collection of memories, stories and experiences of someone very dear to me, who passed away almost three years ago. She's my grandmother, and a proof of the fact that spiritual potential can be within the simplest of people. The mind has no effect, the spirit runs deeper. Unfortunately, she is also an example that just having a potential is not enough to heal, that resentment towards others destroys, even if it remains just in the thoughts and emotions. 

My grandmother was a simple woman from a small town in Croatia. She was born as one of the many children her parents had, all girls. She never had much of an education, only four years of elementary education, enough to learn how to read, write and do basic mathematical operations.

As a child and a young woman, she felt an urge for a greater unity with God. She'd spend some of her evening staring in the sky adorned with stars, enjoying the sight and contemplating. She was always restless and placed very high standards for her behavior. Before going to sleep, she would go through the whole day in her imagination, trying to notice what she did right and where did she go wrong, and then applying what she saw in the next day. She saw it as a form of prayer. Amazingly enough, I've found a similar practice in my own explorations, called retrospection, where you look over the day to see what were your thoughts, emotions and actions.

It seems she had several interesting experiences in her life. The most memorable one she actually talked about happened at the time of the Second world war. She was returning to her town from visiting someone in the Croatian capital, Zagreb. At that time, the government in Croatia was fascist, and there were groups of rebels who worked to overthrow them. Unfortunately, not all of the latter had very humane methods. They stopped the train my grandmother was on and captured several civilians, including my grandmother. They questioned each civilian on the actions of the government as a way to gain more information on what happened outside their forest hideouts. When their captives refused to talk, they'd be shot.  My grandmother was shocked, knowing that she was next. Looking around, she saw a wondrous sight. A being, apparently one noticeable just to her, stood nearby. It was dressed in white and was surrounded by light, like a real angel. The being smiled and placed its index finger on its mouth, giving the well-known sign to stay silent. Not knowing what to do, my grandmother stayed silent. She was spared and could return to her home. 

As she became older, she also met new people, but they made fun of her due to her poor education, and her origin, being a simple woman from the village. That was especially true in the city I live at the moment, where she moved to help my mother with raising my sister and myself. That's when I got to know her. Although she was poorly educated, she never let me slip with my studies, helping me to learn the basics right. She'd read to me every night for as long as she could. Although she was never obviously religious, she used to bless me on a daily basis before I went to school, since I had to walk a long way alone to the school. She also talked to me about being able to see what is going on behind ones back. I could never figure it out. But it seems she was able to see things that were physically distant and had quite a lot of dreams where she saw the future. 

As she grew even older, her resentment became stronger. She never displayed them, amazingly enough. You could tell she fought them, again and again, but they always came back. She was trying to heal her spirit, to find something more within, but she couldn't. The negativity she held slowly gnawed into her, as she got more and more sick. Eventually, she couldn't get up anymore, and spent her last couple of years in bed, suffering horrifying pains. Even in that time, she continued to have her experiences. Once, my mother was at a grocery store, and bought a chocolate bar for my grandmother. My mother came back from the store, and went straight to the kitchen to put away the groceries Then she went to check on my grandmother, who was sleeping in a room on the other end of our house. You can imagine my mothers surprise when my grandmother asked for the chocolate bought for her, although she had no way of seeing it physically. 

During her illness, my grandmother continued to pray. Even when dementia caught up with her, she always retained a degree of lucidity. She'd often dream of being helped by doctors, and after that her health would improve, and her pain would substantially decrease. She'd often fall asleep, and when she woke up, she talked about how she flied to her childhood town, how she saw her late husband, her sisters, etc. Those experiences were always vivid, and helped her bear her inability to walk. It was as if she replaced the physical agility with the journeys her psyche took when she fell asleep.  At one point, she started having dreams of a wedding, where she was the bride. It was held in the backyard of her childhood home. It was again a very vivid experience, and she felt intense happiness that helped her to bear the pain in her physical body. Soon after that, she passed away. 

What always intrigued me the most about her was her natural spirituality, the potential she had within. Yet, despite that potential, she couldn't defeat her demons, she just didn't know how to put the qualities she had to that use. From her story, I've learned that spirituality, the spirit, is something all of us could reach. She had an advantage, I think, because she was never a proud intellectual who tries to impose their ideas on reality. She was open to reality. However, I've also learned that, to follow the spirit, one needs to abandon the resentments held towards anything or anyone, abandon all the darkness within. Only then the spirituality becomes more than an idea, it becomes experience, and the spirit heals. 

Also, this whole story shows that being spiritual is not about having lofty thoughts or emotions, it's about knowing oneself, looking beyond what we know is true, to find the unknown, which awaits us with its arms open wide. Hopefully this post will inspire some discussion on that kind of spirituality.

God is much like a very old friend, who stands in front of an ancient temple, atop a high mountain, calling out to me. But the difference is that this call resounds all around the globe. Wherever I go, and regardless of how much time passes, the echo is still there. It inspires curiosity, but, most importantly, fires up the desire to get to the roots of what I am, to understand where I come from and where I'm going. Will the road I'm on take me to the temple? 

I cannot imagine the strength and insight the Divine possesses, since it affects life in such wonderful, subtle ways. It is within each gust of wind, within every drop of the ocean, and is throbbing in each tear. Within all, literally under our noses, and seemingly so distant. Like we exist at the same place and time with it, but somehow there is a chasm separating us from God. But there must be a bridge. Even if there is none, there has to be a way to build it. Until then, the voice will resound, and it's best to reply to it as often as possible, because it might provide useful information to get over the chasm. :-) 

No, not at all. The way the money works is caused by the way we work in relation to money, so I feel that changing the way money works is like trying to rebuild a house while it's being eaten away by a fire. 

I've seen with myself how money easily turns into a slave-driver. Personally, I wouldn't like to be chased around my life by a banknote with a whip, that tries to force me into submission with the dreams of what might happen if I got whipped more. If I can earn enough to eat, have a roof over my hand, and go on a trip once in a while, that's fine. In the modern world, it seems wondrous to just have a shelter and some food, so any more than that is really a miracle I don't need, want or need to want. 

Perhaps if people took money as means rather than a goal, world would be different. But then the problem doesn't really boil down to the way the money is, but to the way its makers are. Whether we like it or not, it really seems like each person is a tiny pebble in a gigantic mosaic of life. If enough pebbles change position, there can be a new picture, a new state of the world, in relation to everything. It's not about pebbles trying to think themselves into greatness, by leading nations or controlling markets, because each pebble is just a pebble, regardless of what it thinks of itself. So imagine the potential of each individual. That's where lies the change the world needs. Might be covered with cobwebs, might be sleeping, but it's still there. Waiting.

By breaking down obstacles, by stopping to rely on what others thought I ought to be doing and by trying to find out what I really am and what my true limits are. At first, I was really vulnerable to what others thought of me, but then I decided to look into what gives the strength to stand on ones own two feet, without needing anyones nods of approval and pats on the back. I looked into spirituality, and never turned back. 

The most important thing to do in life is to change. Whenever I didn't do that, I'd stay petrified. The growth of the physical body, the different events in life come and go, but if we can ground ourselves in the spirit more, we can learn from all of that. Suffering is no longer useless, it is a way to where we are now, and the road continues here and now. 

I thought of spirituality as the cornerstone of my life. Unfortunately, it ended up being oppressed by everything else that's going on. 

Spirituality is much like a form of art, profound but requiring its own space to breathe and develop. If it is chained to the usual ways of going about  things, it becomes less spiritual, until it is completely fused with the usual way of living. And that's not something I'd like, since spirituality should enrich ones life, not be subjected to its mundane character. 

Spirituality is all about change, about transforming oneself into a better, more different being. But it's usually the other way around, and our lives change the spirituality. However, if someone brings me a gift, a chessboard and some pieces, and tells me how the game works, and yet I make up my own rules, am I still playing chess? Is the checkmate I achieve with my rules of the same quality as the actual checkmate? There is a good reason why spirituality is so attractive, just like there is a good reason why religion is important. Both should link us to the higher spheres, to the Divine. Unfortunately, people use religion as a weapon, while the spirituality is turning into a global market. Again, but on a global scale, life absorbs spiritual things and anything with a spiritual tone is being turned into a destructive and useless thing. That's why I really appreciate communities like these. 

Writing. It's probably one of the things that are most natural and easy for me. As a matter of fact, I often overdo it and make long texts, and then I'm worried if they make any sense. Let's see if I'll resist the temptation with this one. :-) 

I always felt awe towards two things: sound and word, especially when they're combined. They do seem to have a huge power. There are words that can completely break people, twist them around, heal, humiliate, exalt, enlighten. And within each word, a spark of the psyche of its author is carried, like a seed. Every act of writing and, indeed, every act of uttering a word, carries with it a bit of ones energy, the word becomes a vehicle.

I guess it's that respect I've had for words that made writing very easy for me. It's an amazing thing, because when done right it can have a huge effect. Plus, it's also very therapeutic for the writer.  But the biggest mystery is when I sometimes look back over what I've written and I don't understand where I found those particular words, and how they got to fit together so nicely. 

So, while it's something easy for me, it doesn't at the same time mean that I understand how it happens and from where exactly it starts. :-)