The Seven Great Spiritual Questions: 7 of 7

The Seven Great Spiritual Questions: 7 of 7

7. Where do I find the rest of the answers?

This final installation of this series explores the above question from an ecumenical and existential standpoint. Rather than delve into any particular dogma or religious view, the question is left open to the many interpretations available in our Universe.

Everyone is on some sort of journey in life. This journey can be spiritual, secular, sacred, and profane. We often look to outward sources for our answers. We read sacred and inspired texts, such as the Qur'an, the Talmud, the Torah, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Black Elk's “The Sacred Pipe,” Self-Help books, Wiccan and New Age books, Viktor Frankl, Irvin Yalom, and other Existentialist works...and all of these things help us put our beliefs in order. They give us guidelines to help us make sense of the enormity of the universe. All of these things have a place in our lives and help us penetrate the darkness.

There comes a time in our spiritual development where we either embrace or reject the beliefs of our ancestors – or we allow them to evolve over time. If we are to grow in our development, we need to move in a direction that benefits us in body, mind, and spirit. As we grow from children to adults, so must our beliefs, or else we risk creating an all-too-fragile fantasy for ourselves that can fall like a house of cards when given the slightest amount of questioning. We become defensive of our beliefs, which leads to misunderstandings among friends, making enemies, and general chaos which can be self-destructive or violate others' rights to believe as they choose. We can move fluidly from acceptance, to tolerance, to intolerance, to fear and hatred if we are not careful. This is a dangerous direction, indeed!

When we search outward, there is a moment when we must pause to take things inward...digest them, process them, and either reject them or incorporate them into our being, our identities. When it comes to this junction, I have a piece of advice that was given to my by a very wise professor of mine: never outright reject something you don't fully understand. In other words, take time to fully comprehend what is being offered. Sit with it for some time. Meditate on it. Pray on it. If it still doesn't fit with you, throw it away then. Knee-jerk reactions are human nature...but they can limit our possibilities.

Sometimes there are no answers...we just live in a big unknown – with all the knowledge we have, we may feel it is woefully inadequate to answer all our questions; there seem to be no satisfactory answers.
This is part of the Great Mystery; we need to learn to live in it, questions and all. Find comfort in the fact that no one has all the answers! Seek the mystery, and it will come to you. Someday, the answers will all be clear...and if they're not? Well, that's okay, too, isn't it?

So laugh, love, enjoy, eat cookies. Our incarnation, our time here, in this form, doesn't last long!

Namaste,
The Transpersonal Psychologist