10 commandments my uncomfotable truth

In the Christian church it is believed that if you keep the 10 Commandments you will make spiritual progress.

At this point in my own spiritual journey, my experience is the reverse. As I make spiritual progress the life I am expressing comes closer and closer in alignment with the 10 Commandments.

What I now think is that one can keep the 10 Commandments while still being a mean-spirited and un-compassionate person. In these cases, the rules are often used to beat up oneself or another into emotions of guilt and shame. When this happens, it becomes less about spiritual progress and more about judgement.

Following the 10 Commandments does not reproduce a spiritual nature or create spiritual progress. I think this message/opinion is in direct conflict with what the Christian church teaches that I grew up in. When the 10 commandments are not internalized, it creates an actor “acting”, not a true spiritual person, one that is an authentic reflection of what on the inside. Like an actor these people are playing a role, they are playing a character they are not that character.

Here we run into a major problem. If the 10 Commandments do not point the way then what does? What is wise counsel for attaining spiritual progress. Since being an actor is (to some degree) not the path, I would ask you to consider that discovering your own authenticity is an important piece for making spiritual progress.

Another important pieces to focus on that which creates compassionate change on the inside instead of change on the outside. This is what authenticity is about. When one is able to discover our true inner selves and act in congruency with that, this is when we become authentic.

Another important piece of the path is that this is an inward journey. This means that this is an inward looking journey at oneself where we ask the questions of who are we and why are we doing what we do. This is not a journey of comparing ourselves to others. This is not a journey of making ourselves look good. This is a journey of comparing yourself to yourself! Are you making yourself better?

This is a journey of casting off everything that we are not. Admitting our mistakes and acknowledging our personal foibles and then working to correct them. This is a journey about being coming better than we were. Instead of comparing to others we need to compare to who we were last year and be honest about whether or not we have made progress. This is the journey of authenticity.

So far of what I have given you are concepts and more general descriptions. It is time to turn my attention to describing more specifics about the direction of the inward looking spiritual journey.

It is important to 1st understand that we are focus oriented beings. This means that energy flows where attention goes. Another way to say that is, that what we put our focus on is what we begin to manifest.

But now I must clear up the word manifest. For something to “manifest” it will first come into creation on the energetic level long before anything is seen on the physical level.

A simple example of this, is wanting to create a new and better way to transfer letters (written communication). An inventor first focuses on the idea of transferring letters without using the post office. As one spend time doing this ideas begin to pop up that can be tried. The time spent doing this can be writing, reading, playing, thinking, meditating, discussing with others, researching ideas trying to implement ideas and finally improving those ideas. This is literally how the idea of fax machines came into use.

This then is the core:

1) How to assist focus:

Use the mind to:

write

read,

play,

think,

tinker,

meditate,

discussing with others,

research ideas,

implement ideas,

improving ideas

The longer someone focuses on a specific thought form the more likely it is to eventually come into creation in the physical form.

So how do we apply this to the inward spiritual journey? We need to use our time in the above activities to focus on what is permanent not what is temporary. This then is the primary difference between an outward focus journey and an inward focused journey. The outward focused journey is on material things, Material things are not permanent. The inward focused journey is on non-material things. These non-material concepts would be concepts like love, freewill, balance, the soul, creation, the creator, infinity, timelessness, conscious evolution. Anything that belongs to the realm of forever.

2) What to focus on:

love,

freewill,

balance,

the soul,

creation,

the creator,

infinity,

timelessness,

conscious evolution

As you practice the ability to focus on a single thing you strengthen your ability to focus. As you practice, you lengthen the time you can stay focused without other thoughts coming in.

Because energy goes where our focus goes. Asking a question and staying focused on it is a simple method of receiving an answer (eventually).

This then is creation, the act of focusing your attention.