Spiritual
Balance
“Spiritual
balance is the principle that allows the mind to be still. You cannot
expect the world to settle down, everything to work out, in order for
you to be happy. You have to get control of your mind.”
Frederick
Lenz
Finding balance in any
arena of life is not easy. Work, play, food, sleep, finances, all are
fraught by too much or too little. So spiritual balance—or
imbalance, as it may be—is no different. And since I haven't found
it myself, I will not try to instruct anyone else. I have found,
however, that it helps me to take breaks—imagine that! It helps to
stop in the midst of a busy day, sit down and collect myself. If you
are able to meditate, this is the time to do it. Reading a little,
dozing a little, brings the temperature of the brain down to a less
exaggerated state of stimulation. And that is what balance is all
about—getting control of our thoughts and where they take us
emotionally.
Since we are living
through times of heightened anxiety, we all need breaks from
immersion in the world. It's not selfish to take breaks—it's
self-preserving. No one can be at their best, and therefore capable
of contributing to solutions by problem-solving, if they are overly
anxious. Getting a cooler head is key.
The world is unlikely to
settle down any time soon. For the first time in my life, I envy the
life my grandparents and great-grandparents lived—agrarian. They
got up each day and worked hard, in fields and at home. They could
see the product of their labor, and watch its progress. They knew
what to expect. At night, they were physically tired, which made
sleep long and deep. They did not immerse themselves in the goings on
in Washington, DC, or anywhere else except in the fields of their own
labor and in their own communities. There was only the evening news
on radio or television, not a twenty-four-seven partisan cycle. When
the world was at war, they had an opportunity to contribute to the
cause even if they never saw a battlefield. There was balance in
their approach to life based on common sense and real conditions.
I think we have to find
that balance for ourselves. We can't go back to my grandparents' day,
but we can make choices that help us to tone down the noise, and gain
control of our own minds. We can stop watching and listening to every
word and conflicting story while our heads swivel back and forth, not
knowing what is real and what is not. We can take breaks and keep our
information limited in time and coming from sources we trust to be
unbiased. And we can find ways of contributing that work for us,
rather than being manipulated into feeling guilty when we can't do
anything more.
Balance. In our modern
world, it's not a given. We have to find it for ourselves. And we can
do that if we give it some thought, and a little bit of planning. It
helps to remember that the world is still a beautiful place, love is
still better than hate, and that all things have a beginning, a
middle, and an end. Hang in there and help one another.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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