We long for eternal life, which we know doesn’t exist in the human body, yet we frantically strive for it while here in our bodies. But if we go the other direction and deny the importance of our physical lives, as some religious people may do, because we sense our souls will live forever, we miss the point of God’s plan: we’re here to infiltrate the void—to spiritualize matter…Even if we’re only able to dip our small toe into this notion, we’ll have a new understanding of what it means to ‘be in the world, but not of the world’…
The more we ramp up our commitment—and really mean it—and make an effort every day to find our blocks and distortions, the more energy and excitement we will feel…But if we focus on selfish ends, we’ll be more insecure, battling a frightening sense that life is meaningless. Here’s the vicious circle. Life is meaningless, we push selfishly for minor fulfillments, we feel divorced from Christ, and life feels more meaningless. Then we wonder why we feel depressed…
Some of us have climbed off this hamster wheel, but we’re still only making a half-hearted effort. We’ve got one foot in heaven and the other on a banana peel…In truth, if we dedicate our life and talents to God, we will flourish in our daily life. Best yet, our splits will heal and unify, so unbelief will turn to belief, fear to trust, hate to love, ignorance to wisdom, separateness to union, and death to eternal life. Holy palooza…
When we’re weak and won’t stand up to evil in others—when we won’t fight for the truth—we’re encouraging evil. We’re saying the perpetrator isn’t that bad, that it’s OK and maybe smart, and see, other people also support it. We fear that if we stand up for decency and exposing the evil, we’ll be the one who gets ridiculed. We sell out in order to not be rejected…
So here’s something interesting to ponder: the active principle in distortion—as murderous and harmful as it might be—is never able to cause as much damage as the receptive, passive principle in distortion…So the lowliest attribute on the bad-ways-to-be scale of humanity is not to be hateful, it is laziness…
Some of us believe that laziness means to be restful and that to be active is to be exhausted. On this, we’ve got our wires crossed…It’s in the active motion that we build and create, change and grow. As we adjust to this movement, we find it enjoyable and relaxing…
The void is totally stagnant and inert; it needs the enlivening power of the spirit to penetrate it. And this can’t be achieved by holding back…On a spiritual path of self-confrontation and self-discovery, we will need to make an effort. We need to push through the inertia that wants to keep us in resistance to our own growth process. We must actively confront the exact nature of our laziness. And more importantly, see how we rationalize it in order to keep on indulging it…
Wherever we feel weak, confused and unfulfilled, bouncing between giving in and putting up a fight, our inner house is divided. We are not yet walking straight in the world. The path to true autonomy involves surrendering our will to God’s will…Part of the course-correction process most definitely will require a bolt of courage.
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Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #244 “Be in the World but Not of the World” – The Evil of Inertia
