Tolstoy’s Pleasure

October 5, 2012 at 10:26 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism ·

Sincerest apologies for the break in posting my insights from meditating on my quotes for the day. The past month has been one of tremendous upheaval. Virtually everything in my life now looks completely different than it did a month ago (from the outside looking in). This has been a process of bringing my external life into synchronicity with my inner transformations of this past year.

The results of these changes have brought about pain, suffering, high anxiety, sorrow, hope, inspiration … and pleasure.

The latter is what I am meditating on today. Pleasure is certainly an evocative word … instantly painting portraits on the canvas of our minds portraying conjugally inspired manifestations. We don’t even have to try, just the word “pleasure” automatically inspires these pictures.

That’s too easy though. True pleasure goes far deeper than a furtive caress, and is more satisfying than any form of luxurious undulation. Any person, at any stage of enlightenment, can enjoy such forms of pleasure. Physical pleasure is merely the appetizer … no, not even that … it is the passed hors d’oeuvre at the cocktail party of life before you even get home to start experiencing the true pleasures to come.

So how do we get beyond experiencing pleasure at just the physical level? To begin this journey we first have to look at our motivations for forming the lives we have created. If we want to enjoy emotional pleasure, and even beyond that to spiritual pleasure, we must discover who our True Self is.

Why are we making the decisions that we make? Are we merely the puppet of past insecurities, experiences, and tragedies? If these things are the motivating force driving our actions, then we will never move beyond simple physical pleasure … and we will never truly know real happiness.

As Tolstoy observed, from one of my quotes for the day today, true happiness comes from pleasure without regret. So what does that mean in our lives today. Here is an example that many people can relate to:

Imagine a person who lost the influence of one of their parents as a child; whether through divorce, death, abandonment, or sheer negligence. Because of this they have a great wound. Most children don’t know how to allow healing to take place for such a deep wound. So for the rest of their life they wander around making decisions that they think will heal this great wound. They seek validation from places they might not normally have gone. They make relationships with people they might not normally have had natural chemistry with. They develop a personality that is in reaction to their great wound.

Do you see how great of a structure they have built, and subsequently carry around for a lifetime?? All in the name of trying to find relief from that great wound. That is only ONE issue … many of us have several!

It is impossible to experience those deeper levels of pleasure … levels that God truly WANTS to pleasure us on … when we are caught up in such webs from our past.

To truly decide to live a life of receiving and giving pleasure on those deeper levels we must be able to let go of these old patterns and habits that hold us back.

We must decide to bring pleasure into our lives on a daily basis … instead of deciding to try and fix or heal those ancient wounds. Those awful things happened … you can’t fix or change them.

Just let them go. Accept them for what they are, and LET GO. Only then can we begin to move forward into the life God wants for us … a life of pure, unadulterated PLEASURE.

Peace and Love.

~~~~~~~~

Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!

There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.

By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach

Comments