Spiritual Evolution - Ultimate Goal

Ultimate Goal

 

 

I grew up in Sioux Falls, SD in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I was introduced to sports a very young age. There wasn’t much on our TV, which was black and white and only got 4 channels. I spent most of my time outside with other kids in the neighborhood. We were either down at the creek playing who knows what or down at the river (Big Sioux) catching crawdads and collecting leeches between our toes and on our legs. Or we were going to a practice of some type or another. As a child I was involved in basketball, football (tackle), softball, which eventually evolved into baseball. My dad was usually our coach. My younger brother also took part in all of the above mentioned sports with me. And every year we were playing for the city championship, regardless of the sport, and we, more often than not, won those games. Winning was a way of life for my brother and me as well as well as my dad. This involvement continued all the way through high school, which was in De Smet, SD. The winning continued on even in high school.

As you can see I was very ingrained with the whole sports thing from a very young age and I encourage my kids to get involve with sports. Although the final decision to do so or not lies ultimately with them. This goes with all aspects of their live. I usually, OK always, add that where they are today, is nothing more than the accumulation of all the decisions (conscious and/or subconscious) they have made in the past.

My life in De Smet pretty much consisted of sports girls, beer and of course cars. From a very young age up until my mid 30’s, my life was pretty much focused only on the spiritual aspects of this life. I spent an incredible amount of time and energy, and yes money, trying to get whatever I could for myself. It was always about me. I was always looking for ways to make myself feel better about myself in the eyes of others. Of course most of the time I would do this without trying to intentionally hurt anyone else, but sometimes it didn’t work out that way. Then there were times when I really didn’t care whether I hurt someone or not. For instance: I had a girlfriend in high school, but as the end my high school career drew near, I got tired of having the same girlfriend. You know, the grass is always greener on the other side, syndrome. I used the excuse that I was going into the army and heading over to Germany to get rid of her. Of course there was another girlfriend in the picture shortly after dumping her and prior to me leaving for Germany. This one said she would wait for me, which, of course, never happened. Looking back, I see now that I treated these young ladies as possession’s that could be tossed aside. I also came to the realization that I was not a nice person then. About a year or so later I came to find out that one of those girls had gotten an abortion, and told everyone it was mine. To this day, I still don’t know the whole story behind that.

I did eventually go over to Germany and spent one year there. I then came back to the U.S. and was stationed in Ft. Hood for a couple of years. During this little stint I probably could have been considered a functional alcoholic. There would be times when I would stay up drinking till 3 A.M. and get up at 6 the next morning for PT (physical training) and work till 4 in the afternoon. Then start all over again. On the weekends, I pretty much stayed inebriated. My major focus in life, as it is evident, was alcohol. To be more specific, that wonderful German bier. Not to say that cars and girls were not up there on my list of priorities, because I did go out and purchase a Chevy Z28 Camaro with T-tops. The car obviously bought with the belief I would get girls with it. So I was cruising around in my car, drinking and trying to pick up cute girls where the opportunity presented itself.

Then came the time to re-enlist. I said I would never do this, but the offered me $20k to do so if I went into the military intelligence. But before I could sign on the dotted line to get into the military intelligence I had to take some language test, which by the way, was a made up language. Apparently I scored relatively high on the test, because instead of getting one of the two languages I wanted (Spanish or Italian), I got stuck with Arabic. One of the 3 most difficult languages on the planet. So I spent the better part of the following 2+ years going to school from 8 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon learning Arabic. It really wasn’t a bad gig. I got to live at the DLI (defense language institute), which was located on a hill side outside of Monterey, CA, on the ocean. They put us in two man air conditioned dorm rooms with carpeting. Probably some of the best and most expensive real estate in the country. I was in heaven. Girls everywhere and I was basically going school with no other responsibilities. And after 3 during the week and all weekend I could go where ever I wanted and do almost anything I wanted to. I wasn’t used to seeing women in the military, since my prior units were combat units. Needless to say I wasted most of my time drinking, cruising in my car and trying to pick up cute girls.

This pattern continued till I met my wife to be at Ft. Stewart in Georgia. Still did a lot of drinking, but didn’t have to chase women anymore. My wife and I were wed in Minnesota and our honeymoon at that time consisted of an overnight stay at our motel. We had to fly back to Georgia so my wife of one day could deploy to the Middle East 9 days later to take part in desert storm. I spent the first 9 months or so by myself while my wife served her country in the Middle East. I know you are wondering why I didn’t deploy to the Middle East as well. I was fortunate to receive my honorable discharge 4 months prior to the deployment took place. Upon her return to the good ‘ole US of A, I moved back to Georgia where we stayed until her honorable discharge. While living in Georgia and working a couple of different jobs, I decided I wanted to become a chiropractor (for the money, at least I thought so at the time). We then moved to Davenport, IA, where we lived for 6+ years while I completed my doctorate degree in chiropractic. After moving several times (due to a multitude of reasons) we finally wound up in the gorgeous Black Hills of South Dakota, where we currently reside. The reason I went through a brief history of my life was to show you that I, like most people, was only concerned about one thing and one thing only. And that, of course, was me. I drank because it made me feel good and forget my troubles. I went out with women because they made me feel good. I also married my absolutely wonderful wife, not only because I love her dearly and still do to this day, but because she made me feel good when I was with her. I was completely dominated by my ego. Always chasing the almighty dollar and all the “things” I could get with it. I, like most people, was looking for happiness in all the wrong places. I was fortunate, however; to find true love and to this day am extremely grateful for that. I had finally come to the realization that true happiness must come from within.

My question to you now is this: What is your ultimate goal in life? Are you inspired or motivated? What is the driving force behind the decisions you make throughout the course of a day, month or year? When a person is motivated they are listening to and following the guidance of the ego. When a person is inspired they are in touch with “the universe”. They do what they are doing from an altruistic perspective. In other words, they do it because it is the right thing to do and because it will benefit them in any way shape or form. These and many more topics will be addressed as we move forward toward the ultimate goal. You can take what you like and leave what you don’t. All I as is that you read with an open mind and even more importantly, an open heart. Please leave the brain and its best friend out of it, if at all possible.

What I have learned, in my short but eventful life, is this: Where I am today and what I am today is an accumulation of the choices that I have made in the past, as alluded to earlier. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I was like the majority of the people in this country. This thing that happened to me because of so and so. That person did this to ruin this and that in my life. It is everyone else’s fault for all the bad things that happen to me throughout my life. It cannot be mine because I didn’t want those bad things to happen. What it all boils down to is the quality of our current life is equal to the quality of our past choices. There is, however; another factor that must be considered as well, and that is the intent behind our choices. People do a multitude of good “things” throughout the course of their lives, but if the bottom line is to increase ones material gains and boost their ego, then we truly move nowhere nearer our ultimate goal.

You are probably wondering at this point what I mean by ultimate goal. Well, I would like you to think about it. Is it to amass fortunes, to be a nice person overall, to have a prestigious job, continually increase your public status, etc., etc…? All of these can be a means to an end or they can just be an end. In my opinion, if a person does not use the abundance (yes all of it) in their lives to aid those who lack, then those people are moving away from the ultimate goal. The way I see it, we are all trying to find our way back to whence we originated. That of course being our Creator. We can, however, use those things to build a bridge back to our Creator. There are multiple opportunities out there, every day to do the right thing and take those steps up the spiritual ladder. No matter how small the steps are, the point is we continually move in the right direction. That direction being toward our ultimate goal, God. God provides us with every tool we shall ever need or want to flourish and build that bridge. But we can just as easily use those tools provided to us to dig a hole and anchor ourselves in the world of materialistic desires, mired in egoism. There is no such thing as staying in one place throughout ones existence. We either advance or retreat and the choices we make decide which path you will take. Spiritual or egoistic.  People who amass fortunes, I’m not saying that is a bad thing, have a choice to make every day. Is all that money in their account going to be used to increase their already vast fortunes? Or are they going to use the abundance they have accumulated to benefit others? I mean seriously; how much is enough? I have heard many a people say that once they have accumulated X amount of dollars, they are going to retire. And yet when that objective is reached they decide it is not enough and go on accumulating. I have heard some very wealthy people talk about those that don’t have what they have is due to their “lack” mentality. They say that there is abundance in the universe and you can never out give it (true enough). And yet these people put away money to retire on when they finally, if ever, decide to truly retire. These people talking about never out giving the universe are using this law with pure egoistic desires and this is what I was talking about previously. If the intent behind the giving is because you will receive more for doing so, then this is building more attachments to the things of this world and following the advice of one’s ego. Scripture states that we are not to store up goods here on earth where they can be stolen and moth eaten, but to store up goods in heaven where nothing of this world can touch it. For where your treasure so will your heart be (Matthew 6:19). These people are called motivated individuals. But what if they were inspired (in spirit)? Now these individuals would be working and amassing fortunes for the sole purpose of using that fortune for the aid of others. One difference between doing inspired work and motivated work is that when a person is doing inspired work they really have no need to retire. Why would they retire from such work? When we do inspired work, we never get tired of doing it, and the work never makes us tired. Case in point; Mother Theresa. Motivated people on the other hand can work themselves into exhaustion and often do. I would also like to point out that the motivated people believe that everything they have come by is by them and them alone. Whereas the inspired people know and don’t care that they are just doing God’s work for Him. They are only His instruments. On top of all that you can rest assured that when you are doing God’s work for Him, you will always be taken care of. Besides if one quits doing inspired work, one would have to step out of spirit, become uninspired. To put it clearly, why would anyone want to disconnect from God? Remember the ultimate goal? Can you see what I mean? If we were doing work that God has chosen for us to do and we were in-His-spirit, why stop? EVER?!

To help you get a grip on this maybe you should ask yourself the question of, “Who am I”? And I do not mean your name, lineage, job title or placement in life. But who are you really? Scriptures state that our bodies are nothing more than temporary dwellings for our souls.