What's Your Passion?

[zeitgeist]

Some of you might have read the Passion Test, a book that makes the case for following your passions and living your dream day by day. I live by that philosophy, but I wonder how we can figure out which passions lead us to our destiny and which may lead us astray from our Spiritual Path. Just because a holy book or a guru tells you something shouldn't be done, doesn't mean it is wrong for you. Conversely, just because something feels good does not mean it is your destiny. As always, the choice is up to you and it is actually not quite as daunting as it seems. You can reevaluate your choice every day as you live your passion while following your spiritual intuition.

Take Arnold Schwarzenegger as an example. Had he believed that "You are not your body", most of us wouldn't have realized how much we can create the body we aspire. Similarly, Madonna might not live up to her name when it comes to spiritual self-development, yet her "Express Yourself" theme gave energy to millions of people. How can their chosen path not have been their well-deserved destiny.

The Spiritual Path in the end is about overcoming your ego, and all desires are more or less tainted by it. My approach is that if you can't beat your ego, let him work for you. Over the last year I have embraced my work with new vigor, despite the fact that my ego-drive for professional success is probably unabated. Essentially, I view my current job in the financial industry as a stepping stone for my next career as a spiritual writer and life consultant. I work on my writing skills, and try to master my ways to connect and communicate. I even practice a few metaphysical tricks just to convince myself, and later others, that you can thrive professionally while putting your ego at bay. I don't think I had ever as much fun doing what I am doing than today.

Reflections

[Poiesis Hagakure]

kudos to you. You are making the most of your position in life now, and have aspirations for the future. I have grown into a hodgepodge of spirituality but lately have heavily read from Buddhist writers. I have grown a great appreciation for the concept that "the universe unfolds exactly as it should." -Desiderata

I really appreciate the few things I've learned of Taoism, too. I would say that, thrown in the mix, is a lot of existentialism as well [ahem, Sexistentialism, as I am graciously indebted to these forums for teaching me as a word. oh right, putting my serious mask back on]. I was raised from birth in a strongly religious family. My younger brother and sister would argue with me as all brothers and sisters do, and we would preach moral imperatives and religious maxims to each other. ah, the vigor of youth in being RIGHT!

After a few years at college I left the family's religious class. I couldn't really articulate why I left. I knew it was right, for me, to stop attending... yet I loved [and still love] the members as people. They are some of the most caring and loving people in the world. I realized much later, and as a result of some of the things that they were directly teaching, that I was not attending the classes because I wanted to. I went there because I was use to it and because it was a community I slothfully identified with. I was not involved in my own spirituality. It was a motion I went through. It was a symptom of how I lead my life. I let others make most judgment calls and value decisions. I was not my own person but a spineless, fake person, wandering in a sea of principled and unprincipled living. In ending my attendance of the religious class, I was on the right path to starting to live more honestly with myself and eventually with others. Your word has to mean something to you before it can mean anything to another.

In this manner I have sought to grasp the existential reality--- the one I create, each day--- and to make it my own. Having previously defined every action in life, and answered every unanswerable question with the thoughts provided me by that religious class, the first year of life after leaving the religious class was exactly as Sartre's La Nausée is described on wikipedia: "all that he encounters in his everyday life is suffused with a pervasive, even horrible, taste — specifically, his freedom." Jean-Paul Sartre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Those answers were no longer provided simply for me. There were, as it appeared to me for the first time, some questions that seemed unanswerable, impertinent, or just plain out of touch. I was forced to abandon a lot of the religious methodologies of reasoning conflict in life, or of simply casting people to the side as 'ignorant.' Most religions utilize this concept---- all others are unworthy, ignorant.

Through the Celestine Prophecy, many books on buddhism & taoism, and the book the Essential Crazy Wisdom .... [a true delight, one rafiki from the lion king probably read] .... I've found for the first time something greater than existentialism in creating reality. The interconnectedness of everything and everyone is so apparent yet disregarded. This concept alone would bring much peace and understanding to the world, if there was one thing we all could take up as a practice for our minds, immediately.

This is my passion: to continually redefine and assess reality, to assess the various disconnects in the definitions of words and what those words point to in reality, to continually redefine and learn other flavors of the words I use and to expand my vocabulary, to learn others' realities and wisdoms in the beautiful moments that they slip out, and to empower others.

Although I have not focused on the term ego very much I can say quite strongly that my end result [of today's existence] would be the same if I had. The topic of interconnectedness it its infinite forms is humbling, to say the least.

You mention in the last paragraph your desire to be a spiritual writer and life consultant. You also mention your practicing writing, communicating, connecting with others all while pursuing your work with new vigor. You view your current job as a stepping stone to these jobs where you feel you can do healthy, productive work in improving peoples' lives and senses of spirituality. Where is the ego in this? Where is the unabated ego in making each moment productive, in denying yourself stagnancy and articulating your passions and takings steps towards them?

You also said in the last paragraph, "The Spiritual Path in the end is about overcoming your ego, and all desires are more or less tainted by it." Is your desire to help others on a spiritual path then tainted by ego? Or, is your desire to help others a moral, beautiful objection to the way people allow themselves to be stagnant?

I've already spent two hours in writing this but I feel compelled to bring up upsilamba. I love the word upsilamba, and I've written about it in the earlier posts on my blog. I feel your desire to help others is simply an effect of you listening to your inner, personal upsilamba. Don't stop .... get it get it ....

[zeitgeist]

Dear Poiesis Hagakure,

many thanks for your thoughtful reply. As a general remark, it seems to me that you are on a great path. Enjoy every step of the way!

Before you explain upsilamba to me, can you explain Sexistentialism first; sounds like an intriguing concept.

You asked about the ego involvement at my current job. I feel that my self-defined mission is a great way to give spiritual meaning to what I am doing. Still, with every thought, word or guesture, I still have to figure out who the driving force is. Just because you are building hospitals in Africa or give spiritual lectures to millions does not guarantee that you are not driven by your ego. But this issue sounds more serious than it is. I have fun at what I am doing. Like you, I look for syncronicity and strange coincidences to look for confirmation that I am on the right track. I also need people: they are a great mirror to reflect my true intentions right back to me.

May your path be blessed,

Zeitgeist

[SimonaRich]

If you have a passion, that clearly shows your path, it never gets you to the wrong side. That's why passion exists in the first place - to guide us to our purpose in life.

[Poiesis Hagakure]

haha! The words fit together really well. Existentialism is an appropriate philosophy for the events that take place in one's bed. or car, or wherever .... the ability to create meaning is paramount.

There was another thread on this forum site in which people took a personality test, and there were a lot of people who had existentialism and hedonism at the top of their list of qualities. Someone coined the term sexistentialist, and I don't think i'll ever forget it.

Which philosophy do you follow? (QUIZ)

Upsilamba is a word without a definition. I wrote a nuanced description of the word, and what i think it means, a little bit ago. lemme find it...

UPSILAMBA: A subtle creation of Vladomir Nabokov's, in "Invitation to a Beheading." The society condemning the main character Cincinnatus is said to be incapable of understanding this upsilamba. Reading from page 23:

"...Those around him understood each other at the first word, since they had no words that would end in an unexpected way, perhaps in some archaic letter, an upsilamba, becoming a bird or a catapult with wondrous consequences. In the dusty little museum on Second Boulevard where they used to take him as a child, and where he himself would later take his charges, there was a collection of rare, marvelous objects, but all the townsmen except Cincinnatus found them just as limited and transparent as they did each other. That which does not have a name does not exist. Unfortunately everything had a name."


The last two lines are particularly insidious. Nabokov's tale is precise with regards to Cincinattus's crime: he dared to think for himself, and he dared to think those things not already named. He dared to think upsilamba! The phrase is revisited in Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran." Nafisi was a teacher of literature in Iran, but she was so much more than that. She spoke of her early affection for revolutionary ideals and then the realities of life after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In speaking to her students about upsilamba she asks them, what does it mean to you?

Although Nabokov only describes upsilamba as an unexpected letter with which to end a word giving rise to glorious consequences, I think Nafisi found upsilamba within herself and hearkened. Although her vocation was teacher of literature, it was as a compassionate human being understanding the nature of ideological suppression that she invited her close friends (out of her students) to her home to read Lolita and other banned books. This was a crime they all could have been jailed & beaten for, but upsilamba, that personal gravity of truth, spoke too clearly to the group in her home. I think upsilamba is a personal singularity of truth. I think upsilamba is a seeker of definition. You can choose to listen and pursue truth actively or you can choose to just get by and ignore such lofty ideals as truth, and drift through the motions of life without any need for comprehension, meaning, or purpose.

---------------------------------------------------
Since writing that, I've had many strange moments of humor-intuition concerning upsilamba. I've been writing short poems again and it's the first time in years I've written poetry.

One pipe dream I think about a lot is the possibility of starting a private school later in life emphasizing many non-traditional methods of learning and engagement with the children. In having this new word, upsilamba, in my vocabulary it took the place of some other words. The gentle reasoning behind one of these moments of humor-intuition was the phrase [and its brothers and sisters]: "follow your nose." In explaining my understanding of the word upsilamba, mostly from its contexts in the two books, I then grew to acknowledge its universal incapability to be defined, & its personal capability to be defined. We each travel our own journey. We each flavor, season, and weather our passions. We each seek & follow the path to our upsilamba.

The moment of humor-intuition was.... you know the "I've got your nose" trick? well, jokingly doing that, except "I've got your upsilamba..." equating upsilamba with nose, in a joking manner akin to rafiki-speak. I love moments in which you can make the serious humorous, and vice-ah verse.

You are diligent in maintaining your watch, active. Could you describe what you mean by, in speaking of needing other people, "they are a great mirror to reflect my true intentions right back to me." I guess my question is, what is going on in that reflection process?

[zeitgeist]

Dear Simona,

I hear you and I understand that most would wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying but I am just not so sure. My motto would be follow your passions, but put them aside when you feel they start interfering with your spiritual evolution. Just because something feels right doesn't mean it is best for your spiritual development.

Many thanks,
Zeitgeist

[zeitgeist]

Dear Poiesis Hagakure,

it will be a pipe-dream if you think it is, and it will be a big success if you think it is. Nothing is out of reach for those who believe in themselves and their ideas, but I think you know this already.

Regarding your question, when I sit on my sofa thinking I have a hard time monitoring myself. I believe others can do that when they meditate, but for me the best way of monitoring myself is when I am interacting with other people. For example there could be that voice that shouts "I can't believe it, you just made an arrogant guesture". I also realize when I use any negative words or phrases just by watching the facial movements in other people or hearing their reactions. It is amazing how connected we all are. I have two little children and I have seen them responding to my thoughts, even when they were in a different room.

Hope this helps,

Zeitgeist

[Poiesis Hagakure]

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining.