Ep. 190 - Deserving

Sometimes in life, we are presented with circumstances that we don't understand.  It becomes easy to fall into routines, habits, and behaviors that no longer serve us - or that are unhealthy coping mechanisms.  "There is no room for laziness.  Your body and mouth must be clean, you must be in a good frame of mind, and you cannot have uttered or done profane things."  

Links:   

• 365 Tao,  by Deng Ming-Dao

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Well, hi there, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today is Thursday, September 9th, 2021. This is episode number 190 of a show that is intended to provide insight and tools to help you build the life and homestead of your dreams. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. That's right, this is episode number 190. I believe I accidentally referred to yesterday's episode as 188, but I was mistaken. With that said, it's uh September 9th, like like I said, and it was chilly this morning, not as cold as it was earlier in the week or last week when it was 46 degrees. But there's a nip in the air, and there's some yellow in the tree lines in the distance, and fall is right around the corner. And it seemed like an appropriate time to pull out 365 Dao and see what the author Deng Ming Dao has to say on this 252nd day of the year. Prostrate before the altar. Are you worthy of your deity? Can you eliminate profanity and strive for constant adoration? It is not easy to worship. Simply going to a temple once a week to have a priest intercede on your behalf is not enough. True worship is a daily act of humbling yourself before your deity and offering a pure heart and holy words. A great holy leader came to my city once. He initiated 5,000 people into a simple practice of chanting. Since that time, it has been a struggle to keep up 108 chants a night. There is no prospect of stopping, no chance of finishing. In the same way, all scriptures must be recited. That means daily devotion. Once you begin, you cannot stop for the rest of your life. There is no room for laziness. Your body and mouth must be clean. You must be in a good frame of mind. And you cannot have uttered or done profane things. We must be worthy of our deities. It doesn't matter if we are getting anything out of it. Whether there is a response is secondary. The mere act of devotion is its own reward. It brings transformation. Well, not really expecting something of a spiritual lean, that is precisely where the author took us today. I was under the impression that if I picked this up, there would be some reference towards nature or the cyclical manner of the seasons. But it turns out I was mistaken. So let's dive into that. It most certainly is not easy to worship. And although the author comes at this from an Eastern perspective, and I practice worship and religion from a stereotypical Western Christian perspective, there is no difference, in my opinion. I believe that worship in a group setting is integral for growth and development of a person, oneself, and also growth and development of one's society and one's environment. And oftentimes that means stepping outside of your own comfort zone to attend and participate in services of something that doesn't align 100% with what your particular ideology is and your particular worship style is. But that's okay because we are where we are in the current environment that we are in because we have chosen to be there for whatever reason, and it may be easier to find our spiritual home in a different location, but in living there, we sacrifice many of the things that we have where we currently are. And that's okay. But what do you do that could be considered devotional? Anything? There's there is something to be said for quiet time in the morning. Dan Miller refers to it as the golden hour, but I believe he is simply sharing that which was referred to the golden hour, perhaps by Henry Ward Beecher. And in that time, the first thing in the morning, we can use that time for journaling, collecting our thoughts, exercise, preparation for the day. That is very important. And I understand that we all have different things going on in life. Life on life's terms, as Dave Ramsey calls it, and it may be very difficult to do that. It may be very challenging to find your own golden hour in the morning based on your life, based on your schedule, based on your family obligations, based on your work, whatever. But you are important enough. In fact, you are the most important person in your own life. And if that's something that doesn't really click with you, I would encourage you to think about it. And if that doesn't if that doesn't sit well with you, tell me why in the chat group and let everyone else know why too. I mean, I'm not looking to start an argument, but I am looking to start dialogue. And that's something that we don't oftentimes have the ability to do in this time, 2021. Engage in dialogue with people who have an opinion that's different than ours, but maintain that dialogue in a civil and respectful way. It's a lost art conversation for Christ's sake. At any rate, if you don't think that you are the most important person in your life, hit us up in the telegram chat, t.me slash allaroundgrowth. But I believe I'm the most important person in my life. And it took me some time to actually reach that conclusion. It took even more time for me to feel confident and comfortable in communicating that out loud. It seems somewhat selfish and arrogant to proclaim I am the most important person in my life. But I liken this to putting on your oxygen mask in a plane that's having some turbulence or problems. We want to make sure that we put our own oxygen mask on first so that we can help others put theirs on after. You must be in a good frame of mind. Where in life are you lazy? Where in life do you find yourself having an unclean body and mouth? Why? For me, I find myself using profanity when I'm stressed and when I'm feeling lazy. Profanity is an easy way to utilize quick. It's something that we say. And if our actions are seen as profane as well, it's something that we do, but oftentimes something done without a whole lot of thought or consideration put into it. I've never really given too much thought or consideration into profanity. It's been discussed here and there and brought up here and there, and certain people that I know and read about have tried to make a concerted effort to eliminate the use of profanity in their lives. And I've thought that to be interesting, but I've never really felt compelled to do that. I almost like having that edgy nature in my disposition and my vernacular. Because I know that I have the capability to use words above and beyond those of the profane, but still at times I choose to incorporate them into my day-to-day speech. Well, that change I don't know. Perhaps there's a lot of change on the horizon. After the meeting with functional medicine yesterday, there's a lot of change that I wasn't really expecting or anticipating. For quite some time, I have thought that I've been engaging in healthy habits and lifestyle practices. And although I've spoken about the habits that aren't all that healthy that I've picked up lately, such as smoking tobacco and increased consumption of alcohol. This idea of functional medicine has been on my radar for approximately four years now. And much like the idea of naturopathy, before I decided to jump into either one with both feet, I decided to take some steps to improve my own health and wellness before doing so in order to optimize the experience so that I can already have a decent knowledge base going into this. And I feel confident about doing that. Or having done that. And I feel confident about where I am today. So as we move forward, think about things, simple things, like the elimination of profanity, making change in your life. Because if we do that with consistency and we do it as part of our routine, that small change adds up and turns into big change. And ultimately, lifestyle change. And that is it for today's episode, my friends. As you can hear from the background, we are here at the farm. And it's been a wide variety of topics lately. This is. We've been kind of all over the map. From health and wellness to spirituality, computing. Talking about dark nights, sense of worth, a lot of talk about spirituality, stoicism, labels, fables, old stories, things like the Mexican fisherman. So if you're interested in any of that, there's notes to all episodes, or links to all episodes in the show notes, rather. There's also links to the all-around growth community, t.me slash all around growth. That's the chat group. But if chat groups aren't your thing, there is a broadcast channel so you can get the most up-to-date notifications to when new content is dropped. And you can see that at t.me slash all around growth podcast. There's also links to the book 365 DAO in the show notes as well. And there will be links to some other miscellaneous topics as well for your reference and pleasure. If you like what you hear, I would encourage you to share the show with a friend or loved one, or simply drop a link in social media. I'm not the best at self-promotion of the show because I'm interested in how this grows in a grassroots movement. I've had interaction with people all across the United States, in the UK, and based on the statistics I'm seeing, we've got some listeners in and throughout Europe as well. So shout out to all you guys across the pond. I really appreciate you tuning in. And if there's anything that you would like to hear, just drop me a line. I really appreciate the feedback and the correspondence that I get from you guys in the Telegram group, as well as via the email. And if you want to shoot me an email, if there's something you're not comfortable posting in a group setting around the forum, you can send me an email all around the world.