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    Walking with Turtles: Mindfulness Stories For The Spiritual Journey
    Walking with Turtles: Mindfulness Stories For The Spiritual Journey
    Walking with Turtles: Mindfulness Stories For The Spiritual Journey
    Ebook180 pages54 minutes

    Walking with Turtles: Mindfulness Stories For The Spiritual Journey

    By Francis Valloor

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    About this ebook

    The usual concept of ‘spiritual growth’ presupposes a forward movement – from where you are to a more desirable state or goal called enlightenment, God or whatever.

    The sage in the book will turn your ideas of the spiritual life upside down. He insists that on the spiritual path there is nothing to practice, only something to understand. Indeed, he maintains that there is no such thing as a spiritual path. If a spiritual way has to organise itself into a system or requires practices for its fulfilment, it is no longer the way of freedom.

    The way of the Divine is a pathless one. If you listen to the sage, we go beyond the mind, beyond mindfulness, beyond dogma and rituals, beyond all the means and paths that are offered to us but are not our own, and walk a path that no one else has walked.

    So this whole spiritual life and practice is all an immense cosmic joke on us when we realise that, after all our travelling, we come back home to ourselves and find within what we searched without. It is then that we wake up to the tragic comedy of all our efforts and the irony of all our practices, prayers and penances.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFrancis Valloor
    Release dateJul 8, 2016
    ISBN9789385902291
    Walking with Turtles: Mindfulness Stories For The Spiritual Journey

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      Book preview

      Walking with Turtles - Francis Valloor

      Boundaries

      Trivia

      In the great journey of life, the sage said to a group of visitors, most people are busy with trivialities as life passes them by. They lapse into superficiality and mediocrity and busy themselves in petty concerns so their lives are not marked by any depth or vitality."

      To illustrate this, the sage told them the story of one of the men accompanying Columbus on his historic voyage of discovery of the western hemisphere. The man kept worrying all the time that he might not return to his village in time to succeed the old tailor. If the old man died before his return, someone else might take that job! the sage said.

      Community

      A visitor who had been a devout religious practitioner all his life had lately been having disconcerting doubts. The community of believers has been a support for me, he said. Now I find no succour there.

      What you call a community of believers is, in fact, an inward facing circle of reassurance, said the sage. A group of like minded people, who think alike, do the same things, have the same enemies, feel a sense of belonging and have the security of numbers.

      Surely a sense of belonging is a great support, the man protested.

      Until it stops you from turning around and stepping out of the circle and exploring the world, remarked the sage.

      Growth

      A school teacher said he was a follower of religion and tradition for they guided him in life and protected him from errors.

      That has also kept you in spiritual infancy, commented the sage.

      When can a person be said to have grown up? another man asked.

      When he prefers growth and freedom to being safe and thought of as being right, the sage said. For that he has to stand on his own feet and be guided by the light within, not by the rules from the outside.

      Goal

      The leader of a group that gathered regularly for singing, reading of scriptures and discussions said, I don’t feel these spiritual activities nourish me any longer. Yet I feel reluctant to leave such a well-knit group.

      If you walk with turtles, guess who sets the pace, the sage said. And how much exercise you’re likely to get.

      Illusion

      Many people are trying to live a spiritual life. Some turn to religion, some to spirituality and some to various therapies, a visitor asked. How is it that after years of these, many people still remain unaffected by their grand intentions and practices?

      The biggest blind spot of many travellers is the illusion that they have arrived just because they had once begun a journey or have some pious and pleasant feelings, the sage said. So they refuse to look at themselves closely and honestly.

      Obedience

      Your relationship with authority is a crucial mark of your maturity, the sage told his visitors one day. Blind obedience keeps you stuck. Rebellion keeps you related to what you fight."

      A listener asked, How can one know which authority is helpful and which one is not?

      Any authority that requires blind acceptance has to be rejected outright, the sage clarified. It takes a Buddha to say, ‘Do not accept blindly what other people tell you, not even the Buddha’. See what brings contentment, clarity and peace. That is the path you should follow.’

      Security

      Boundaries give you familiarity and security, said the sage. But staying inside it is stagnation and slow death."

      Are you speaking only of religion and spirituality? asked a listener.

      I’m referring to all of life. In religion, experiences harden into dogmas. In politics you have the party line. Science has its own dogmas and shibboleths, the sage said. Freedom is not found in staying within those fences but in venturing out of them.

      Questions

      I agree that staying within the confines of my own community and tradition is stifling, a young scholar said. But where do I begin?"

      By asking questions, the sage replied.

      What kind of questions?

      If human beings have discovered anything new, it was always by breaking boundaries and daring to ask two necessary questions, the sage replied. The first is – Why? And the second – Why not? When you ask these, the How follows.

      Comfort

      A scientist said that he feared God and observed the precepts of his religion faithfully. Though he had philosophical objections to the idea of God, he could not question it because he had to remain within his tradition.

      "Even when so much else in life has changed

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