For a deeper dive – over 500 posts on life, mind, body & spirit
Actually just popping in and out of Hyde Park in Chicago. I do love the diversity of Hyde Park and the features of the neighborhood. Take a look for yourself.
You may also like Autumn at Botanical Gardens and Be a Tourist in Your Own Town.
Yoga philosophy has been around for more than 2,500 years. The Yoga Sutra texts have been around in written form for at least 1,500 years. These texts describe the yogic path. They also provide helpful wisdom in understanding the nature of human beings. The Sutras describe four kinds of people along with how we should approach with them. While this advice isn’t absolute – it is an interesting point of departure and something to think about.
Yoga Sutra 1.33 lists four basic character dispositions of people: those who are happy, sad, virtuous or wicked.
Certainly people are more complex than this and people change all the time. Still, at its core, I think this is very wise advice. Particularly because it describes “approaching” people which by definition requires we assess, re-assess and possibly change our approach each time we encounter someone.
Regarding those we “seek out” – because we are persons in relationship with others, those very relationships help form who we become as human persons. In the end, who do you want to spend your time with?
You may also like Difficult People, Fill Your Life With Fabulous and Fundamentalism is Fatal.
Do you dream in color or in black and white? Today, as I remember last summer and Lake Superior’s shores, I dream in black and white.
You may also like Cabin Fever, Stillwater Stop and Duluth Day.
De-stress this holiday. Enjoy the season, including the scents and tradtions but in new ways. Check out these scented and spirited decorations – no tree required.
Creative holiday tree options – without the tree.
You may also like After Christmas Tree Hangover.
Fideism (pronounced “fee-day-ism”) is a Christian heresy that can best be explained as blind obedience to any external authority, be it educational, religious, governmental or even medical. Basically, whenever we make a decision because someone else told us we should, we have succumbed to fideism. We have handed over our own personal authority and choice to someone or something outside of ourselves.
Choices we make, must be made by learning as much as we can from others, but then ultimately discerning what God wants for us in the deepest interior of our hearts. Put another way, we must form our own conscience well, listen carefully (to those outside, but also to our interior) and then make our own decisions.
But fideism happens in other ways too. We often hear people say something like “I’ll be happy when . . .” fill in the dots; I get married, my spouse stops drinking, get that job, finish school, buy a house, have children, etc. Again, this is also fideism. When we do this we are handing over our own choice for happiness to an external person, situation or thing. Our choice for happiness is a decision that we make for ourselves. It is not dependent on exterior events, persons or situations. Our interior state is not dependent on exterior things.
Actually, you already know this, because we all know people who have been happy in spite of living in terrible situations. Think of Dietrich Boenhoffer or Nelson Mandella. Etty Hillesum is another example. Read her book An Interrupted Life for an uplifting look at a young woman who chooses for love and happiness in the midst of tragic circumstances.
Ultimately, we need to inform ourselves, face reality as it really is (and this is not always easy), listen to our own hearts, then make our own decisions.
You may also like Happiness is a Choice, What is Your Story? and Inner Peace – Healthy Self Talk.