JIM BURKLO

THE FOUR SPIRITUAL AWES

C 2009

email: jtburklo@yahoo.com

JIMBURKLO.COM

How do you want to live?

What would it be like to live an AWESOME life?

An awesome life is filled with:

1.) Awe for _________(God, Nature, the Universe, Allah, Atman, Great Spirit, the Christ, Cosmic Compassionate Consciousness, Ultimate Reality, etc).When we discover the Awesome One in the everyday world around us, we are filled with joyful, worshipful wonderment. The Awesome One is beyond the capacity of words to describe, beyond being named with any one name, too awesome to fit exclusively into any one philosophy or religion.

2.) Awe for compassion. Our awe for the Awesome One makes us humble, and this enables us to feel and practice an awesome kindness toward all beings. Our humility keeps us aware that our fellow creatures are fragile and precious, needing our loving attention. If we have awe for the Source of all life, then we treat life reverently.

3.) Awe for freedom. Our deep, powerful attraction to the Awesome One invites us to choose among many paths and purposes. There is no one predetermined plan for each of our lives. We can be guided by our powerful inner attraction toward the Awesome One as we continually make and change our plans. We are in awe of the unique creative potentials given to each of us by the Source of our lives.

4.) Awe for discovery. We are always too amazed by the Awesome One to claim full knowledge of its essence or its purposes. So we remain humbly curious about its awesome ways and workings, eager to learn more through every kind of inquiry. The more we learn, the more awestruck we become, and the more we want to learn.

How do YOU want to live? You have a choice.

If you put yourself at the center of your life, what happens? Do you obsess about how other people affect you? Do you worry about how you look, how others think about you? Do spend a lot of time thinking about your future - what you'll get, what you'll do? Are you focused on your possessions - what you have, what you want to own? What is it like if you make yourself the center of your life - living as if everything and everybody else revolves around you, as if you were the center of the universe?

Is this what you want?

But if you put the Awesome One at the center of your life, what is that like? Do you begin to see that others are no less or more awesome than you are? Do you feel like you share a common life with other people and even other creatures and things around you? Does that help you feel love and compassion for them? Does that improve your relationships with others? Does that help you love yourself more? Do you feel joy and wonder and amazement? Do you feel the urge to be creative? Do you feel like you have a task in life, a purpose to serve others in a special way?

Is this what you want?

If you choose to put Awe at the center of your life, instead of yourself, you have joined the company of the seekers and saints of all the great world spiritual traditions, in all places and in all ages. Find a community of people to support you in your quest to make Awe the focus of your life: a church, temple, mosque, or other Awe-focused group of people who are open-hearted and open-minded.

BOOKS BY JIM BURKLO:

BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS: Meditations, Prayers, Poems, and Songs for Progressive Christians, book (St Johann Press 2008)

OPEN CHRISTIANITY: Home by Another Road, book (Rising Star/St Johann 2000)