Dogma and Ritual Do Not Equal Spirituality by Tina Erwin

There are endless books about the spiritual path. There are wonderful guidelines about what it means to be spiritual. There are great teachers who demonstrate spirituality by their life mission.

And then there is religion, which is supposed to epitomize the building concepts of control and power. It would appear that the trappings of religion equate to a very profound structure. The pillars of that structure are dogma and ritual.

When the Great Ones walked the Earth, none of them built a church. When the Great Ones sought to show us the way, none of them specifically wrote anything down and demanded that it be followed other than the Koran and the Ten Commandments, which were literally written in stone so they could not ever be edited. None of them demanded dogma or ritual to show their power.

It was the followers of the Great Ones who built the structures, created the dogma and invented the rituals that would define a particular religion based on what the current, second or third generation leader at that time felt was appropriate. Some of the rituals were appropriate for that time and place in history but no one was ever allowed to question them, so they could not ever be revised to accommodate ever-changing times.

Ritual is a specific way of doing something at a specific time with unique tools following unyielding guidelines. Ritual is rigid, uncompromising and unforgiving. Ritual carries with it the energy of power and associated fear. If you don’t perform the ritual in the exact manner, then somehow you have done a terrible thing and ‘God’ will not forgive you. No one is ever allowed to question whether or not the ritual actually ever does anything particularly spiritual for anyone.

There are very profound rituals that create a certain frequency and that have often been corrupted from their original intention. The original ‘Mystery Schools’ back in the mists of time, taught the physics of how these rituals worked and why they worked. They had a very specific purpose and a very deliberate outcome if performed properly. This is where the concept of the hand gestures called mudras came from, the use of essential oils, incense and prayers. However, along the way, many rituals became completely corrupted.

The original Mystery schools also taught the basic tenants of spirituality. These were eventually corrupted into guilt producing, stomach wrenching dogma. Being spiritual was originally believed to be able to take place anywhere, whether it was in a field of flowers, by the bedside of the sick or at your dinner table. Prayer was always appropriate and never limited to a specific grandiose building of wood and stone.

The concept of forgiveness was corrupted into the power to forgive and that power was invested in certain people who lorded it over, literally, the followers of that religion. Believe what we believe or you are not ‘one of us.’ We will require you to confess your sins, and only we can absolve you. Power was and still is the key here. The ritual of confessing sins to another person was a corrupted form of an individual speaking directly to God. The priesthood of all believers was the original tenet, not give your spiritual power to another to judge.

The other problem with this concept, of often dogmatic ritual, especially when it comes to confessing one’s sins to another is the concept that one mortal can transmute the karma of another. Six Our Fathers and Five Hail Mary’s will not transmute anyone’s karma. Lovely prayers each one, but they do not have the power to absolve someone of a terrible karmic act. No mere mortal, no matter how elegantly they are dressed, can absolve the karma of another.

Each individual uniquely defines being spiritual; no one has a monopoly on that definition. Perhaps each of us might wish to look long and hard at the ritual and dogma that often confines us in our belief system. Doing something routinely because you are supposed to without remembering why you are doing it is not being spiritual.

Just for a month, let go of ritual and dogma. Experiment with spiritual freedom. Perhaps then each of us can feel what it must have been like to walk with the Great Ones and know the freedom in the delight in the divine because we could feel that the connection to the Divine genuinely lived within us!

KS&L 285 The Spiritual Philosophy of What Constitutes a Good Mother

     Happy Mother's Day! Being a mom is complicated, challenging and rewarding. Enjoy your day!  

      Everyone comes here for the experience that mortal life offers, and that includes the experience of motherhood. Mothers are mortal; they make mistakes, get tired and rue certain days. Sometimes their judgment is cloudy; sometimes they do what their mothers did, even if it was a lousy thing to do.

         Mothers are often astonished at how profoundly difficult being a parent actually is and why, for some mothers, no matter what they do, their children do not respect them.

         Mothers very often do, not just what their mothers did, but what their lineage of women have done for easily a thousand years. This is true in sexual abuse cases: this is a family secret that just never heals, and that secret is the endless cycle of abuse. These women have no idea how to change the cycle. They know it has to change and they spend lifetimes waiting for someone else to make things better and to rescue them. Sometimes, women like this just really need to look in the mirror and recognize that the face of change they are seeking, is looking back at them. Truly, sometimes you just have to rescue yourself.

Some mothers insist their daughters blindly follow religious tradition, even if that tradition is cruel, abusive and archaic to everyone in general and to women specifically.

         Some mothers are afraid of motherhood, some are afraid of their children. Some are terrified that their children will not love them and become incapable of providing balanced discipline or any discipline at all.

         Some mothers are in competition with their children, be they male or female. They are so immature that they never see how smart their children are and that their children, are running intellectual circles around them.

         Some mothers detest motherhood and they make sure their children know it. They create guilt in their children so that their children spend endless amounts of useless time trying to make them happy:  truly the impossible dream.

         On-the-job training is normally the rule for most women and even most really smart women feel overwhelmed by a first baby. For others, the second child pushes them to the brink of sanity. Other women manage elegantly with ten children. Those ladies learned the true meaning of the word delegate responsibility to the older children!

         Mothers are mortal, get tired, make mistakes and forget that they are on an artificial pedestal that no one can ever really deserve. Every mother has a spiritual philosophy of what a good mother is and often they privately believe that they are inadequate. They suffer with this concept for a very long time.

         Death happens in families all over the world. Even an outstanding mother may falter, fall and feel crushed under the weight of grief at the personal loss of a family member. In some cases, she may not be allowed to grieve, but may be expected to keep the rest of the family going.

         Most women who become mothers either biologically, through marriage, and/or adoption have no idea what they are getting themselves into! Thank goodness! If any of them knew how really challenging motherhood is, many would opt out for another type of life. However, they don’t know. They can’t see the future and that is just as well.

         Would that it could be said, that all mothers love, but even that is not true. Most mothers learn to love not just their children, but the lives created by having children. Once you have a child, you become a different person because circumstances demand it. You don’t have a choice. If you stay the same then something is terribly wrong.

         If a woman hates motherhood, or never makes the transition into this new identity, then part of her will be miserable for the rest of her life and she will share her misery with most people she meets. She will make her family life nightmarish.

         Often a woman will note that she ‘did the best she could in her situation’. The truth is that when she says that, part of her is thinking deep inside that there may have been better ways for her to have handled many life situations. Other women who feel confident about their mothering experience will believe in themselves and note that they have done an excellent job and they are proud of themselves.

         Ultimately, every woman has a spiritual philosophy about what a good mother is but not every woman believes she can ever come close to living up to that level of excellence. How each woman meets the challenge of being a mother, of living up to that spiritual philosophy will ultimately define her spiritual path for this life time and all her life times to come.