Relationships and Children will only curb your spiritual cultivation

[Dagon]

I think it amounts to your own reasons for having a family. If you are doing it just to please others, because that is what they expect of you, then what you really want is not a family, but peoples acceptance.

 

Some do not crave nor desire anothers acceptance.

 

Those who have a family because they really want to, it would be spiritual, because you would value and cherish the aspects of a family life more readily.

 

 

Not all family's turn out ideally, that is why it is up to oneself to analyse what is right for them, and walk the path which one will. All the while remaining indifferent of the other paths, which you cannot know directly.

 

Sure it would take more time and energy to raise a family, but someone gave up that energy for us already!

 

We were all given life from these very deeds.

 

If it is not your path that is fine, but also respect the greater path that lead to you and involved the acts which you are criticizing.

 

I personally feel that having more time and energy at this point in my life is important for my spiritual development. Some of the things that I plan to do, would be much harder with a family to care for as well. Could I still do these things? Yes, and it would be much harder, and a greater accomplishment. For then instead of benefiting one, it may benefit many.

[Non]

Excellent post Susan, excellent!

Couldn't have expressed it even half as well. As an adjunct note: when adult, in order to be accepted as a monk or nun, the monasteries demand that one have permission from one's parents.

The end does not justify the means; a sick root produces sick branches.

 

Most people don't work 16 hours per day. You can easily cultivate 8 hours daily and 14 in your free days - IF you sincerely think it is important to you. The "run into a cave" mentality I see here and there seems like an attitude often encountered in lazy meditators who think that a trip to shangri-la magically will end their procrastination.

 

 

Mandrake

 

 

yea when you have school, work, kung fu, exercise, etc. you have much less time.

[Sundragon]

A particular member has been spending so much time and energy posting in this forum about his frustrations with women and sex..

 

One wonders how much progress he can attain in his cultivation if he can channel the time and energy wasted on women and sex to spiritual practices or even other self-improvement practices..

 

Why do everybody thinks you need a family or a spouse in order to achieve enlightenment or even to lead a perfectly normal healthy life?

 

Truth is, relationships and families are meant to drag you down.. they will always hinder you on the path to true enlightenment..

 

you need money to survive.. no doubt about that .. but you do not need a family or a spouse to survive..

 

99% of the world's population today focus all their lives and energies on looking for a spouse to raise a family because they are trying to fill the hole in themselves with marriage and family..

 

this phenomenon exists in all cultures and all countries since the origins of mankind..

 

if one can only explore the emptiness or void inside them instead of trying to unsuccessfully fill the void, then one will have taken the next big step on the Path..

 

I don't think it lacking in compassion to call BS on this argument. I think that to do otherwise is to enable the continuation of error.

 

Relationships of all kinds whether romantic, familial, friendships, co-workers, etc. are the crucible by which we have the opportunity to see how far along we are. Relationships provide a mirror into who we truly are. Our actions and reactions to those close to us will show us how loving, compassionate, understanding, accepting and wise we really are. In other words these relationships will show us just how far our cultivation has actually progressed. It is easy to be "spiritual" and lofty in a monastary or a mountaintop. The rubber meets the road when you have to interact with people who don't do a total of 2-3hrs of inner work a day. That's the test.

 

Usually we find out quickly just how much "cultivation" we have yet to do.

 

Right now I am single, I have a son, but I have no romantic involvements. I choose not to because I have a limited amount of time and I dedicate much of that time to spiritual pursuits. I have had many minor romantic involvements and several long-term relationships but I find that now I prefer the autonomy of the single life. Outside of the ample time I give my son (happily I might add) I don't want to be bothered with the needs of someone else at this time. I am single because I know just how much energy is involved in maintaining a healthy romantic relationship.

 

I learned more about myself within 2yrs of having a child than the prior 10yrs of inner work that came before. Being a good parent demands that you come to know both your strengths and your weaknesses of character in a way that I have yet to see manifest in any other arena of human endeavor...I would guess marriage would be similar.

 

Of course there are toxic relationships and there is bad parenting and neither of these things is conducive to "cultivation" but I assume that most of us on this forum are self-aware enough to be able to cultivate our spirituality within the context of human relationships.

 

If I might add...Your life is your spirituality. The Tao, God, Goddess, Being, It, The Absolute, Awareness, etc. is your entire reality. How you interact with aspects of your reality ie. those with whom you are in relationship, is how you are interacting with that the Big Unknown/Unknowable in the present moment. Your spiritual practice, your cultivation is how you live...it is your eating, your drinking, your breathing, your bathing, your speaking, your sleeping, your EVERYTHING.

 

If something, anything, is able to take this realization from you then you can use that as a marker to tell you where you are somehow separating your cultivation/spiritual life from everything else. If it isn't all cultivation/the spiritual life, then you're doing something wrong.

 

 

Sundragon

Edited May 8, 2011 by Sundragon

[Mandrake]

yea when you have school, work, kung fu, exercise, etc. you have much less time.

 

I've had all of the above, simultaneously. When time is scarce, you prioritize, ration, and use it well.

Do not misunderstand me; if one can be diligent and disciplined in daily life, one will be diligent and disciplined in retreat. I have met many who are living in retreat conditions who do not use that time and opportunity for more than leisure, unfortunately.

 

 

Mandrake