I certainly understand the frustration with blogging and the compulsion to give it up. I gave it up for seven months, resumed with renewed vigor for several months, and lately have been very sporadic. However, I am not ready to give up on blogging. I still believe blogging has potential, although not in its current form.

Understanding the limitations, less then a week ago my teacher made some comments about blogging. He had previously commented that it seems everyone is very eager to state their understanding, and often state it as if it is THE understanding. His more recent comment was a continuation of his earlier observations. “What I see happening is something I see everyone doing. ”

“First, some people will come on and state that they do not understand the issue being discussed. Then, after saying that, they will give their opinion, but the opinion is stated in a tone of being factual. Now, I do not have a problem with someone saying they don’t understand; nor do I have a problem with someone saying they don’t understand, and then giving an opinion from the perspective of being someone who does not understand. But, I do have a problem with someone who doesn’t understand, who then gives an opinion as though they do understand.”

“Second, sometimes someone will be right on the point, but then they lose it, or it drifts away, with no one picking up on it. People will connect to the point for a moment, and then they will drift off course.”

Maybe we don’t see the problem this way, but my teacher’s insights suggest that discouragement with the medium is because we either don’t know what the point is, or we don’t recognize it when we see it, or we lose it once we have it. Of course, it is very easy to apply this to our own lives and frustrations with how to make a deeper connection, the one we are yearning to make. So why all the frustration? It is because we don’t understand the next step.

The reason we are having a problem is because we are cutting into the unknown. Last night I heard a teacher describe the door into understanding as being very tiny. He said it is the teacher’s job to show us that tiny, little door.

Two nights ago I personally met a fellow blogger for the first time, Jon Zuck. I have known Jon for a couple of years and it was great to finally meet him. After a night of getting acquainted face to face over dinner, we agreed to get together the next night so that I could attend a class with Jon’s teacher. This master is dedicated to the Way; it is his profession and life’s work. Born in 1948, Kitabu Roshi is an author, teacher and martial arts master. He recently started a new website. After the evening class, in which he discussed the importance of a teacher and the importance of learning how to ‘get out of the way’ and let the ‘One’ come through, there were refreshments and informal chats. Among other things, we briefly discussed the web as a teaching medium. While I sensed in Roshi a hopeful optimism, he also sees its limitations.

E.R. Spruiell and Kitabu Roshi

As bloggers we are touching people, but we are sometimes hitting barriers within our blogging and within ourselves. Spiritual blogs and websites can help and inform us, but words only take us so far. Using our intellect only gets us to a certain point and then we start regressing or at best doing lateral development. Essential to deeper development is the need for actual deeper experiences. How is the web going to get us to the next point? How is the web going to give us deeper experiences? We don’t know the answer to that.

If we want to open up, in a truly meaningful and substantial way, we need a teacher (in whatever form that takes) to guide us through the unknown. Yet, we are often way too quick to define what the unknown thing looks and feels like.

With respect to a person as a teacher, many people resist the notion of a spiritual teacher. They don’t want to give up their personal power, or they have been taught that everything is already in them. Everything is in us, but if we glibly dismiss the need for a teacher because ‘everything is already in me,’ we are denying our salvation. If everything is already in us, then why don’t we demonstrate and live the ‘everything’? This is one of those many paradoxes that can confound us when we are on the outside of the door looking in. Actually, we are not looking in the door, because we don’t even know what the door looks like. We wouldn’t recognize it if it was staring us right in the face.

Teacher’s who are genuinely capable of being a guide along the inner path are hard to find. But they are much easier to find than the point inside of us that we find to be so elusive. Meanwhile, the teacher stands patiently, ignored as he continuously, 24/7, points to the tiny, little door.

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This post is an expanded version of a comment I made on Serenity’s blog, on a post called Reverence. It is an addition to the Art of Giving series on this blog.

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Hopefully we can each look in our lives and find examples of reverence, some deeper and others less profound. How do we develop deeper reverence? How does our deepest reverence manifest? In what way(s) should we be living deeper reverence?

Years ago my teacher said to a group of us (and he has continued to say this over the years, but fairly infrequently because most people dislike hearing it and find ways within themselves to be offended by it), “If you want to develop a deeper relationship to the Source, you need to have a practical way of doing that.” This makes sense and is not the part that is offensive.

He went on to explain that the way we do this is by looking for the thing or person in our life who is most representative of Source, and we learn to serve that thing or person. This is the area that people start becoming offended by. We act concerned that we are giving away our power, etc.

Unacknowledged selfishness lies at the root of our attitude: we don’t want to give, we want to get. People who consider themselves to not be selfish, which is all of us, are very much about “what’s in it for me. It is through the act of service, and through learning how to unconditionally serve, that our reverence grows, and more importantly, our relationship to Source grows.

One way to develop reverence is by respectful thinking, mentally and emotionally positioning ourselves to be more considerate. But that doesn’t mean much unless we put it into action. Unfortunately we are so selfish that we are unwilling to give ourselves in a way that our life becomes focused on unconditional service. We prefer receiving over giving… gimme, gimme, gimme.

To develop the deepest reverence and the ability to be unconditional givers, we need to have someone give to us unconditionally first. It is only after endless repetitions of receiving that we begin to allow a crack in our facade of selfishness, a crack that allows us to begin at least some modest giving of our own.

The best place to learn deepest reverence and Giving is from an unconditional Giver. We can see this in spiritual traditions where we love the Giver because the Giver first loved us. But we become squeamish with this, because an unconditional Giver exposes our selfishness. At every opportunity, we quickly line up before God with our hands out and our long wish lists hidden behind our backs. “I’m not selfish!” we exclaim with superiority, as we transfer our list to the other hand.

Look into your life at what it is that is giving you the deepest, most unconditional giving, and learn to serve that. Sensei says, “If you want to serve the Ideal, you must first learn to serve the Ideal.”

This does not mean giving up our individuality or unthinkingly following someone or something. What it does mean, however, is that as we learn from a deeper source of Giving how to give, we begin to give up our deeply rooted selfishness so that true and deeper Giving can come through.

Deeper reverence is the action of putting respect and value on something greater than we are, on something that deserves our consideration. It is bowing before that, but more importantly, reverence is the act of learning to put our respect into action, learning to serve the Ideal in the way the Ideal serves us: unconditionally.

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Once there were two brothers. The older brother had inherited his father’s estate. He was wealthy and entertained generously. Food and drink were in abundance, and as food was passed around the table sometimes a chunk of meat or ladle of rice would fall on the floor, to be quickly devoured by the dogs. The older brother gave lavishly to his church and commanded respect in his community.

The younger brother had long ago fallen on hard times. Clothing, even food, was sparse. A ladle of rice was valuable, and each night he led his family in a humble prayer of thanks. Each spoonful of food was viewed with satisfaction, and each bite was savored. His family, though modest in worldly wealth, was gentle and kind, always appreciative of the smallest kindness.

One brother commanded respect and bought reverence, and the other brother gave respect and served reverence.

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