Mini 34

I think* two things are needed to produce the best version of a family. Management helps us navigate life’s drama. Transcendence lets us rise above it (or at least keep it in perspective).

Through management and transcendence, family members:

• Become world-wise and cosmically aware,
• Learn social integration and cosmic oneness,
• Feel an intimate sense of belonging to family, community, the planet, and the cosmos.

Family Management

Understand and acknowledge Earth’s dramas and handle them appropriately.

Earth’s dramas are complicated—accidents, addictions, diseases… predators, parasites, competitors—but there are experts to help us navigate them. In a nutshell, parents can:

Live healthy life styles with positive attitudes, foster self-esteem and self-reliance of each family member, express love and appreciation every day, acknowledge perils but see the situation from the bright side, validate everyone’s emotions with the knowledge that anxiety and stress are unavoidable in crises…. Model calm and control, work to understand what the kids are really trying to say, admit that you don’t know the answers to some of their questions, limit their TV and online time while maintaining a normal family routine for dinner, homework, chores, bedtime….

But through it all, keep the dramas of Earth in perspective. No matter how compelling or powerful they seem, they’re really powerless in the cosmic sense. The only true power is the source, which brings us to…

Family Transcendence

Understand and acknowledge the perfect source and hold it close to the heart.

All major, time-proven religions can help, as long as a family can zero-in on the number-one core principle they all share:

The source shines at the center of everything, spreading its life-energy that fills, creates, and nourishes the cosmos with vitality, goodness, and infinite knowledge. That’s all-that-is.

The keywords can be interchanged with intimate terms of Christians/Jews, Sufi/Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists…
the source: God/Yahweh, Allah, Brahman, the principle…
life-energy: Holy Spirit, Barakah, AUM, universal life force…
cosmos: Kingdom of God, Wahdat al-Wujud, Brahmanda, dharmatā…
all-that-is….

In short: The source = life-energy = the cosmos = all-that-is.
That oneness is the glue that binds the family, the cosmos, and everything in between.

# # #

Afterthoughts

*The above information was extracted from my research of recent months, years, and decades.

Living on Earth always creates a split between 1) our conscious awareness of the world around us (as perceived by our five physical senses) and 2) our eternal, unbreakable bond with the source at the center of everything (as cherished by our finest spiritual self, or soul, that shines invisibly near the heart).

Every family member could be made aware of this spiritual-physical split… maybe on a scale of, say, zero to ten, in which…
Some mainstream scientists and staunch atheists might have a 0:10 split (totally immersed in material reality), while…
Some siddhas, Sufis and saints might have a 10:0 split (totally immersed in a conscious connection to the source, usually through intensive meditation or contemplative prayer).
Nearly everyone on Earth would be split somewhere in between those two extremes (5:5, 3:7, 6:4, 2:8, etc.).

Technically, we might want to refer to that split between the spiritual and physical as “the spi-phy awareness rating.” And when talking about it casually, it might sound like:

• The spiffy rating (rhymes with “jiffy”), or
• The SpyFy rating (rhymes with SyFy), or simply
• The SPAR (short for spiritual-physical awareness rating).

In any case, all family members would be aware that their own personal spi-phy rating will evolve and shift constantly in the course of a lifetime—year to year, day to day, moment to moment—as personal circumstances and events pull them closer to either…

1. Earth-awareness (stubbing a toe or a grieving over a loved one’s serious illness), or
2. mystical cosmic awareness (feeling uplifted during a prayer or meditation, or waking with a brilliant idea).

Family members might find that having this “spiffy” rating always in the back of their mind keeps life in perspective across the years… nurturing a comfortable balance between Heaven and Earth.