Hrvoje Butkovic wrote:
My life is also a journey without a finite goal. This doesn’t mean that every aspect of it needs to be in flux, nor is this necessarily desirable. For example, your view that life is about learning seems to be well established. This is what I was referring to with “views that are sufficiently final/stable to act as a framework”.
Hrvoje Butkovic wrote:
It is quite possible that I’m barking up the wrong tree and looking for sharp divisions where there are none, and senses of certainty where there is only gradually increasing confidence in the validity of one’s views. Do you feel that this is the case?
Life is full of battles to fight. The main ideals in my life are learning, freedom and personal responsibility. Every vote I make, every dollar I spend, every conversation I have, basically every aspect of my interaction with the physical world is made with these ideals in mind.
But I chose these ideal's as what I would orient my life to fight for. There are others which are equally, or in some minds even more valuable to fight for and I can appreciate them, such as world peace, healing, environmental work, etc. Most of the people I know who follow some type of conscious path have these other ideals which we might argue about when we get together, for instance, I prefer freedom to health, personally and globally, and that can be difficult for some of them to get their heads around.
These were personal decisions which I came to through soul searching, truth searching, meditation and study. But they're obviously not stopping points, they're a launching pad for activity. You could say how I chose them was almost arbitrary. I looked at my life, at what I was capable of. I had a strong desire to leave the world a better place than I found it, and I had a strong desire for spiritual truth because what I was brought up with was not my truth.
Life beyond finding these personal truths and choosing my battles is in a constant state of flux, it's the way the universe works. From my personal view, the world always requires balance, and because of this it is always swinging, always in motion. My job is to learn to dance to its rhythm, not to cling to one side and try to control it. That's the mindset I'm writing this in, which is why it's written from a personal perspective rather than quoting to you what others might have said on the subject. I'm here to have my idea's challenged, my boat rocked, and to grow from that by learning to dance to a new rhythm which you might be about to introduce.
My ideals that I listed are not absolute, in fact I see that they very well might change drastically when my kids have grown. They have served me well in my life as far as it has gone, but when I no longer have the huge responsibility of three children to care for, personal responsibility may no longer carry such a weight in my life; when my children have grown and claimed their own personal freedom, freedom may not carry such weight in my life; and when my children have grown and I no longer have to spend so much time at home, learning may not carry such weight in my life. I don't know, but none of them seem valid to me if I do not keep myself open to change and finding that my path may turn at any moment.
gradually increasing confidence in the validity of one’s views
I don't even experience it this far - my views are open to be challenged and change. They were starting points for my path. I still don't feel like I'm answering your question very well, because I think you're talking about mystical practices that you can firmly rely upon rather than basic ideals from which one might start, but if that's the case then maybe you can expand upon the question. I'll look forward to that, but I hope my thought has helped to either answer the original question or clarify what the question is.
For instance (to maybe explore the question beyond my launching pad ideals and try to get closer to what you might be asking), starting from a mindset of freedom as opposed to inner peace or healing has led my mystical path into very different avenues. Someone coming from a perspective of inner peace might say, "Deny the ego," whereas I would say, "The ego is an interface with which the spirit offers us an opportunity to realize freedom, and the more fully you use it as a tool, the more fully you will be able to experience the universe and find a level of freedom which transcends the human condition." But freedom is dangerous, it has many risks involved and will not be useful to someone looking for inner peace. That understanding of mine is just one step along the path again, and I put it out here to be challenged and grow, not because I am dogmatically attached to it as an absolute. I found it through experience as I walked my path, and I continue to walk from the fork in the road where I found it.