Dec 12, 2021 Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton, Focus: feeling of Belonging, live on Zoom

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But twice a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for spontaneous chat, more readings, songs, quotes, you never know what treasures will be uncovered!

Topic: The FEELING of BELONGING

Dear loving folks of Baba,

There is in us the imperative need to feel we belong. Initially it is to our family, and then it evolves to our neighborhood perhaps, maybe our ethnic group, our country, etc. And along the way we invariably meet with disappointments, because we encounter others who exclude us, who make us feel we don’t belong or even who don’t want us to belong. What are the ways that Baba helps us overcome this disappointment? Can we experience a belonging in all situations through Baba? He has said several things that are helpful:

“To have loved one soul is like adding its life to your own. Your life is, as it were, multiplied and you virtually live in two centers. If you love the whole world you vicariously live in the whole world …"

"You can own the world without being attached to it, so long as you do not allow yourself to be owned by any part of it.”

Eruch echoed this last statement when he would say from time to time in Mandali Hall:

“This whole world is yours, but you have to claim it. Through love, you incorporate what is outside of you into your own being.” For example, as I see it, if we love birds and we learn their names, their habits, where they nest and what they feed on, and we love going out and observing them, soon we will find them flying around inside of us. We have incorporated them into our being, and our being expands through this inclusive love.

We have all been in situations where we don’t feel we belong. What causes us to feel this way?

What can we do to remedy this?

The mandali gave us such a feeling of belonging, to them and to Baba.

How can we continue that feeling of belonging?

What part does acceptance of others play in this?

Often we seek to belong in a situation or with a group of people, but we wind up sometimes feeling excluded. Are we approaching it all backwards? What if we extend a belonging to all others? What will we experience?

Krishnamurti, whom Baba referred to as a saint, once said, “If you want to be loved, just love. When you love, you are no longer inquiring whether or not someone loves you."

In extending an inclusiveness to someone, does it have to be expressed externally? What if the person is abusive or takes advantage of us? Is it possible to be inwardly inclusive while at the same time keeping an external distance, especially if the person is not open to changing their behavior?

If you know you belong to Baba, does that make it easier for you to feel you belong to the whole world, given that the whole world belongs to Baba?

If you exclude others, will that affect your own feeling of belonging?

If we are sincerely dedicated, as we see it, to the spiritual well-being of others in each situation, then we will naturally feel that we belong in every situation.

These are quite a few questions that several of us came up with others on this topic.

What do you have to say? In His inquiring love, Jeff

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