C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     Do you have a passion  in life?  If you do, why do you do it?  What drives you to excel at it?  What drives you to continue at it?      What drives you to do it?      I have a passion for lifting weights.  I have a passion for working out.  I have a passion for reading.  I have a passion for traditional martial arts—the kind that can take you from gross to subtle to Causal.  I have a passion for True Spirituality—the kind of spirituality (hence the capital "T" and "S") that transcends common, everyday run-of-the mill spirituality; the kind that transcends spiritual materialism in all of its maddening forms.  (And sometimes I even have a passion for writing.)      And, yes, sometimes I have a passion for things that I shouldn't necessarily have a passion for—women and beer; drugs, even, at one time in my life.  (By the way, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with any of these three things—or other things often thought of as "wrong"—don'

     The famous Mahayana saying goes like this: "emptiness is form, form is emptiness."  And, of course, emptiness is nothing other than form, form is nothing other than emptiness.      Here's the problem: sayings like this have become so commonplace—even more so with the advent of the internet, and even more so  with Twitter and whatnot—that they no longer have much meaning to those who hear them, or read them, all the time.      They are just words, of course.  Words that point to the real thing.  But they are not  the real thing.      For spirituality to be true, for it to be capable of transforming your life (your interior life as well as your exterior one), then you must make it your own.  You must experience the truth of the words that are spoken, and then live those words with your entire being .      Inner creativity must explode into outward creativity—the creativity of living.      But here's an important point: Although you must make this lived spirituality