Finding your Path via your Values

[Unveiled Artist]

This hit me at 2:32 a.m. as I think about what my values are and how they are important to me. I've noticed some seekers are trying to find the right religion or spiritual path. I guess in some ways you found it but don't know how to express it in your daily life or maybe you haven't found it but notice paths that interest you on an external level. Whether you are a seeker by inner reflection or seeker by finding external needs to satisfy your spiritual self, I want to talk more about finding your path by identifying your values.

What are your values?

Does your values guide the decisions you make?

What do you do daily that correlate to your values?

Is religion appropriate for the values you live by?

So, what are your values?

I found this quiz (well, there are many) that may help you identify values you may find yourself connected to. Your Core Values Test. No test is perfect just to give a glimpse.

The best way to find your values, in my opinion, is to write them down. What is important to you? What do you do on a daily basis? What are your habits? (Conscious ones and unconscious)

For example, I love my family and family in spirit. Don't get me wrong, they are my blood and are a part of me. Then I think, in what ways are they important? Do I talk to them on a routine basis? Are they a part of my life? Um. Yes. I don't know. No, not really.

I sat down with over a fifty list of values and found that freedom of expression, communication, and mental clarity are my values. I connected them to what I do on a daily basis and wala! Everything connected. So now, when I get in touch with family, I basis my relations to them on my values rather than the other way around.

Does your values guide the decisions you make?

This IS important. Why? If your values don't guide your lifestyle, why do you have them? Thousands of people believe in god and the bible. While we can talk about that all day, in general, believers go to the bible to define their values and hopefully in most cases they apply those values to their daily life. It guides their decisions. Who they are and their purpose.

What about you?

Some people don't need a purpose others do. As seekers, I am assuming you do.

So yesterday Jane went to work. Her boss fussed at her for not turning in her report on time. Jane had an emergency but she didn't tell her boss beforehand. Very understandable from Jane's end but not the boss. He learned about it too late. Jane is upset. Her decision let her yell at her boss. In some jobs that would get her fired. She was lucky.​

If Jane identified her values and made decisions from them, if her values say we're generosity, she may reflect that that is what she wants to express to others regardless of what people do. Long story short, let your values guide your decisions not the other way around.

What do you do daily that correlate to your values?

Take stock on what you do on a daily basis? How does it help you mentally, physically, and how does it address everything about you to build inner peace? If they don't align with your values, is that why you are struggling with these decisions, actions, or habits you're trying to stop? Write the struggles you have and see if they are because they don't match your values. What can you do to change?

Is religion appropriate for the values you live by?

Last but not least, now that you got your values, your decisions based on your values, and figured how to make your daily habits reflect your values, looking at religion or spirituality is basically all of this summarized.

Is your value tradition, discipline, and culture? Maybe look at religions (regardless if they feel comfortable-that's what discipline is, getting over the ego part and experiencing the results) that have rituals.

Do you believe in the supernatural? In god? PLEASE please please don't sit down and try to define god. You'd sit there all day, I promise you. To me, god is life. Freedom of expression (communication) lets me live life (or live in god). God is just a word. You don't need a religion with a god in it. Try to figure out if your bias or experiences limit you from defining what or who god is to you.

Most important, in my opinion, do these beliefs align with your values.

Are you eclectic? No religion? No spirituality?

You have it a bit more easier in one aspect because everything you have can be defined by what's and who's around you. On the other hand, finding self-direction has no guide but you. You? Who are you? Go back to your values.

Ha. ha. I had to laugh: Are you the exception to the rule?

No problem. At least you're not an alien. You can benefit from learning your values and living by them. The last part you can skip.

It is not about me. It's about you.

Start from your values and work from there.

Carlita

 

[Aupmanyav]

2.32 AM is a time to sleep. Why were you awake at that time? Heard some noise in the basement?
I do not do anything other than what is necessary for me to do in the family matters. Of course, religion is always there, but the path is already clear to me.

"Karmanyeva adhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachana;
ma karma-phala-heturbhuh, ma sangostvakarmani." BhagawadGita

To act is in your power, never so the results;
don't act in hope of results of your action, and do not chose inaction.

Our actions should be for dharma and not for profit or loss, win or defeat, pleasures or sorrow, but only for our duty.

 

[wizanda]

Is religion appropriate for the values you live by?

My values are continually increased, as learn more about morality from contrast found in the religions....

So because find the religious not always matching the values found in the text, it makes some of us become wiser, as we see the contradictions.

What do you do daily that correlate to your values?

Spend my days trying to live to all noble righteous values.

So, what are your values?

Literally everything on the lists, if there are more lists will study them as well, to see if missing anything that can make us a better person.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Haha. Don't ask.

2.32 AM is a time to sleep. Why were you awake at that time? Heard some noise in the basement?

I do not do anything other than what is necessary for me to do in the family matters. Of course, religion is always there, but the path is already clear to me.

"Karmanyeva adhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachana;
ma karma-phala-heturbhuh, ma sangostvakarmani." BhagawadGita

To act is in your power, never so the results;
don't act in hope of results of your action, and do not chose inaction.

Our actions should be for dharma and not for profit or loss, win or defeat, pleasures or sorrow, but only for our duty.

A lot of people like yourself found your values through culture. Not everyone has that advantage. Regardless the religion part of it, which in a general sense doesn't matter, but being comfortable with you believe is true and what you live by (you-people in general) is an asset towards the decisions you make as a result of it.

-You as in people in general.

 

[YmirGF]

Mindfulness is my sole criterion and since I think before I act, my actions are quite deliberate. It's rare when I think afterwards, though it does happen, "Well, that went well, Einstein!" So called morality rarely, if ever, enters my mind.

 

[Rival]

Mindfulness is my sole criterion and since I think before I act, my actions are quite deliberate. It's rare when I think afterwards, though it does happen, "Well, that went well, Einstein!" So called morality rarely, if ever, enters my mind.

You mean apart from every time you post on RF? That happens to me.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

You mean apart from every time you post on RF? That happens to me.

 

[crowfeather]

Most people don't have any values. None of their own, anyway.
They acquire them like off-the-shelf suits, ready made, by someone else.
This suits me! they cry. And off they trot, glancing in mirrors and shop windows, to see how they look.

Any values I have, I always had, and life has been a long remembering.
This time around, I am a crow. I have crow values. I fly between life and death, death and life.
I have a message that I carry. Not my own, but one it is my duty, as a crow, to carry.
The Sacred Law.

Listen for it. You may make it your own, or let it pass you by.
Like everything granted by the Creator: it is free to those who can recognize it.

 

[arthra]

What do you do daily that correlate to your values? Take stock on what you do on a daily basis? How does it help you mentally, physically, and how does it address everything about you to build inner peace? If they don't align with your values, is that why you are struggling with these decisions, actions, or habits you're trying to stop? Write the struggles you have and see if they are because they don't match your values. What can you do to change? Is religion appropriate for the values you live by?

I was around when segregation was still practiced in the Nation's capitol and up until I was twenty one years old or so the US had fought or been involved in WWII, Korea and had began involvement in Vietnam. My father was away for years in the Pacific theatre and in Japan, during Korea he instructed Lieutenants. He swore me into the military when I was seventeen... The experiences I had led me to detest war and the military as well as racial segregation... as a result I became involved in the NAACP as well as the Peace movement. Though raised in the Baptist church I took an interest in Yoga and Friends Silent Meetings.. in studying Buddhism, Hinduism I became enamored of the Founders of the great religions such as Krishna and the Buddha. Around the time I graduatred from University I became interested in the Baha'i Faith and enrolled in the Faith.. I chose a profession outside the business of my family ... Social Work and began a long career.. I married in the Baha'i Faith and raised four children...one of whom we adopted. Most of my life has been as a Baha'i and I have never regretted it ... It affirms my basic values and has lead me to deeper discoveries and goals.