Passion

*PASSION

In Christianity passions are a result of man's alienation from his source, God. Man rebelled against what he was originally meant to be. In Buddhist teaching, the origin of delusive passion is ignorance; that is, man has lost sight of his Primal Face and thinks of all things as dualistically opposed. (Zen & Bible, p21-2)

Is renunciation a part of the truly spiritual life? Yes, because ultimately all Spirit renounces what is not real and nothing is real in life except your relationship with Me. You need not "give up" something, but simply set it aside as you do with anything you no longer have any use. What you resist persists. What you look at disappears. Renunciation never denies passion - it simply denies attachment to results. To live your life without expectation - without need for specific results - that is freedom. Do not be attached to results, the joy is in the creating. Passion is the love of turning being into action. The soul longs to do something about about what it is that it might know itself in its own experience. Passion is God wanting to say "hi." Expectation is the greatest source of man's unhappiness. It is what separates man from God. Renunciate renounces results - but never passion. The act of resisting a thing is the act of granting it life. The more you resist, the more you make it real. Never resist anything. If you think that by your resistance you will eliminate it, you only plant it more firmly in place. Therefore, resist not temptation - but simply turn from it. Turn toward Me and away from anything unlike Me. (Conversations, p100-4)

Passion is the intense devotion to the cause of justice and righteousness. It is a zeal to bring about the conditions which ought to exist in the world, to strive to approach as closely as possible the unobtainable perfection. We feel the hurts of our neighbors suffering from persecution or injustice or hunger. Passion fuels our drive to reform the world. (Common Sense, p182)