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TOP JOBS

It seems that there is now a month for just about everything. For instance, did you know that March is Spiritual Awareness Month? The one thing I’ve strived for all my life, but only recently experienced, is inner peace, which goes hand-in-hand with spiritual awareness. I think that getting older makes it more achievable. When you’re young, you’re too impatient, your expectations are too high and there are too many distractions.

In addition to doing a lot of reading on this subject, I’ve researched it on the Internet
extensively. Not long ago I found a web site that looked promising. Its name is The Foundation for Inner Peace (A Not for Profit Organization).

“Welcome,” the home page began. “We’re happy to have you as our online guest while you access first-hand information about the course—a unique, universal, self-study spiritual thought system that also teaches the way to love and inner peace.”

I didn’t fully understand what the heck they were talking about, but it sounded sort of like what I was looking for, so I went to the next page, which was headed:

A Special Welcome Message
From
The Foundation’s President
“Dear Reader and Student of the course, Foundation for Inner Peace,” it began. “On behalf of the Board of Trustees and Staff, I am delighted to extend a very warm welcome to you. I hope that the variety of information you find throughout our site answers any questions you may have about the course, and that you find the material presented within it both helpful and inspiring.”

It went on from there at great length and ended with: “We truly hope you enjoy and are enlightened by your journey through our web site, and wish you peace, light and miracles in whatever path you travel.
Yours sincerely,
Judith Sepulvada Whitson
President and Chairperson”

Sounds good so far, I thought to myself, feeling warm and fuzzy from such an effusive greeting. Then I started checking the site out to see what I could learn. When printed, the introduction to the course ran three pages. It described the theory of the course, its’ history, the workbook for students and manual for teachers. It ended by saying: “The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It aims to remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.”

I was nodding my head wisely by now, as if I fully understood, feeling more peaceful inside with every page.

Next came a sample Lesson of the Day. All I can tell you about it is that the only lesson I have ever understood less and failed more miserably was high school algebra. Then came the Catalog, several pages of publications, audio and video tapes, CD’s and other materials related to the course. Finally came the Order Form to use in buying any or all of the things in the catalog. Were I to have done so, it would have cost over $1,300 — not a bad price for inner peace, I guess, but more than I was willing to pay.

I was still thinking about inner peace a few days later when I read an article in my favorite newsletter, Unstable Sources, which gave me the long-sought answer. The article stated emphatically that the only way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you’ve started. So I looked around the house to see all the things I started and hadn’t finished.

Before leaving the house that day, I finished off a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white wine, Bailey’s Irish Cream, the Prozac, some valium, half a cheesecake and a couple of chocolate éclairs.

You have no idea how good I felt. At last, I had found inner peace.

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A question to ponder:

When I used to dream of growing up to be somebody, why couldn’t I have been more specific?

putterhugh@suddenlink.net

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Hugh Neeld is a freelance columnist for TylerPaper.com.