Escaping Sin and living an abundant life

Jesus said if you follow him and do what he did you would have a more abundant life. My interpretation of this is as follows. A lot of this is influenced by Richard Rohr(and also Jesus Christ), this is me summing up his ideas and trying to bring it into clarity.

We are selfish creatures, but the trick is not to stay there, we have to develop the spiritual escape velocity to overcome our reptilian self-attention( which is a good thing in and of itself). The problem is that we can get trapped there and it becomes our perspective on the world.

The trick seems to be that, there needs to be a limit on our selfishness. Not to deny it, but to limit it. This is where the 7 deadly sins appear to be relevant: Sloth, gluttony, avarice, wrath, envy, pride, lust. They are good, but to a limited extent, we all need to rest, eat, have anger to protect ourselves, etc. But if that is all we experience in life we have become trapped. If all I care about in my life is food, I become diminished as a human being, of what the human spirit is capable of.

When I wake up, I struggle with trying to be a good person. I cannot help but be very selfish. I think it is wrong to deny ourselves, what the reptile brain within us needs or to ignore it. I do not think we can ascend it, but we have to manage it and work through it to the other side. To know that there is more to life than the 7 deadly sins. The first step is to know that is where we are, and that there is more to life.

I think the abundance Jesus is speaking of is 'love' . But we only ever get to that, by going through and overcoming sin. Sin as a state of disconnection, through to that state of love and peacefulness. We all make mistakes. But the key to overcoming , is to know that one is in a state of sin so that one can overcome it. To know that there is a state of love and abundance on the other side. To let go of a constant state of imperfection, never good enough and ugliness. It is a 'free gift' you do not have to earn it by performance. It is the falling away of the ego, letting go of what does not work.

We cannot transcend this process. We must always have to put the work in to get to a state of Grace and Love.

A key process does seem to be prayer, the bible gives the advice of : 'Be in prayer always'. As in its a state of being. So in summary you need to know when to humble yourself and pray! An example for me would be that I am a bit obsessed about getting a motorbike. To humble myself: 'Do I really think getting a motorcycle is going to solve all of my lifes problems?' I now know I do not need a motorcycle, but that it is nice to have one, I can let go and not be obsessed by it . I am freed to give my love, attention and time to over things!