Whose Path Are You On...?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice.
And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want…”

Steve Jobs

~

At this inner crossroads that I am experiencing I have been pondering “the path.”  The question that keeps coming up is “What is the true path of liberation?”  I can honestly say I don’t know!  I used to think I did… I used to think I was searching for “enlightenment”/God/Truth – and the bells and whistles of realizing my True Nature, and turning into Light…  Now I don’t know…  But this question of true liberation keeps coming up lately.  And what *is* true liberation?  I don’t know…  My gut feeling is it is liberation from the mind and its mental veils of separation that still linger even though I have been aware of my True Nature – Beingness – for a long time…  

I have been on many paths.   And I discovered that each one was only a facet of the Truth.  Some teachings say we need a continual practice and many lifetimes to be able to truly be “enlightened.”  Other paths say all we need is awareness of our True Beingness, and others give mental ascent to who we truly are, but never get to the Heart of Being – getting lost in intellectualism and a pseudo non-duality.  None providing real “liberation.”  At least that is my experience…

I’ve been at this threshold before…  See The Pathless Path and Into The Forest for more articulate versions.

Although I chose to follow certain paths for a time, I’ve had to go beyond the illusory path of religious beliefs, of ideas of “enlightenment”, conceptual “non-dualism” , and experience the Truth of Being directly, in my own way – carving out a “path” of my own.  I still am – discovering, exploring, experiencing, deepening – still a wayfarer on an ever unfolding path…  The paths I have followed have been other people’s paths who speak *about* the Truth, *about* “enlightenment” and the tendency has been to reiterate what has been heard – as the Truth - not what is necessarily True from my own experience, in my Heart of Hearts.

It seems in order for “liberation” to occur one needs to *experience* and be absorbed by an inner Presence; the inner Guru/Teacher/Self – which is not to say that we don’t need an external “teacher” or “teaching” at times.  But we each must essentially find our own way – which is why we choose the paths we do.   True spiritual pathways and teachers will always turn us back to the inner Heart of True Beingness.  A true teaching actually helps us trust the Truth of our Heart – the “spiritual” Heart – not our personal truth – as in “my truth” - but the universal Truth of our Beingness.  I’m still working on that one – trusting the Truth of the Universal Heart and not the mental concepts of what Truth is supposed to look like - according to others. :)

Here are a few quotes from various “teachers” from various traditions that speak to the essence of what I’m trying to say here…  As you can see, I am still using other people’s words, other voices…  J

“King Arthur’s Knights went on the quest for the Holy Grail -
the Truth…

Each entered the forest of adventure
 at the point they had each chosen for themselves,
where it was darkest and where there was no path…

If there is a path,
it is someone else’s path,
and you are not on the adventure.

You have to work it out
for yourself,
taking the clues from
here and there…”

Joseph Campbell
Mythologist

Photo: Shadow from front window

“The spiritual search is usually undertaken
as a result of the failure to secure
happiness, peace and love
in the conventional realms of experience.

Now we seek a permanent state
of enlightenment.

This search takes us to new realms of experience,
teaching us to focus on the acquisition of
states of mind…

So these newly acquired states of mind
bring the spiritual search to a temporary end -
which we call awakening or enlightenment;
and we now confuse these new states of mind
for enlightenment.

Faced with the failure of our search,
there are no more possible realms
in which to search.

For some this failure is experienced
as a time of despair.
There are no further directions
in which to turn…
There is nowhere left to seek,
and yet we cannot stop seeking.

What we truly long for
cannot be found in any state
of the body, mind or world.

A new doorway may open up -
the only one that has yet to be explored.

It is the profound exploration
of the nature of our Self -
The Nature of Being…”

Rupert Spira
Contemporary Non-Duality Teacher
From:
Presence: The Art of Peace and Happiness

“Contemplation is life itself,
fully awake,
fully active,
fully aware that
it is alive.

It is spiritual wonder.
It is spontaneous awe
at the sacredness of life,
of being.

It is gratitude for life,
for awareness,
and
for being.

It is a vivid realization
of the fact that life and being
in us
proceed from an invisible,
transcendent,
and infinitely
abundant
Source…

Contemplation
is above all,
awareness of the reality
of that Source.
It knows the Source,
obscurely,
inexplicably,
but with a certitude
that goes beyond reason
and beyond simple faith.

It is a more profound depth,
a knowledge too deep to
be grasped
in images,
in words,
or even
in clear concepts.”

Thomas Merton
Christian Contemplative
From:
Choosing to Love the World

“Spiritual awakening may seem like
an extraordinary occurrence -
but is a built-in human capacity
able to realize inner freedom…

Contact the sacred Presence within you,
call on this Presence.
Direct your attention inward to that…

Contacting the facets of the sacred Presence
within, you deepen your trust in your own
essential being…

Trust that you can find a way to
the true refuge of your own loving
awareness – your own Buddha Nature.”

Tara Brach

Buddhist Teacher
From her Blog

“You are the Beloved.

…though the experience of being the Beloved
has never been completely absent from my life,
I never claimed it as my core truth.

I kept running around it in large or small circles,
always looking for someone or something
able to convince me of my Belovedness.
It was as if I kept refusing to hear the voice
that speaks from the depths of my being…

That voice has always been there,
but it seems that I was much more eager
to listen to other louder voices…
Meanwhile, the soft gentle voice
that speaks in the silence and solitude
of my heart
remained unheard…"

Henri Nouwen
Catholic Theologian
From: Life of the Beloved

 Photo: Rainbow light from crystal in window
forming a symbol for a musical note

“…even the idea of the path is an illusion:
there is nowhere to go,
nothing to realize,
because everything is ‘God’ [Infinite Consciousness].

And if everything is ‘The Beloved’,
who is this “I” who has made the journey
from separation back to union?

The simple knowing that it is all One,
and that the “I” is just an illusion,
a veil of separation,
has made me question
the nature of the very human drama
that is played out
with our longing…

Is the very idea of our own journey, our story,
just a figment of our imagination…

And does it matter?

So who makes the journey?

There is a journey…
even though I know there is really no journey… 

They are just continuing footsteps…

The path is ‘not about me’ -
but a larger story -
an ocean in which my own experiences
are just a small ripple…

It’s the story of the ocean,
rather than the drop……”

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic

From: Fragments of a Love Story

Note: when Vaughan-Lee speaks of ‘God”/The Beloved, etc.
it is the all-pervasive Presence of
Love that he refers to,
not a separate entity…

Photo: Light through stained glass
reflected on window sill