“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…
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
