Does the Path have a Heart? - Carlos Castaneda

You must always keep in mind that a path is only a path.
Each path is only one of a million paths.
If you feel that you must not follow it,

you need not stay with it under any circumstances.
Any path is only a path.

There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping a path
if that is what your heart tells you to do.
But your decision to keep on a path or to leave it
must be free of fear and ambition.

I caution you: look at every path closely and deliberately.
Try it as many times as you think necessary.
Then ask yourself and yourself alone this one question:
Does this path have a heart?

All paths are the same.  They lead nowhere.
They are paths going through the brush or into the brush
or under the brush of the Universe.
The only question is: Does this path have a heart?

If it does, then it is a good path.
If it doesn't, then it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Inverted color

 

The Ever-Changing "Path" - a meandering

Once again Life is asking me to change my "path."
I am again embarking on what feels like a leap into
uncertainty, jumping off the "spiritual treadmill,"
and allowing myself to just BE,
letting go of the need to look through a particular
"spiritual" filter.
Although I am still drawn to all things "spiritual."
It's in my Soul, and DNA :)

I rediscovered recently how freeing it is to just be "me" - 
not trying to be more "spiritual", or something other than I am.
I don't have to be self-conscious about using the words
 "I", "me", and "my" - in some kind of pseudo "non-dualness",
as some traditions do...
 - because -
 it's all Source - expressing ItSelf. 
There's no need to make a distinction between self and
 Self, creating divisions where there aren't any.

I only need to BE, and let Source reveal Itself,
express Itself, live Itself as "me" - a wave on the Ocean of Being.

It's not about "me" being "enlightened", but rediscovering my
authentic, natural self - and just living it - just walking it.
It's a fluid "path", not static, and not always clear.

I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that
have defined and informed my "path" so far - the boxes of
belief that have tended to constrain my authentic expression.
And now trying to extricate myself from the life dramas
that have preoccupied my mind and life recently; although that
is proving to be harder than I thought.

This shift in consciousness is happening gradually, over time,
and I doubt that it's over.  There is no finish line to cross, no
destination to arrive at.  It's a never-ending exploration of the
Truth of Myself;  which sometimes feels like an
"existential crisis." :)

I no longer pursue a "path" or "teacher", but only a direct
intimacy/communion with "The Mystery"/The Divine/Source
(however one defines that for themselves) - listening and
waiting for the Inner Voice...

Asking: What is "The Mystery" calling me to now?

Mystic Meandering
April 2024

~

Photo from the internet

 

Honoring Uniqueness - Matt Licata

...honoring the reality that we are not only connected, 
but also separate, with our own interiority, subjectivity, and ways
of making sense of our experience.  In spirituality, we tend to
emphasize connection, unity, and oneness, which are essential

dimensions of the human heart.

Alongside this, however, it's essential that we also recognize
the reality (and holiness) of experiences - [that] we each perceive
reality, the divine, and this world in our own unique ways.
We each fall to the ground in a distinct way, and behold the
beauty of the stars and the planets and the trees uniquely.  No one
can perceive, fall, or behold for us, or on our behalf.

While from a transpersonal perspective, we can speak about unity
and oneness, within the relative we are also differentiated and
wildly unique, each with our own ways of organizing our
experience.  Each with our own fate and relationship with the
divine, and with our own path to travel.  To dissolve these
differences into some homogenized spiritual middle does not
honor the sacredness of form.

Matt Licata
Excerpt from an article entitled: The Yoga of Intimacy and 
Relationship

~

  Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Which Door? - Aurelius Symmachus

 We all look up to the same stars;
The same heaven is above us all;
The same universe surrounds us all.
What does it matter by what
system of knowledge
we seek to know
the truth?

Not by one path alone
may we attain to
so great a secret.

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

A Roman Statesman

~

Photo from the Internet

Carving out a "Path"...

Life is asking me to redefine "the path" - again - to deepen
into a "new" way of seeing, being and living.  I am
embarking on what feels like a new step into the unknown,
carving out a "path" for myself, opening to new directions,
new perspectives, new awareness.  Being open to what is
really living this Life called "me" - and - at the same time,
allowing myself to just be the way I am.  As Ramana Maharshi
said to those who were searching for the Truth of their being -
"Be as you are..."  In letting go of the need to look through a
particular "spiritual" lens, I realize how freeing it is to allow
myself to just be myself...  To not strive to know the Truth,
but to let it reveal ItSelf; to not strive to be "spiritual" or
"non-dual" - or "enlightened."  I can just be who I am  -
as that is who my true "Beingness" IS.  I don't have to be
self-conscious about using words like "I", "me", "my" - in
some kind of pseudo non-dual awareness - because...  It's all
just Beingness, pure Awareness, pure Consciousness, Source,
God, etc., expressing ItSelf.  There's no need to make a
distinction between self and Self.  It's all The Self...
Imagine that :)

I don't need to worry about whether I'm coming from the ego-
self because it's part of the whole package, part of the
wholeness that we are.  I only need to BE, and let
BEingness reveal ItSelf, express ItSelf, live Itself as "me."

It's not about "me" being "enlightened", or spiritualizing
everything, but seeing the True Nature of myself and
being authentic...

I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that
have defined and informed my "path" so far - the boxes of belief
that have tended to constrain this authentic expression of Self,
extricating my sense of self from the life dramas that have
preoccupied my mind.  This shift in consciousness may take
some time, and I don't know where I will land, realizing that
Life is truly a Sacred Adventure of just Being, and adventure
in lightness and boldness; of letting go of the sack of
insignificant items/beliefs that I've been carrying for so long...
It's a never-ending exploration...

Namaste
Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Wanting A Way & Nowhere To Go - Richard Wehrman

Not yet, the not knowing
says, now is not the time
to know, this is what I've
given - uncertainty -
as your mind tries to scale the glass
mountain, impenetrable;
not glass, but quartz, not
quartz, but diamond, clear,
all the way through, but no
way to get in or out, not by
looking for a door, for a key;
frozen in the this or that,
wanting a way - your way -
when ways, plans, paths,
maps and agendas, are
destinations past, continents
left behind, earlier stages of
evolution, your childhood,
your schoolyards, your old
ways of loving; what is coming
you can't know, it has no
existence, the formless has
nothing to offer, as something
arrayed in the future, only
this arriving now, gone as
you try to grab on, arriving
again and again, unknown,
brilliant and new.

Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

He was crossing an unknown
land, one he no longer knew,
though the landmarks were
identifiable and familiar; it was
the mystery of what stretched
before him, as the distance
lessened, as time in the outward
sense contracted, but inwardly
expanded and deepened, as
goals and achievements hour
by hour, day by day, lost their
imperative, and what he had once
set as a destination had been
passed with only slight remarking.
Now he had no where to go, and
the distance between somewhere
and nowhere was steadily
decreasing; in a similar manner
his excitement, his sense of
the immensity of some thing he
could not name grew, as though
that which he searched for
his whole life unknowing, and
which he called by many names,
which had been refracted by
art, music, certain writings...
by men of gravity and honor,
drew near, but was none of these.
And he felt the thrill,
and it hummed in the air.

Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

~

Photo taken by my husband
 on a hike many years ago :)

Life Postmortem...

It's been six weeks since my mother passed...  My grieving has ended.
I did most of my grieving over the 3 months she was home on
"Hospice Care", waiting to die; which was really her children taking
care of her 24/7, watching her deteriorate; although, because of her
dementia, she forgot that's what was happening to her - until about
a week before she passed, making it all the more sad...
She struggled so hard to hang on to life...

But my mother's passing was not the worst part actually.
I am at peace with that and my "spiritual" beliefs have seen
me through.  It's the "postmortem..."

Now my days are dominated with going through her 90 years of
life's belongings at her house with my sister.  Mom was a bit of a
pack rat/hoarder, so we are trying to clear things out so we can
put the house up for sale, which also means trying to find a place
for my sister to live, as she has lived with my mother for 8 1/2 years.

But she doesn't want to move.  That is not an option - she can't pay
the mortgage or the bills...  My brother returned to his home early
in April after staying with Mom for 3 months until the week after
she died, and tried to set things in motion for my sister and I to
follow through in processing the "postmortem" experience.

The process itself is difficult, even demanding, but with my siblings
has been especially challenging.  We are all so very different;
different values, different priorities, different perceptions, and we've
 all taken different paths, and made different life choices for ourselves
 and how we choose to live...  And they don't mix well.  But we manage
most of the time to treat each other kindly...  Unfortunately there has
 also been a lot of drama, which I really can't expand upon here... 
But will be glad when everything is finally settled, and I can "move on",
 as they say, and have some space to breathe again, and hopefully
 rekindle  the Spark within, as I am feeling rather uninspired lately
 - lackluster;  out of sync with the rhythms of Life.
 Like an automaton going through  the motions to get things done,
 yet surprisingly "present" as well.

But nothing speaks to me anymore - well almost nothing.
Feeling trapped in the particulars of my moment-to-moment
experience. It is what it is, and I am where I am...  No pretense here...
The stress of the family dysfunction and the grind of being
 immersed in the mundane has made me weary of life - and placed a
 heavy burden on my heart...

I have had little time for Solitude and deep Meditation - feeling rather
distracted by the externals of living, creating a feeling of "separation"
from the Alive Presence within...
My meditation space has now become storage space for some of my
 mother's things, which will have to be gone through at a later time -
another "postmortem" activity...

I don't foresee this "experience" ending any time soon.  It will probably
last through the Summer, although I know this too shall pass, and
there will be another, hopefully brighter, postmortem...

I realize I am on the edge of a new journey, a new chapter in this
story that is playing itself out in my life at the moment - waiting
for the page to turn.  I know it's all just a story in the context of a
larger Story - but still...  It is being lived in "real" time... condensed
from somewhere out of time...

And so it goes...

Namaste

~

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another
human being.  We should all be thankful for those people
who rekindle the inner spirit.

Albert Schweitzer