Month: July 2010

It is rather strange how the spiritual journey turns out to be …
a completion of sort,
a full cycle,
and yet gone nowhere
neither here, nor there
but yet everywhere.

There…
Here…
Ere…
Re…
E…
…
(poof!)

Do I have a choice to choose a path of joy, instead of pain, to tread the spiritual journey as advocated by many new age calling for spiritual awakening? Can I be merry and enjoy the very best of life and yet at the very same time be spirited on the masters’ path that brought them to full realization? For me, it is a resounding yes and yet, a no.

After much into the journey of self-awareness, and still, work in progress, it dawned upon me how important the presence of wisdom is to enable me to continuously explore and differentiate what is truth and what is not truth, or rather, imitation of truth. For that I am deeply grateful to the sharing of one unassuming teacher of light-heartedness with a down to earth character that brought me into this journey of self-inquiry.

Until this moment, this sentence is more true to my journey – I need not choose the path of pain to progress spiritually but I’d need to face whatever pain that is already in my space to progress in my spiritual journey. In other words, I need not create pain or move away from pain to make me feel spiritual or good – I need not do anything extra than who I already am now, except to work with whatever that is already here for me or coming my way.

I need not give away my wealth to be spiritual but instead inquire why am I in stress, trying to amass wealth. I need not purposely live a life of mediocrity and act in humility, when at the same time, making ends meet to survive with difficulty. Humility is an effect of wisdom, not something I could mimic or create, as that would only tantamount to the survival of ego. Where I am, the lesson is already here for me. It will neither leave me, nor need I create any for myself to experience.

On the same note, it is not about running away from lessons and drowning myself in merriment so as to indulge further in desires that blinds me from seeing the motivation behind each act. It is also not about avoiding pain or making plans to cover-up what is already here. Both avoidance and indulgence are simply effects of fear of facing the inner demons, the unquestioned pain. Mental complaints, judgments, comparisons, assumptions, to name a few, are camouflages that I create in my mind to escape from the origin of pain. Ironically, those acts compound the pain that I am already in.

Thus the joy of the spiritual journey is about accepting with integrity what is already in me as I work through it to release the pain that I am unconscious about. Not the joy of merrymaking or good feelings practices. There are no choices in spiritual practice except to face squarely what is already here for me. The only choice I have is either to resolve it here and now or to delay it – but never, could I even attempt to leave it.

Every relationship, be it with myself or with anyone for that matter, points me to my pain. Would it be farfetched to say that the way I relate is my pain found? Why do I resist certain relationships? What is in me that I am not relating to lovingly? Why am I holding on to a certain relationship? Why the need to discriminate, judge and compare in hierarchy, the specialness of relationships? If I am sincere and really do wish to understand, I need not look far but to travel into my own motivation behind those acts. In it, I will find my space of pain – fear of being abandoned, of disapproval, of inferiority, of creating specialness which all serves the purpose to hide my own pain.

To resist a relationship is pain. To hold on to it too, is pain. When I hold on to another I am in denial of the opposite of what I am resisting. In short, every moment is pain in progress, except that I am totally oblivious to it as I constantly create avoidance and indulgence to drown my discomfort.

Thus “spiritual journey” is not about getting anywhere or achieving anything, nor is it about hiding myself from the world; but to come into my own presence of what is already in me. It is the journey of resolving the pain without try to fix it, but only through inner understanding. And this can only be done when I give myself the sacred space of non-doing by simply being with what is. It is about seeing what currently blocks me from experiencing the truth, and to finally reckon with wisdom that all pains are simply errors I have put in my system that leads to misperception. Here lies the suffering. Not the suffering of the world, but the suffering of the inner world where my perception becomes my reality. And seeing this truth is a call for freedom – freedom from the tyranny of delusion which I placed myself in.

Take time to reflect on the following verses made by the Buddha and Yeshua, both like you and me, who wanted to know the truth and nothing but the truth:

When this world is ever ablaze,
Why this laughter, why this jubilation?
Shrouded in darkness,
will you not seek the light?

(cited in the Dhammapada)

Blessed are those who have undergone ordeals.
They have entered into the life.

(cited in The Gospel of Thomas)

There is a field,
Not here, not there, not anywhere;
And yet it is here, it is there, it is everywhere,
within you, within me,
without you, without me.

There is a field;
beyond bodies,
beyond personalities,
beyond you,
beyond me.

Only convergence;
where separation or non-separation is meaningless,
where distance or distant-less is unknown,
where form or formless, is not a question.
neither this nor that
for it is not
something or somewhere or somewhat
but simply
….

It is here in this field, where
no words are necessary,
no approval required,
no understanding needed,
no comparison possible,
no judgment existed,
no now,
no past,
no future,
timeless, unconditioned.

For there is no otherness;
no you, no me;
simply Beloved,
in stillness,
in totality,
of Is.

Beyond the concept of time,
the concept of distance,
the concept of form,
the concept of space,
the concept of self…
Is.