What does it mean to "be on the Path"?
What are we trying to do with a practice of meditation?
How do we define the biggest word of all: "God"?
These are the ideas that percolate in my mind early this morning as I sit down to write. My writing is a way to organize and distill my thinking process into something that is more digestible, translatable, and hopefully communicable. It's also a way to narrow it all down into what is "true". For me, the process of writing, speaking, or expressing in any way, accompanied by a simultaneous process of listening to what is being said or expressed, allows me to tune into the energetic current behind the expression and, hopefully, be able to discern where it is coming from and where it is leading to. If what is being shared is half-baked or incomplete, I can feel it in my body. This means that if I'm listening to myself, I sometimes am able to pick up on my own incompleteness. With patience, care, and slowness, I am able to redirect back to presence and from presence share something truly wholesome. I don't know how else to explain this and I'm not even sure if this makes sense, but that is my best attempt to explain the phenomenon. It's pretty cool.
So I want to talk today about God, because God is, in my opinion, perhaps THE most misunderstood or misinterpreted word in human history (the only runner up is "love"). For someone on a spiritual path, regardless of whether or not religion is playing a role in their spiritual unfoldment, God is an essential concept or ingredient to work with. God is a part of all of our evolutionary processes and is, in fact, influencing our every move. However, a clear understanding of what begins as a subjective reality can help us navigate the mysterious seas of comprehension back to the Source, at which point towards the end of this journey the Objective Reality becomes apparent to us. This is where I think we ought to start with this blog post -- offering guidelines and suggestions about this vast subject with the hopeful intention that this will invoke the curiosity and contemplation necessary to bring us each closer to God, in our own unique individual way. Shall we?
I mean, it's kinda presumptuous of me to assume that I know or could say any words at all about God, don't you think? There are far more qualified individuals than me who have already said so much on this topic. What makes me think that little ol' I could offer anything of value to the table? Well, I don't know if I can, but I also don't know if I can't. Thus, I'm somewhere in that mysterious place in between two outcomes, two realities, or two potentials. And the only way to actually see what is true, is to take action and observe the result. I believe this is a good place to begin with our discussion because this gives some context to what we are all really trying to "do" with all this "God" business. As far as I can tell, we are (each of us), trying to figure out how to manifest the best possible life for ourselves, where "best" is of course a subjective experience but one that is generated from within each individual. As in, we sorta get to decide what is "good" for us, no? And in our inner Universe, we create an "image" of where we want to go in our lives, and we begin to notice everything around us that is either aligned with this image or not. The clearer and stronger our connection to the inner image, the more there is a contrast with the outer world. Is it not true? When we feel deep down in our heart our innermost desire (which is a "form" of an "image"), we can also feel what is in contrast or opposition to that in our outer reality. Simultaneously, we notice what feeds, uplifts or nourishes that image. I think this is the starting place for understanding God -- noticing that we ourselves are Creators of our inner experience and the world around us reflects to us what is happening in the inner reality.
These mystical teachings might hopefully invite us to begin to contemplate -- "well, what IS happening in my inner reality?" and "how is my inner reality influencing my outer reality, and vice versa?" "what principle is linking the two (inner and outer) together?" ... and so on.
Back to what I was saying earlier about not knowing if I can or can't . Part of what makes this process so beautiful -- the process of discovering God, that is -- is that we must be involved or participants in the game to come to any understanding at all. The mystics talk about this as being direct experience. This is why I don't really have anything of TRUE value to say on the topic, because I can only offer pointers and clues to others who may be "on the Path". The only "TRUE value" would be found in your direct experience. Nothing more, and nothing less. I am not a credible source of the Source. The transmission of my experience, which I am constantly in a process of refining through my writing, is inherently incomplete. You, the reader, will have to go out and contemplate what I am saying for yourself, and apply what is resonating here to deepen your own personal quest. This process is a process of choice, commitment and ultimately discovery. You take what is in your environment, allow it to influence and shape your inner reality, formulate some idea and the inside, and then test the idea on the outside. Essentially, you use the environment to inform you, and then you work with that material until you can "in-form" the "environment". If you are successful, as in your experiment goes well, you end up with a feeling of supreme satisfaction, having "created" something out of nothing. Make sense?
This is a profound mystical truth -- that we have the ability to "create something out of nothing". Where you choose your focus, and direct your energy, you can magically create an entire reality. The raw materials to that reality exist everywhere all around us, in a dormant or potential state, and as you mobilize the inner resources required to produce an outcome, the "outer world" respond. BUT -- you must take action. You must first choose, and then follow the path or trajectory of that choice. The rest will follow. Unless and until a choice is made, the Universe rests in a dormant or potential state of being. The Creator "sleeps", so to speak. In the mythologies, there is a teaching about this -- they say that desire was the original spark which moves the Creator into creating the Universe. Think about that for a second. Desire is the flame in our heart which inspires us to choose. We make a choice that we want the thing we are desiring, and now we are on a path to manifest the "thing" that is existing in our heart, the thing that we are longing after. This flame of desire motivates our movement outward from rest, or peace. The infinite peace of being completely still and quiet is disturbed by desire, but desire is exactly what propels the infinite Peace of Being into the Universe outside. As it is said in the mythological narratives, the Creator is resting peacefully in Its own abode, until at some point desire moves It outside of Itself. Sounds a bit like our lives, no? Only problem is, many times we are caught in the constantly desirous washing machine, moving from desire to desire to desire never being able to rest and be actually satisfied. When we get quiet and still, even if just a for a few breaths, we can tune in to a deeper layer or level of the Creator's wish for us, as opposed to running after all the surface level motivations. We may learn to let go of the desires that fulfill only temporary pleasures and start to penetrate to a deeper, more sustainable level of desire. A desire for the One. A desire to know the Creator. And we come to "know" this Being by observing this entire process play out. Pausing. Feeling. Listening. Noticing our desire. Noticing where it is coming from. And allowing it to play out, motivating our movement into the Universe and the magical result that is the fruits of our actions... resting in the afterglow, and repeating the cycle... all while paying close attention to what is really happening as we create, and create, and create.... Who is it That Creates???
Hmmm...
This, I think, is "the Path".
The point or purpose of meditation is that we get crystal clear about WHAT we want to create. What we are truly desiring. This is not something we inherit from others, or are conditioned into. It is at the deepest level of our soul-knowing. Something far deeper than the surface of the mind and the fleeting desires that tend to pull us this way and that way in life. Meditation becomes a practice of focusing our attention on that which we are choosing to focus our attention onto. This is a key point! We develop the capacity to 1) choose our focus and 2) maintain our focus on the chosen point . Doing this repetitively over time wires the nervous system to be able to do this is everyday life. Suddenly "God" becomes not a concept but something we are able to experience through each and every moment. Because we have wired ourselves to EXPERIENCE God.
This, I think..... is "the Path".
And, in walking, we define and re-define and re-discover and re-define all of this stuff anyways. We experience it for ourselves. The Truth keeps changing as do we. But something becomes more and more apparent... bit by bit.... God reveals Himself, Herself, or Itself to us. An eternal mystery but a game that doesn't get boring. Maybe that is why we created it for ourselves....
-GI