I believe now that consciousness reveals itself in stages not unlike a painter or sculptor who reveals his art over time. The more we attend to the task of revealing our true nature, the more consciousness obliges and the secrets to our being revealed.
I know this to be true for the simple reason that, more than anything else over the past decade, this is the garden I have chosen to till. Where another might immerse himself in faith or money or home and hearth, I seem always to have one eye on god, life’s meaning, awareness, the sheer stupendousness of being.
Some of these truths – where for years I may only have read them or heard them spoken – now have a home here in my heart right alongside the anxieties and fears that still routinely wake me from sleep or haunt my waking hours. And while these truths aren’t necessarily a part of the fabric of this thing called ‘me,’ they’re there when I need them, to remind me that the boogeymen of this existence aren’t what they seem.
Other things have changed too. For a long time I urged family and friends to seek the spiritual life, the way, the Tao. Today I see that this was only a bewildered and unsure little me trying to goad others to come along, to confirm I wasn’t making a mistake in my life’s choices, to assure me that while they were socking away cash for retirement and building careers and taking big family vacations, that I wouldn’t be alone out there on my quest. And mostly, to tell me that the spiritual search really and truly is all that matters.
Today? I really could care less. It’s why I blog so little, why I rarely if ever dive into the spiritually-minded podcasts and books that for so long informed my search. If each of us is a unique expression of the One, it’s obvious that that journey must itself be unique, including, I might add, the degree to which it calls each of us.
For some, there is no call at all – life is for the living, to be experienced in its fullest warts and all. And I must admit that, for brief interludes, I love to be around such souls, to immerse myself in their lusts for material experience. Yet after a time those experiences are seen through, their never-ending quest for more, more, more exhausting and ultimately empty.
Each of us IS called to seek out our true nature, to make sense of this thing called life, called existence, called me. The nature of the instrument that beckons may take on any number of forms and even, over time, change and become more urgent (our mortality being the most obvious and most urgent of those clarions). For me, the call has been a lifetime of unrelenting anxiety and fear, planted there aggressively and persistently at a young age so that their roots are as much ‘me’ as the skin that coves these bones.
For much of my life and specifically my search, I believed spirituality was a tool to overcome this pain – to eliminate the fear and anxiety so that I might live a happier and more fulfilling life. Now, at last, it is seen that the task is not to remove the pain from me but to discover the true nature of the me that is experiencing it.
Many years ago, after he had been tossed out on his ear by wife #3 or 4, I was lunching with my father when he complained, “How do I keep getting involved with these screwed up women?”
Flabbergasted, I asked: “Dad, WHO is the common denominator in that equation?”
Now I see that this same question can be put to me – to each of us. Who or what is the constant behind all of this world’s experiences – its hopes and fears, joys and pains? The question must arise within – and be answered by – each of us.
