Sometimes I feel so out of step!
Do I want to ascend? No. I want to descend.
Huh? Where did everybody go? Hellooooooooooo!
Seriously. There are those who are loving and joyful and exuberant. They emerge. They arise. They burst forth.
And then there’s me, who wants depth, who wants to descend into the heart, to go as deeply into the Self as is humanly … no, higher-dimensionally … no, existentially possible.
Here’s another place where I’m out of step: Do I want to visit far-off galaxies? Do I want to meet dozens of new civilizations?
Actually, no. No offense intended to all those wonderful people, but I have very little natural curiosity in the area, even though I know it’ll be an important part of my personal mission later.
I’ll do it when the time comes and gladly. But does my heart cry out for it now? No, it does not.
What I want to do is to settle onto three square feet of floor under my meditation bench and find out who I am.
The enduring mystery of our true nature, what can be found by sinking ever more deeply into being, what awaits me in the inner world rather than the outer world – that’s what moves me.
Is this a vagary in me? I think not. In my own defence, I feel the longing for liberation strongly and the form that that longing takes in me is to go into myself, not to go into outer space, just taking that as an example.
And I don’t think I’m alone. And I also don’t think that inner and outer exhaust the paths. Some will want to paint furiously. Others will want to sing the perfect aria. Still others will want to worship the Divine Mother with the purest of hearts. All of us will find ourselves traveling different paths, the path which calls us and draws us onward.
When I speak the deepest truth I’m capable of? I’m left in the same place that the followers of the path of joy are. I feel the same love and bliss that they do and reach the same place of cessation of desire (and hence quietening of the ego and mind) that they do. Krishna said:
“All mankind
Is born for perfection
And each shall attain it
Will he but follow
His nature’s duty.” (1)
Our nature’s duty: our dharma. The law of our nature. The particular lessons that we agreed to learn and broadcast to the world.
That having been said, I welcome all paths and genuine spiritual inclinations and see a place for theirs and mine as well.
But …….. OK … maybe a short trip to Arcturus? No, maybe Sirius B. Or, or … how about Venus!
Footnotes
(1) Prabhavananda, Swami and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944., 126.