Thursday 7 October 2010

Go.....where there is no path.....and leave a trail....

The spiritual path is a tried and tested path where everything hinges on the words of sages and gurus who have left this life. These sages and gurus are dead and have taken their enlightenment to the grave. There is little to be gained by following dead sages. All these writings can do is provide a guide but the guide is not the experience. In every field new paths are blazed. I'm thinking of quantum mechanics and nanotechnology in science and yet in the field of spirituality everything has stayed the same and then we wonder where there are so few enlightened beings.

I assert that the grace of the guru is only obtained by following a living teacher. By writing this I am going against the grain of my beliefs because unashamedly my most influential teachers have been Sri Ramana Maharshi and Osho and of course beloved Buddha and from these I have learned so much but if I am to achieve the ultimate goal then I have to go where there is no path and leave a trail. This doesn't mean re-writing spiritual literature. The goal has always been the same spiritual enlightenment but all the past teachers have done is to offer devices or techniques to reach enlightenment.

Enlightenment for all is not an 'if' but a 'when' and I am a hundred percent sure of this. What makes me so sure? Every one of us born a human being has an inner centre which connects us to the whole of existence. No training can be given to develop this centre it has to be discovered or uncovered. Every enlightened master uncovered this centre and then taught from another centre which they developed. For some the centre they taught from was the heart and so the teachings contains the importance of being devoted. Others developed the head centre and then taught from there so the method that was advocated was self-enquiry or reason. But all first uncovered and immersed themselves in this inner inborn centre and from this centre everything else came. The really great thing abut this and what is to be celebrated is that this centre cannot be developed it is inherent to all of us. So there really is nothing to do. This is why for me the advocates of the thinking, we are already enlightened we just haven't had the experience yet is so true. I have to stress again because it is so important and I am so excited that I want to repeat that this centre cannot be trained or developed, only discovered.

One way of looking at this centre is to think about the Witness consciousness. The Witness is that which watches everything that goes on in the mind dispassionately and objectively. To see this - consider what is it that knows you have a thought or a feeling. When you say 'I have a headache', who is it that knows you have a headache, something is watching you have the headache. If you were the headache, you wouldn't be able to see it as something separate to you. But the fact is that we do see a headache as separate to us which is why we reach for nurofen.

This inner centre is like the rock in the ocean. In the ocean waves crash around the rock, but the rock remains stable, unattached and uninvolved. For me this rock is the same as our inner centre. When we operate from this centre, events of life happen but we don't lose our balance and also from this center we respond and not react to these events.

I have allowed for comments on this post and apologies I always mean to but often I forget....

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