The Spiritual Path (Part 2); “The Big Picture”

We have all heard it…the quote that sums it up; the “zen” perspective of how it is; the assumption that brings us to the present moment……”It’s not the destination.  It’s the journey.”  Really?  Life is all about the journey?

Deciding to enter into serious spiritual study is to inquire into the big questions.  How did we get here?  Where did we come from?  Where are we going?  What is the destination?  What is meaningful?  Is there objective truth and morality?  There is no more important path to get on than the spiritual path.  Deciding to enter onto the “path” in search of “The Way” in itself provides direction and becomes the journey.

So what is the big picture?  Is there a main theme or plot to this whole existence thing?  Seeking out, discovering, inquiring into and studying the ancient metaphysical maps one begins to see a common theme…almost like a story where the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning and everything in the middle is the journey.  One understands that the “beginning” or the creation is critical to getting a glimpse of the big picture.

If you have thrown up your hands or you have given up on the concept of Creation…Don’t.  Within the Creation Story is a key ingredient to seeing “The Big Picture.”  Of course, all of this is a bit nebulous and those of you who are yearning for a more concrete discussion here hang in there.  Spiritual inquiry is, by it’s nature, obtuse and can be murky.  It’s kind of like the quantum physics’ concept of changing what is observed simply by observing.

The foundation of the Big Picture has a lot to do with the 3 steps of the path……namely….Beginning – Middle – End.  Now, within that construct we can inquire by using different words and ways of looking.  The “journey” is defined by where we came from and where we are going.  This is one way to look at it.

Here is another way.  Life is an elaborate interplay of Yin and Yang,  Desire and Fulfillment, Receiving and Sharing, Good and evil or, should I say evil and good, negative and positive, Dark and Light.    Where they  meet, where the dance occurs is the middle or the experience of journey.

And here is a third way……..Birth-Growth-Death.   Or, Immaculate Conception – Miracle/Illusion – Resurrection.

The Kabbalists tell us that the reason for the creation of our universe was/is to absolve Bread of Shame.  Bread of Shame is the feeling of unworthiness that emerges when one receives something that he feels is unearned.  This implies that there was something going on prior to the creation of this universe we find ourselves in.  This place, this existence is called “The Endless World.”  The Endless was/is an existence where the interplay or dance between Desire and Fulfillment was/is perfectly orchestrated and immediate.  There was no time or space dimension.  Cause and Effect occurred at the same “time”.  But a problem surfaced that needed attention.  Desire began to feel Bread of Shame.  Desire began to feel that it had not earned its fulfillment and wanted some space and time to do that.  BOOM!  Big Bang and a whole bunch of planets and stars and all that.  Eventually we appear and we seem to have evolved to a consciousness where we can consider all of this.  We came from a perfect connection with “The Light” of Fulfillment (Sound familiar to some of you?  Hint: garden of…) and we are going back to to that perfect connection.  The journey is all about awakening to this “Big Picture” perspective and doing the spiritual work.  And there is a lot to it.  It is not easy.  The more you delve into it the more you realize how much you do not know.  The Spiritual path and spiritual work is all about speeding up the process.  It is not about the journey.  It is about the destination and the creation.  Once this is seen the journey is re-calculated  and the work of unification and peace begins anew.

Part 3 in the works…

The Spiritual Path (Part 1)

There are a whole bunch of different perspectives out there, in this world, as to “What’s it all about (“Alfie” for those of you over the age of 40) and “Why am I here?” and ………..some of the other big questions of life like “Who am I?” or, for that matter, “What am I.”

The purpose of this post is not to provide an answer.  The purpose of this post is to begin to structure an argument that there is no more important inquiry to make right now than to pursue these questions.

There are several “categories” of people.  See which one you fall in…

  • Those of you who have never asked these questions.  They just have never occurred to you.  You are engaged in what is in front of you and these questions have not entered your field of awareness, and if they have, they were quickly processed as being not that important and no further inquiry was required.
  • Those of you who have considered these questions and have come to the logical and rational decision that they are unknowable and therefore, they are a waste of time to consider and better left for philosophers to wax their brains on for that is what philosophers do.
  • Those of you who have considered these questions and have come to the conclusion that we came about as a result of a random mixture of materials that, originally and magically, created an amoeba which then evolved into a more complex organism that turned into a reptile that evolved into, perhaps, some huge flying bird that eventually became a monkey and then, like some seedling flying off into some other magical soil, turned into a human being who seems to have “evolved” faster than any of the other animals.  And, yes, our essence is animalistic.  We are just like the animals. There is no Creator or God..  There just is what you see in front of you and when it ends it ends.  And you are good with that.  A matter of fact, you are beyond good, you feel a sense of rising above it all by having this understanding.  You are able to see the nonsense of taking any other position on this matter.
  • Those of you that have faith in a particular religion. Those from the first 3 views listed don’t really understand the wide spectrum of perspective you hold.  The common conclusion you seem to have is that our universe started with a Creator.   You also are indoctrinated with some kind of moral code.  You may accept it or not, most of you don’t adhere to it.  You believe in some man made map that provides a story of where you came from and where you are to go.  This map provides instructions on how to navigate your experience as a human being.   Faith is required to be in this category and this is where you all differ.
  • There are those of you who consider yourself spiritual but not religious.  Those in the religious category think you are weak in your faith.  Those in the first three categories tolerate you a little more than the religious type.  Nevertheless, you are seen by those not in your category as a bit ungrounded and flakey.  You tend to hang out with people like you and you have been seen congregating in yoga studios all across the country.  In fact, some of these yoga studios are beginning to resemble churches and mystical schools.  You are fairly open minded except you tend to be as intolerant of the religious type as the Atheist.  You think religion is the cause of a lot of the evil in the world and you, like the rational evolutionist, feel a bit above it all.  Some of you think you are enlightened beings and want to be spiritual leaders.

I am sure you can think of other categories to describe the current spectrum of human conscious view on this matter.  If you are so sensitive that the word category is disturbing you then hang in there.  I assure you I am not doing it to hurt, label, pigeon hole.  The reality is that we are all at different “places” determined by desire and ability to hold wider and wider perspective.

Now, to the primary purpose of this post.  I am here to tell you that it is critical that you take some time and inquire into the way things really are.  Not because it is a nice thing to do or because it will increase your performance levels or to convert you to being a God fearing person.

Human consciousness has been evolving since the beginning of time. This is not my opinion, this is an empirical fact.   It has been speeding up in the past few hundred years and in the last 50 years it seems to have found a new gear and is exponentially expanding.   Consciousness is Consciousness.  It is kind of like Consciousness is everything and anything that ever was, ever is and ever will be.  Human consciousness is our ability to connect to, channel, process and make use of Consciousness.  Check out Ray Kurzweil:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/

We, humans, are fast approaching a tipping point.  We need to catch up, consciously, with the advancements that we are realizing in technology.  The bad news is that we are lagging behind.  The good news is that it does not take much effort to break through and have a realization of what is next in your desire and ability to connect to all that there is.

I am not sure what is going to happen if we don’t catch up.  Some see the end of times.  I guess some would question my conclusion that we have not caught up.

Check out some of my linked sites on this website for path ways into inquiry.

Part 2 currently under construction.  I am writing a total of 5 in this series.