So Why Bother?

This pristine inner space that I encountered, whatchamacallit? — True Self?, True Nature?, Higher Self?, Buddha Nature?, Holy Spirit?, Jivatma? If this pristine innocent space within is untouched and uncontaminated by my personality or my life experiences and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about my daily struggles and drama; then why should I bother trying so hard to practice a spiritual life, struggle with virtues, bring my shadow selves to light and fall again and again in the process? I began to wonder about that. Have I got the whole thing wrong? Did I needlessly waste my time devouring scriptures and self-help books? Was it all a wild goose chase? Then a voice arose from within and whispered” Without all that training and discipline, your mind would not have been calm enough to even perceive this pristine space or to hear its subtle calling”. The imagery that rose within me was a dark room with curtains drawn, the glass panes of the window covered with soot and dirt. The sun is shining brightly outside. However, inside the room it is so dark, musty and depressing. Sitting inside that room, one might convince oneself that there is no sun, it is always dark and dingy and you are trapped inside forever in the dark, musty room. However, if we can take even a little peek out of the curtains, you see the sun shining so brightly all the time. So is the light of the Pure being, like the Sun always shining brightly. But in order to let the sunlight in, one has to draw the curtains back, clean the window panes, open the windows, to let the energizing sunlight stream into the room from all directions. That is what Psycho-spiritual discipline and practices do for us. Yes! I use the word Psycho-spiritual because most of us are either trying to make our external material life perfect or trying to spiritually bypass by hanging out in the transcendental realms, trying to meditate away our problems. Neither approach will work. It is but half-baked. Always reverting back to Buddha’s Middle way, one has to acknowledge that there are two parts to us — “Human” and “Being”. We have to take care of both dimensions. The human part means having our shit together — in our work, relationships, personal psyche with its denials, delusions and defenses, physical health which includes sleep, nutrition and exercise. It also means living a focused life with meaning, purpose and virtues. Virtues and morals are words that are almost becoming extinct. But this pandemic is making these words float back into our consciousness again and resurfacing in our dialogues. About time, I would think. It is only after we get our human life in order that we can sit down to encounter the “being” aspect of ourselves. Eckhart Tolle beautifully put it this way “infuse your doing (transactional) with being(transcendental)”. Then we are talking about embodied wisdom. Maybe this is why Buddha never spoke about the existence or non-existence of God, because he figured once the room is clean and windows open, the rest will reveal itself naturally like the sunlight streaming in. So, I say to you my beloved friends, take out your pails of water and start cleaning those windows, drawing those curtains of ignorance back coz my friends “it’s gonna be bright, bright, bright sunshiny day”.