Spiritual reflections from an empty chair
What lives on the borders of consciousness, on its hinterlands and promontories is not easy to grasp, for it appears as cloud, there from a distance yet hazy the closer one gets.
This is the reality with trauma, of absenting the body, the veil between realities blurry. From the outside, the usual mind applies certainties and logic that just don’t apply — although the questioner doesn’t comprehend why.
‘Why didn’t you run?’ for instance, makes no sense to the person frozen to the spot.
It is easy to despair when we appear to have everything the world says will make us happy yet find it is not enough. Many people first castigate themselves as ingrates, marshal their will to try harder, only to find a few months or years down the road they are back where they started. Trying harder is often not our remedy but in lieu of knowing what else to do we simply apply our arsenal of misinformation and conditioning to our problems. And we can ignore our deeper longing, the soul’s divine discontent, ad infinitum. Most people do and their tragic fate is to wither on life’s vine, growing cold, becoming bitter. But if we can recognize that we are being called to a deep and inner life, we see that our crisis becomes our breakthrough point, our longing our agent of transformation. How many of us, at this very moment, are circling our life like vultures around a corpse instead of seeing we are being called home?
“Without true celebration discipline is obnoxious.”― Adi Da Samraj
How often do we wonder why we struggle with disciplines and spiritual practice and wonder why many religious organisations and churches have fallen out of favour?. There are a number of reasons of course, but this is one of them. I remember sitting in my grandfather’s church as a boy and being endlessly bored. Give me a god that is joyful and relishes celebration, for is not a joyous dancing god, yet who abides in perfect stillness, not the truth?
There is no more important choice we can ever make: to live according to the ways of the world, our own egoic patterns and desires or the invisible, hidden ways of the Beloved. For there is no room in the human heart for two. We must choose, and to choose out of the world we must become sick of it, sated by it, have exhausted its pains and pleasures and no longer want it. Everything that separates us from Love — our true nature — must go. And we must cleanse ourselves for an unknown god who promises — like all births — pain before joy but who ultimately gives all.
What I sought was first seeking me, and like a child it looked upon me with infinite compassion and love. It waited with eternal patience, even though Its longing far exceeded my own. It knows who I am long before I do. When I am angry and judgmental with myself and others, it remains perfectly tolerant. Although infinitely detached, it feels every hurt deeply and knows every hair, thought and nuance in my life. Its sun shines upon me whatever the weather. For it knows no otherness and holds steady when I waver. Although fierce, its anger serves only to purify. And when we have done our portion and let go of all attachments, it does the rest for us, quietly bringing us home.
When we have a benighted ancestry, heavy karma and most probably both, it is hard for us to see the Go(o)d in others. A habit of distrust and suspicion can take hold so all we see is what is difficult in the other, their own version of what ails us. But as we learn to turn our attention inwards, to our own soul, the light in our own heart, we slowly begin to shift. ‘You go on and on till you find God. Then God takes you into Himself — and makes you as He is.’ Nisargadatta
So often we think we have to do it all ourselves, but if that were so we would be practising forever. In the end, it is all God’s work and if we will only do our part and recognize our need of help, our perceptions can radically alter.
What if we were to see things differently and understand an unassailable truth: we are not living life, rather life is seeking to live us. Then our greatest pains and times of trial — the times we suffer the most — can be seen for what they are, the shattering of all self concept, our very identity. This is excruciating and makes no sense to the mind. Yet perhaps a profound mystery is taking place and our job is to stand firm through this valley and allow the burning that many masters have spoken of to take place. Often, the greater the soul, the darker the night. Meaning and purpose live on the other side of this alchemy. But for a time we have to fly blind and hold the hand of our fellow travellers and those who have gone before.
So many of us long for freedom only to mistakenly, often tragically, believe it is the ability to do what we want. It takes many trials, often a painful maturation, to discover that freedom is something else altogether.
‘While the mind thinks ‘I can only realise myself if I am separate,’ the heart knows the deeper truth that the soul’s individuality is only realised through a state of union,’ Llewellyn Vaughan Lee.
Perhaps our ancestors need us, our willingness to take on their healing paramount and maybe they roam the earth looking for one true heart; just one person willing to break the chains of their imprisonment.
Healing can cascade up and down a family tree, set its group soul back on track, re-orientate a dying and corrupt house and restore a balance long lost and a truth spun out of existence.
Why do we long? Because we have forgotten who we are. We become caught in the shadow and forget the sun. In this cold forgetting, we chase mirages until finally, long frustrated and dissatisfied by those objects we sought so earnestly, our attention turns toward the light within. The prodigal faces home only to finally discover this one truth: he never left.
The soul can call us but we can refuse its call — many do. We can in our fear circle the call to adventure and choose our comfort and security instead, sometime with good reason.
Often, the window of opportunity is fleeting, although many think there will always be another. This is a dangerous delusion and I have seen many fall, even losing their lives rather than open that window and climb through it.
And finally….
Aren’t all quests for love? We come from Love and return to it. What we do in between is our own affair but almost always involves a deeply personal struggle to work out how we lost it and how we are to find it again.
