There is a growing sense that freedom cannot be found in philosophies, religions, ideologies; that it cannot be located in books, or reached through lifetimes of intense spiritual practice; that it cannot be passed on by enlightened or awakened spiritual masters; that it cannot be owned, cannot be taught, cannot be captured."
- Jeff Foster, Life Without A Centre
I had lunch with a good friend today and we talked about the struggles of letting go of belief, and the stages of thinking that we appear to go through as we learn to release ourselves from our self-willed prison of fear and superstition. My friend jokingly remarked that he struggles with letting go of the image of a "Big Sugar-Daddy in the sky," and we laughed about how strange it is that nothing actually changes when that belief is abandoned, but what is felt to be missing is a strongly held sense of security in being able to talk to this invisible friend during times of fear and uncertainty.
OVERCOMING BELIEF
I have written before about what I call the Hypersensitive Evangelical Disease. But, as I continue my process of recovery I keep reflecting on how bound up I was in the belief that life was a test - a kind of practice for the next life.
What a terrible waste of the ever-present and wonderful gift of life this viewpoint caused.
What unnecessary anxiety it created about the eternal "destiny" of friends and family members.
If I believed in a literal Satan, getting people to accept this religious viewpoint, would have to be "his" greatest achievement!!
I have not lost my faith in God - as many people might think, if they read or hear my words at face value. I have lost nothing. In fact, it could be said that I have, in fact, gained everything.
These days:
- I do not blindly believe in God as interpreted from the literalist viewpoint of the Bible and/or Christianity.
- I do not choose to see God with any form - let alone that of a man, or woman.
- I have not "swapped" a "western" image of God, for an "eastern" image.
- I have not assigned God, and humanity, to specific places in the universe. No heaven, no hell. No "up there" or "down here."
- I do not feel the need to divide people into "saved" or "unsaved," "lost" or "found," "believers" or "unbelievers."
... and the result of all this, so far, is that I'm feeling more content in my "faith" than I ever felt before!!!
I am beginning to see beyond belief. I am seeing that reality is far more beautiful than what I previously chose to believe about it.
Beyond belief there is nothing more wonderful than all that is right now - there is nothing else but what is right now! This is It. It's all that there ever is.
The past is only a mental construction of memory, while the future is a wishful, (or hopeless) mental projection. Life only exists in this very present moment as NOW.
THE POETRY AND MUSIC OF LIFE
What I'm trying to express in words that serve merely as pointers, is that all these stories about life having an ultimate purpose are fables. Which is not to imply that life is meaningless in a negative sense, but on the contrary, that life is its own complete purpose. Like music or poetry, life itself has no other meaning than that which it is given by the one doing it.
Having spent most of my adult life as a spiritual seeker - it is a tremendous joy to be able to drop it all and realize that there is nothing to seek beyond "this." There is nothing to "find" because what I seek has never been "lost."
Someone who has never been a spiritual seeker may not understand the anguish of those of us who have spent years researching and studying religion after religion - looking for a mysterious fulfillment that would make everything right. But, for those who have travelled that road - realizing that you are home, and have been all along is a wonderful release!
The mind, combined with the ego, always seeks something to affirm its own existence as a separate meaningful personality.
What it seeks is an illusion of its own creation. Ironically, it seeks truth blindly, yet affirms to itself that it will recognize this truth when it sees it. Thus, the paradox of consciousness already possessing what it seeks to own.
The path of seeking is an endless road.
WAVE GOODBYE
We are like a wave that seeks desperately to know its unique existence. All the while, failing to realize that we are, and always have been, inseparable from the ocean that is life itself. As long as we, like the wave, maintain our view that we are separate and live a divided existence we will never come to rest in our true nature as ocean; as life itself.
This is the true meaning of awakening - it's not the gaining of a new belief. It is the full-on entrusting of ourselves to life itself, so that we merge back into that which has always been the case all along.
Life becomes all meaningful - nothing is wasted - nothing is purposeless. God becomes fully conscious of God and all life flows.
"There is nothing to know.
Nothing to seek.
Nothing to find.
There is only the watching of this dance of life.
No watcher.
The mind is clear, empty space.
The heart is connected to all that it sees.
The within is the without."
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