In light of recent questions on my blog I wanted to say a few words about "spiritual" traditions and the work undertaken by the individual in working for freedom.
To this end, I wanted to start with some quotes by R.W. Emerson in his lecture on nature.
"Our age is retrospective. It builds the supulchres of the fathers.... The forgoing generations beheld God face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe? ..... The sun shines today also.... There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship...."
"The best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his (or her) relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility. He (she) will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility..."
We can apply all of these thoughts to our modern "spiritual practices". It is like we are building a divine house and we continually get distracted by those who tell us how to build it. We get distracted by the comparison or judgement of the right tools. We get lost in the tools themselves. We are conditioned with ideas of how to build the house. We forget constantly the most powerful possibility that life and God him/herself wants to evolve, wants to express, in the deepest fullest way that only we can bring forth. We distrust our very dharma, replacing it with the "appropriate" or "historical" or "politically (spiritually) correct" dharma of another.
To question. To question everything. To really question the axioms. To really dare to question and examine our conditioned motivations. To dare to discover the depths of ourselves and our movements without fear of consequences, judgment, and falsehood. To really examine deeply what is "right" and what is "wrong". To dare to step outside of tradition. Simultaneously and paradoxically to dare to claim those traditions that we feel connected with as our own. To make them our own. To examine that which brings us true greater freedom and that which leads us only into a shiny golden cage. To dare to be free. To dare to move in space.
These are my own inquiries. I invite all to share in the same inquires. There is not one truth. There are many. No one person or tradition holds the key to your liberation. The cage is created and accepted by yourself.
Thanks for being there to remind me of this truth.
ReplyDeleteAdvising the creation of a spiritual path is an interesting thing. Initially, much inquiry and deconstruction must occur to get us to a place of authenticity.
ReplyDeleteHowever, at some point we must act on the veracity of what we have discovered. Living and loving within make a house a home, and so it goes with the divine house. Inquiry into the external way of traditions and practices yields to development of trust and releasing of fear as we act on what we have been shown.
Whether you like it or not Marty, you are always creating, whether in a tradition or outside of it. This is coming from the depths of you and doesn't actually come from what we perceive as the outside tradition. We continually create tradition anew within and through ourselves. My point in the above article is not to be the victim of tradition, to see the power of truth and expression somehow outside of yourself. Even if one is a part of a tradition (as I am of several) one should ideally have the capacity to step outside of it to witness reality directly without filter. And as I state in the article itself, if one feels deeply inclined to a particular tradition as a mode of investigation and expression, then by all means one should utilize it.
DeleteI don't disagree with the article or your additional comments. My point was that there is a rhythmic nature to questioning versus acting on the revelations of that questioning (what I think you mean by daring).
DeleteIf someone is acting on inherited beliefs, it doesn't make sense to 'dare to move'. Instead questioning and inquiry guide the seeker to the wisdom of their own divine expression. Likewise, and from my own experience, continued questioning can become an obstacle to daring to act out that divine expression. When we do dare, those actions can often then inspire new levels of understanding which stimulate more inquiry.
Thanks for your comments Marty. I agree with your thoughts on the rythmic mode of investigation. In terms of questioning, I suppose I refer more to questioning the cage and not the space, which I agree can become a trap of movement. Sometimes we don't realize we are already in space and attempt to keep looking, like the story of the Cintamani Gem in the Yoga Vasistha. However it takes discernment to know which element to properly question I think. Thanks again Marty, would love to hear more about your process and thoughts on this.
DeleteAs further comment on the article I want to say that there is definitely a difference between view and fruition. View is the orientation that is taken by ourselves either through or outside of traditional points of reference. Fruition is something which develops completely outside of view. It is something so entirely separate. In my opinion it is vital to understand the difference between these as it is to understand the difference between the map and the territory. This is what I believe that Emerson was getting at in his essay on nature.
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