“we must know where we are going”
Many seekers on the Spiritual Path attend silent meditation retreats or solo spiritual quests in a dark jungle at night without provisions. What are they searching for?
The Spiritual Path is a type of Hero’s Journey. As a reminder, the Hero’s Journey is archetypal and that’s why we’ve included it and the Spiritual Path essays in this Chapter on Identity. They can help us understand our deeper human nature—our fundamental identity.
“With this awareness, we begin to understand the great myths of mankind which are always about the vicissitudes of the seeker who, in the classic story, becomes besieged by challenges, seductions, snares, traps, swamps, bodies of water and other hazards [P-B conditioning] … success depends on knowing a single secret or a mystical bit of information [intuitional insight] which becomes the key to progress. Without the help from on high or ‘high helpers,’ the hero or heroine becomes lost and is finally saved by divine goodness.”[i]
The Spiritual Path is a process of waking up our unconscious self and living in the present moment. It can be long and arduous with many challenges; or it can be a realization of the Truth in an instant that we are perfect beings in a perfect Creation – “I Am That” as Nisargadatta pointed out.
According to Gerald Heard, “The truth should be understood through sudden enlightenment [waking up] but the fact is that the complete realization must be cultivated step by step.”[ii]
We live in a Paradigm-B world and although we might be seeking the Truth, it isn’t always clear to our cloudy eyes and cluttered minds, so “walking” a Spiritual Path is like reading a map, going from here-to-there, involving directionality and inevitably encountering obstacles.
Insight # 61 comes to us from Gerald Heard (1889-1971) a British-born American historian, science writer, lecturer, educator and philosopher.
“We must know where we are going before we equip ourselves for travel.”[iii]
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Additional Reading:
- The Spiritual Path, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
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[i] Hawkins, David. The Eye of the I. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing, 2001, pp. 34-35.
[ii] Heard, Gerald. “Can This Drug Enlarge Man’s Mind.” Horizon. May 1963, p. 40.
[iii] Heard, Gerald. Training for the Life of the Spirit. Blauvelt, New York: Steinerbooks, 1975, p. 49.
