Faith - A Subtle Lesson in the Spiritual World.

I wonder sometimes why spiritualism has not active takers, true seekers I mean. I realise one has to be as close as sage like, confronting every thought or concept around oneself. It takes a combination of intellect and emotional unconditional love to want to even understand the other side, leave alone getting there. I am trying to understand what about it makes it so inaccessible and gives us a feeling of always falling short. 

When I look at the world around me I see people just going about their lives not realising half it's potential. Is there something more than what is visible? I would say - actually Yes! But it is so subtle that it can't even be put in words leave alone being proven. Somethings about human life are greater than proving, they don't need proof to support their presence. They are, and it is our luck if we choose to experience their potential. It's like having a beautiful plant in our backyard. Chances are we never took notice of it, we have never seen it's beauty up close, experienced it's fragrance or realised it's magic but when we do, we tend to appreciate it's presence and come to understand how much we missed it all along. Well, it was always there, we just wasted time not noticing it because we considered something else way more important... for what ever reason. 

But is that really the problem? The fact that ignorance stems from not realising that we got stuck way too deep in the mundane. Yes, we can bring spice to our lives by questioning the mundane every now and then but when we start living that life, things start to change. Let’s take the same beautiful flower in the backyard. We now know it exists and it blooms every now and then but we haven’t found the time to go and spend with it. If we dedicated time to the plant, spent time with it, tended it and spoke to it and most important of all, loved it… the garden starts to look a lot more different. There is magic in there, magic we didn’t think even existed until we chose to be a part of it. This little paradise, is an extension of what our mind can do, and how it can transform the world around it, if it chose to. 

Similarly, with a mix of discipline, strong belief system and love for the divine, a lot can change. The Gods may not respond like a flower feeding our senses openly but they certainly ensure we got the point, subtly. When this change occurs it looks like a coincidence, but when they come one after the other it becomes a way of life. Miracles happen in succession and realising that change brings a host of possibilities around human potential. 

The quote "when you want something, the universe conspires to get it for you", actually starts to work here. It is a combination of our change in tune with the universe around us and that we affect it is a big deal... But it also brings with it a certain departure from the familiar world and that tends to instil fear till we are really comfortable with it. The idea is to see truth in the face, to accept everything - good and bad - as a way of life with not an ounce of discrimination (like looking at a rose and a dead body in the same light, we will mostly find them together but our mind will make the difference), thereby eliminating dualism altogether. This is when the real questioning starts to happen and we have to be really ready for the answers. We have questioned - yes, but do we have the courage to face the answer, most likely - no. 

This is where I was originally wrong, I believed people would jump to have such an experience. Apparently I was wrong, very wrong! For one, most people don’t seem to realise what they are missing, the few who do are grappling with “what just happened” and trying to seek explanation. While there are none within the purview of our limited language, it is subtle and that acceptance over a period of time starts to work on the fear we have. It is this fear that becomes our greatest enemy. It took me ages to get here, while I believed largely that I was considerably fearless, I wasn’t completely there. Its a deep sense of inadequacy and fear that we need to get over to even qualify to go to the other side, leave alone achieving things. And while most of the world around us hasn’t even reached this realm of understanding, those who have managed are struggling with self incompetence. There is the other crowd that is waiting endlessly for the magical guru to show up not realising that when we are potentially ready, they will come, but to get there, there is only one way forward - self help. 

I have had the luck of divine intervention in strange ways, when ever I was losing my focus, something would always bring me back to this. And yet that fear lurks. When the great saints say - look within - they are essentially telling us, unleash that unconditional love with you for it is the only answer to the fear we harbour. Unfortunately, the fear shouts out louder and the unconditional love is quite lost in this din. This is hoping that we have already put the noise of the mundane to rest. The inner fear of the unfamiliar, is a great place to start the investment on practicing courage, to face anything that comes through the world of contemplation. The only trump card we hold is Bhakti/faith/devotion, to want to be with the Gods no matter what hell should come in the way. Are we ready for that kind of a commitment… its continues to remain an unfortunate struggle and even a Guru may not be able to bail us out of this... because metamorphosis is a lonely journey.