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#2901 - Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nondual Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
One:
Essential Writings on Nonduality. Amazon site: http://nonduality.com/one.htm
Check availability at your local Borders Store: http://www.bordersstores.com/locator/locator.jsp?tt=gn
Here is another chapter from Roadsigns On the Spiritual Path, by Philip Goldberg. An excerpt was also featured in issue #2896: http://nonduality.com/hl2896.htm
The Amazon.com link to order this book is http://www.amazon.com/Roadsigns-Spiritual-Path-Living-Heart-Paradox/dp/1591810507/ref=sr_1_1/102-5936403-4980917?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186707733&sr=1-1
DON’T HURRY,
BE HAPPY
The seeking after God is an endless process,
even for a saint.
—Yacub ibn Sahid
Jason was in a hurry. A long-time Buddhist meditator
and sporadically observant Jew, he felt that his voyage
to nirvana had stalled, and he was determined to speed
things up. He calculated that he would need to take a oneor
two-month retreat, twice a year, to achieve what he
called “maximum spiritual propulsion.” To accomplish
that goal, he would have to earn as much money in the remaining
eight to ten months as he usually did all year. He
set out to do just that, supplementing his private physical
therapy practice with workman’s compensation cases. He
ended up working so many hours that he had to skimp on
the daily practices that had always sustained his spirit. He
grew so tense from overwork and sleep deprivation that
he lost his joy and alienated his family. To top it off, one
sleepy afternoon he goofed up with a patient and is now
being sued for malpractice. Instead of gaining spiritual
propulsion, he’s headed for spiritual burnout.
Jason is an example of what I call the Barry Gold-
water approach to spirituality: extremism in the defense
of liberation is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of enlightenment
is no virtue.
The promise of supreme wisdom and God-consciousness
is intoxicating. We want it ASAP. And, as we saw in
Chapter 22, a sensible amount of eager restlessness can be
a good thing. It’s when the yearning crosses the line into
impatience and urgency that we run into trouble. The hellbent,
goal-driven behavior that succeeds in business is not
the proper prototype for a holy quest. The spiritual law of
diminishing returns seems to be: the harder you try to
speed up, the more you slow yourself down.
The very notion of being in a hurry calls up a multitude
of paradoxes. We are told we have eternity to
awaken to timeless being, and that eternity is now, right
here. “There is no here, no there,” said the Zen Patriarch
Seng Ts’an. “Infinity is right before your eyes.” Ah, but
before our unenlightened eyes, here is clearly not quite
there, and everything appears infinitely finite. All such conundrums
resolve in the Oneness that transcends time and
space, but the transcendent Reality is not really beyond
anything, it is in everything. More accurately, it is everything.
But once again the snake bites its tail, because
awakening to the timeless Self takes time.
How much time? No one can say. On the spiritual
journey there can be no estimated time of arrival, if “arrival”
is even an appropriate term. What is the distance
between ignorance and illumination? How long does it
take to tear down the veils that obscure the light? The
normal arithmetic of time and distance does not apply.
Nor do calculations of probability. A doctor can predict
reasonably well how long it will take for you to heal from
an injury. A linguist can estimate how long it will take to
learn a new language. A biologist knows how long it takes
for a pregnant female to come to term. But no one can
predict how long it will take to heal the traumas of a lifetime
or to learn the language of the soul or to give birth
to a new, enlightened identity. Liberation, the sages tell us,
can strike at any moment like a lightning bolt. Or it might
unfold gradually and barely perceptibly, like the dawn.
Or, it must be said, not at all.
Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise,
because of impatience we cannot return.
—W. H. Auden
In the early days of the TM movement, someone
asked Maharishi Mahesh Yogi how long it takes to reach
enlightenment. He said he’s noticed signs of higher consciousness
among those who’d been meditating for five to
eight years. Somehow, this vague remark was turned into
a formula. “Five-to-Eight-Year Program” even appeared
in TM literature. It was retracted, but not quickly enough
to spare impressionable meditators from taking it literally,
as if it were a degree program one could complete in a
specified time frame by taking a sequence of classes. The
rush was on. Anything to get there closer to the five-year
end of the continuum than the eight. It was spiritual
avarice of the highest sort.
At one point in the 1970s, I fell victim to this racetrack
mind-set, signing on for a six-month retreat on an
Alpine mountaintop. It had been presented as a kind of
Concorde flight to cosmic consciousness, and I could not
bear the thought of missing it and falling behind my
fellow travelers. To pay for the course I begged, bor-
rowed, and . . . well, I didn’t steal, but I have to confess, I
did do telemarketing. The sojourn was at times achingly
dull, at others blissful. Sometimes I wanted to take the
first train to Paris; at other times I wouldn’t have left my
cushion if the room were on fire. Ultimately, it was among
the most transformative experiences of my life. But it
came at a price. I returned home in debt, with no place to
live, no job, and no car (I’d sold it to pay for the trip). I
was so stressed out from the difficult adjustment that I
probably undid many of the gains I’d accumulated on the
mountain.
Now, when I see some wild-eyed seeker looking for
an express train to nirvana, I get nervous, because I’ve
seen such haste make waste in people’s lives: Their marriage
goes sour and they end up brokenhearted; their
work suffers and they lose a job; friends get turned off by
their fanaticism and drop them. Not, on the whole, a way
to create good karma. Some get so fretful over their spiritual
pace that they grow heavy with anxiety. Needless to
say, this is the antithesis of the peace of mind they’re
aiming for.
When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there
is only one eye left with which to find the way.
—Buddhist saying
Yes, there are things we can do to speed our progress.
But spiritual practices are not like notches on a belt or
points on a scoreboard. They are not quantitative items
with a predictable payoff. They are more like the things
we do to draw love into our lives: We cultivate certain
qualities, we change traits that get in the way, we put ourselves
in the right place at the right times. Our job is to
create conditions that are conducive to Self-realization.
But, as with falling in love—or falling asleep for that
matter—if you’re too eager to reach a goal or try too hard
to achieve it, you’re likely to defeat your purpose. “Uncontrolled,
the hunger and thirst after God may become
an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires,”
wrote Aldous Huxley. “If a man would travel far along
the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but
in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind
and strength.”
Being excessively goal-driven not only slows you
down, it can also destroy your peace and rob you of happiness
in the here and now. “In my youthful beginnings on
this path I was wildly enthusiastic,” one spiritual veteran
wrote to me. “I rode bright waves of discovery and
freedom, sure that any day now I would be enlightened.
Now, after almost 30 years, I feel my heart pressed upon
and my spacious mind obscured. This concept of how at
some time in the glorious future I shall be enlightened and
then I can live my real life has been an obstacle to living
in whatever light I have now.”
It can also suffocate your sense of humor, which is as
vital an asset for seekers as a good place to sit. The spiritual
path should be taken seriously, but not solemnly. It is
a razor’s edge, but it’s also a pie in the face and a slip on
a banana peel and a good priest-minister-rabbi joke.
If, as G. K. Chesterton put it, “Angels can fly because
they take themselves so lightly,” then impatience and excessive
fervor are lead weights.
Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive.
—Milarepa
Once again we turn to “on the other hand.” The
danger in taking too literally a maxim such as “The
journey is the destination”—or, for that matter, “Don’t
hurry, be happy”—is that it can easily lead to negligence.
I’ve known aspirants whose go-with-the-flow demeanor
seemed on the surface to be a relaxed, unpressured, and
cheerful approach to spirituality. In actuality, they were
spiritual sloths. They paid lip service to metaphysical concepts
but they had no discipline, no commitment, no sense
of purpose. Make no mistake, there is a forward looking
aspect to spirituality. If there wasn’t we’d have nothing to
strive for, nothing to move toward, and as we saw,
growing into that liberated state takes fortitude and perseverance.
But it can also be fun.
Why not make it a joyful journey? “Joy is the unmistakable
evidence of the presence of God,” said Meister
Eckhart. Take the scenic route, and blast your favorite
music while you relish the views. There is nothing unspiritual
about taking pleasure in the delights of the world,
for “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof”
(Psalm 24:1). Make time for activities that enchant you.
Do things that make you giggle, no matter how trivial or
silly they might seem. They’re not taking time away from
spiritual things: They are spiritual things. Maybe that is
part of the innocence Jesus referred to when he said we
have to be like children to enter the kingdom.
I once heard someone ask a guru, “Does it take a long
time to get enlightened?” The teacher laughed. “Only if
you’re in a hurry,” he said. It is worth noting, however,
that the same teacher urges his followers to be diligent
with their practices, attend weekly gatherings, and make
pilgrimages to his ashram. And there it is: Hurrying is a
detriment, and so is dawdling; impatience is a hindrance,
and so is nonchalance. As with any journey, the spiritual
path is most happily and productively traversed by those
who can fully enjoy where they are at every moment and
still move forward purposefully. It requires knowing yourself
well enough to set an appropriate pace. Perhaps, like
the bush in which Moses found God, we have to burn
with desire for the Holy without being consumed by the
flame.
Persevere. Lighten up.
Be diligent. Take it easy.
Get serious. Be happy.
TRAV E L T I P S
1. Do you have a spiritual goal? Write down exactly what you
are after.
2. Do you often feel a sense of urgency to achieve something
spiritually? Look deeply into the origin and nature of that
feeling:
• Is it a deep, abiding, stop-at-nothing longing for the
Divine?
• Does it stem from dissatisfaction with your life and a
wish to be delivered from it?
• Is it mixed with feelings of spiritual inadequacy?
• Do you envy people you think are further along?
• Are you being as gluttonous about spirituality as others
are about money or sex?
3. If you’re worried that you’re not advancing quickly enough,
make a realistic assessment of your attitude. Ask yourself:
• Am I looking ahead to a goal at the expense of present
satisfaction?
• Am I focused on future rewards to avoid facing difficult
issues now?
• Am I hoping that a spiritual breakthrough will solve all
my problems or heal all my pain?
• Is my commitment to spirituality in danger of becoming
an obsession?
• What am I afraid will happen if I were to lighten up?
• What’s my hurry?
4. If you think you might have become spiritually lethargic, ask
yourself:
• Are there ways I can give myself a booster shot? Should I
modify my practices; go on retreat; talk to a spiritual
advisor; attend services more often; change my lifestyle?
• If there are ways to enhance my spirituality, why am I not
doing them?
5. Contemplate this famous Zen story: A young man approaches
a renowned martial artist and asks to become his disciple.
“If I work very hard, how many years will it take me to
become a master?” he asks.
“Ten years,” replies the teacher.
“If I work even harder, how long will it take?”
“Thirty years.”
“But I am willing to undergo any hardship to master this
art in the shortest time.”
“In that case, 70 years.”
Roadsigns On the Spiritual Path, by Philip Goldberg.
The Amazon.com link to order this book is http://www.amazon.com/Roadsigns-Spiritual-Path-Living-Heart-Paradox/dp/1591810507/ref=sr_1_1/102-5936403-4980917?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186707733&sr=1-1