Spiritual Awakening is Sometimes a Long Road
For the better part of my life, indeed the past 45 years (I am now 62 years old as I write this), I have pondered, even meditated upon, searched for, the spiritual meaning of life. To be sure, it is not difficult to find meaning in life through the physicality of life such as love for another, or the beauty of a rose, etc. But from about the time I was 17 years old – and to be honest, shadows of such ponderings began to show themselves much earlier in my childhood – I wondered about what might lie behind what I would describe today as “the veil” of my, and all, physical life*. But such ponderings ebbed and flowed as I navigated the so-called “rites of passage” of a young man and the alluring distractions that physical life presents to one as they bloom from the dependencies of childhood into the phantasy freedoms of adulthood.
When these ponderings found time and space in those years of my life they were always just musings of a curious mind. They fluttered by me in much the same way as a butterfly seemingly shows interest as we stand near its row of flowers before it drifts off as if it never really did have an interest in us. But something happened in my late twenties that was for me the opening of a portal that would transport me deeply inward. The pondering no longer belonged to a “surface-dweller” but became the object of deep inner searching for whatever lay beyond. I dug so deep as if to climb many inverted mountains of discovery, each time reaching the peak only to realize it was not the birthplace of the Truth I sought. And it was only then I realized that was what I was searching for all along – Truth. Not the truth about this or that but THE Truth, the truth that was the answer to the question, “What am I as a Human Being here on this Earth?” Many have asked over the aeons the question “Why am I here?” But the answer as to why can only truly be answered when one understands first the “what.” The “who” of course is also secondary to the “what.”
I would climb these inverted depths of my soul for many years until one day I was in a used book store searching for books on the subject of Atlantis. I had developed an interest in the subject through a series of what I might call “steps” for which I will refrain from boring you with here. Suffice it to say I found a little book – and I do mean both little in size and length – that became the threshold of an entirely new way of inner life and experience. Through that little volume, more specifically its author, I found the pot of spiritual gold I had been searching for for 39 years. I have been sifting through that pot of gold ever since – with vigor and expectation.
What made the difference between that moment first upon finding the initial “portal” and then stumbling upon the subsequent “threshold?” In a word, desire. You see, Spiritual Truth can only be ascertained, understood, when you seek it with far greater vigor and purpose than literally anything else in life. It is not religion, for religion is a manmade ark upon which humanity seeks refuge to avert the raging seas of life. The passion to find the hidden secrets of Spiritual Truth will cast you out of any such ark – be it religion of a church-going sort, or the religiosity found in so many contemporary pursuits – and into the dark waters where only through much toil does one find his or her way to the shores of the Real Realities of Spiritual Truth and Life. However, if Real Spiritual Truth is what you seek – honestly and sincerely – such toil becomes part of the satisfaction along the journey. Like the shedding of the scales from Paul’s eyes, one truly develops the “eyes to see and the ears to hear.”
*Consider that everything in our physical life, be it an object, a plant, an animal, a person, or even a thought, has behind it a spiritual equivalent. Another way of saying this might be that such physical “things” act as a veil to the spiritual that exists behind them. This physical life, then, is what is called “maya” – or illusion – but an illusion with great personal and universal significance. It is the tapestry upon which the spiritual forces weave universal truth found in the Divine Plan.
Within the din of life, one must strive to develop spiritual ears to hear those in the higher realms who reach down to us and desire nothing more than to help humanity reach the heights intended for it by God. ~Anthony