Road to Discovery

This is an updated post with some added material at the end.

 

 

The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love.

— MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

 
 Road to Discovery ( a painting I did in 2004 acrylic on canvas)

At around age ten, I began pondering deep questions about life. One day I was alone on a hill top over looking our small home town in Newfoundland. I asked myself a question that would interest me all through life....who am I ?  This question and many other philosophical questions would seem to pop into my young inquiring mind often as a young man. I have always been this way for as long as I can remember.

For most of my adult life I followed a path, a belief system, that seemed to demand that I live a life that strived after some divine ideal. It created great fear, guilt and anxiety in my inner core. Because I always felt that I was not good enough. I was trying to meet unrealistic expectations that I had set for myself in order to meet a certain standard, to satisfy external expectations. Over a period of years this developed into conflicting assumptions and beliefs that produced a feeling of discomfort and stress, along with anxiety. This condition eventually lead to a need for a complete re-examination of these assumptions, and beliefs in order to restore a balance. This started me on a very rewarding spiritual journey down the road of discovery into what is truth. In my case the truth has set me free, but not in a way most people would think. To use a computer analogy ...Truth is like a re-programming of your entire operating system. A deleting of the old information program system and installing the new.

I have spent the past six years slowly dismantling this belief system that held my spirit in it's grip, for so long. It involved peeling back the multiple layers of assumptions to test each one for truth. Finding truth and freedom is a process of learning what is untrue and then detaching yourself from all false beliefs and illusions. Perhaps the greatest untruth is the idea that we are separate from others, nature and "God". This belief is so ingrained in our psyche and it is perhaps the single greatest root cause of our fear, guilt and anxiety. This belief, when it is looked at deeply, seems to be in complete opposition to the realization of the love based intelligence, foundational to the principles and laws observed in the universe. It has been said that fear is the opposite of love, but perhaps a more accurate statement is, fear appears when there is the absence of Love. Fear is rooted in the thinking mind, its a thought form. Love comes from the intuitive heart and is a product of divine energy. When I view God as the source of all life, love and universal intelligence, how can we be separate from this life, this love? Why would we fear life, love and this super intelligence all around us?  Would this intelligence be for us or against us? It seems to be a system based on cooperation rather then competition. Its more like oneness then it is  duality and it may not have the good vs evil division that we imagine.

I realized that it 's our own thoughts that creates the sense of separation. When we allow our egoic mind (false self) to control us we Edge God Out (EGO) and then we cause in ourselves a perception of separation. When we see the illusion of the false self , it will slowly dissolve and our true self once again becomes who we really are. When we live from the true self, who we really are, called many names .. Spirit, essence, the soul, the heart, the center, the core of our being, there is now no perception of separation from our creator, our source, nature and others. Today the answer to that question "who am I "  becomes more like a realization that we are all one and we share that oneness with all life. If we move on in the spiritual journey, away for the personal "I " , away from false fear based beliefs, into the acceptance of a love based reality, we begin to get a glimpse of what  Jesus called the kingdom of heaven :and get this, ..... he said it was within us. Now ponder that for awhile.

I end this post with some quotes from an article written by ANNELOES SMITSMAN

click link below

The Evolution of our Ego Consciousness

'Ego and its shadow dynamics can only operate where there is inner division; when we believe ourselves to be separate from Nature, the Universe and others.'

'Remember, our ego is our wisdom in reverse. Its purpose is to benefit this false self-perception, rather than the greater whole. It generates small mindedness rather than big-heartedness.'

'...ego does not have inherent existence; it arises as a result of stretching away from and denying our inner wholeness.'

Liberation isn't about breaking out of anything , it's a gentle melting into who we really are  -Marianne Williamson

What is truth?

I started asking deep questions about life at a very early age . When I was in my early preteen years I was asking, who am I?, and why am I here? As a late teen, I was asking what is true?

What is truth? This is a question that has been asked by the deepest thinkers throughout history. There has always been a great debate among philosophers and theologians on what is truth.Then, there is this idea of subjective and objective truth ... what the heck is that ?... philosophy jargon. I won't get into all that.  Basically for the average person, it comes down to what we have been conditioned to believe, the supposed truth of science, politics, ideology or religion  and its scriptures (law) and the perception of truth as a result of experience (Life).  My focus in recent years has been, on the truth of personal experience. Perhaps we all have our own window into truth. Maybe truth is not not always absolute and objective, there may be a case for the truth being more personal or subjective. The whole purpose of humanity may be experimental. Are 'we' living 'our' life or is life as 'a greater consciousness' living in these mortal bodies in order to grow and experience life. Maybe real personal truth is found, in real life, in open minded inquiry, looking within and being less judgemental, in loving and being compassionate toward all forms of life. If there is a choice between the letter of Law (literalism) or Love, wouldn't Love be the highest human-divine ideal and truth?

For most of my adult life I followed a path that seemed to demand that I live a life that strived after some divine ideal. I was trying to meet unrealistic goals that I had set for myself in order to meet a certain standard, to satisfy external expectations.

It has been proven over and over again in history that our need for "the safety of certainty in our beliefs" has killed creativity, innovation and the search for truth. The dark ages in Europe was a good example of how an ideology, one warped version of Christianity, based on a certainty of belief was forced on the masses and it restrained all growth in its wake for 1000 years. For over ten centuries all other spiritual and scientific ideas were persecuted, their books burnt and hundreds of thousands of humans were slaughtered and even burned alive for not believing the same way as this orthodox church. We will never search for greater truth as long as we hold absolute certainty in our current perceptions and beliefs. If we do search for truth beyond what we already believe to be true, it will cause a discomfort to such a degree that we may be forced to abandon our former beliefs and assumptions. This is a very painful process and most of us would rather continue to rest in the safety of our certainty (belief system) then search for the mystery of truth which by its very nature is uncertain. However, it is a paradox that its only when we embrace uncertainty that we can then experience truth and freedom.The truth will set us free to explore the mystery of life. As long as we are trapped in our certainties, we are enslaved in our mental concepts of what reality is.

I believe there is a reluctance to accept what others have to say when we feel our view is the only truth. If other views don't fit inside of our data set of belief, then it gets discarded as false or something coming from 'the enemy'. This dualistic thinking of the imagined enemy, in the other, keeps people in their own dark age thinking. To love our neighbor is to hear what our neighbor has to say. When we hear the world, outside of our conceptual box of belief, and listen to their truth, then we may begin to see clearly, the bigger picture. We may realize greater truth when we clean the dirty window of our perception and see others face to face.


Truth is so expansive, isn't it , it cannot be fully grasped at all, we can know " a truth " but not all truth, because it encompasses all of life. The more we seek after truth the more we realize how little we know, we seek but we cannot find. But, when we surrender to the uncertainty of the "truth", because it is so clouded by untruth, we enter into the freedom talked about in the phrase " the truth will set you free. When we surrender to 'not knowing', after all our seeking, searching and grasping, for that which will satisfies our longing, we will find true freedom. When we stop the seeking and accept, not knowing, then we will find life in its fullest. The surrender to "not knowing" fully is perhaps the most liberating experience in life. When the mind is stilled and the seeking is over, we have found true salvation. It frees us up to be still, and silent before the great unknown power behind life, to the greatest mystery of all, that which is called by many names. "Truth" is just one name among many for this mystery.

The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery- Arjun Walia

The realization of  truth is really more of a process of learning what is not true. Perhaps the greatest untruth is the idea that we are separate from others and 'God'. The word 'God' is a very loaded word.  My view of  'God' is, more like the source of life, the ground of all being, Tao or universal consciousness. This is a more universal accepted view of what God is. Even atheistic scientists can warm up to the view of a universal intelligence or consciousness that is the matrix behind all that is. How can we be separate from this source of life? What is Life?  We don't have a life, we are life. It is our thoughts that create the illusion of separation. When we see beyond this illusory mind set we find  no separation, at all, and  this allows us to experience unity with God and others. When we allow our egoic mind, the separate self, the false construct self, to control us, we in a sense edge the awareness of God out of our lives. This egoic thinking mind is what causes within ourselves a mere perception of separation. When we see the illusion of the false ego self, it will slowly dissolve, because it has been exposed as false. Our true self, once again, comes to the surface and it becomes so obvious, that this deeper essential self, is who we really are at our core. This essential self, is connected to what has many names, universal Self, universal mind, infinite intelligence, divine intelligence or God Self. When we live from the true essential self also called many names.. the soul,the heart, the center, the essence, the core of our being, there is now no sense of separation from our creator, our source and others. We realize we are all one and we share that oneness with all life. Jesus called this state of awareness, the kingdom of heaven, and he did say it was within us.


I will spend the rest of my earthly life peeling back the many layers of untruth that I have been conditioned to believe. It is this deliverance from illusion that sets us free. I am convinced that  we should all question our core beliefs to see if they can stand the test of truth. It may result in  a loss of certainty but it will open up our door of perception, and we will gain a greater understanding of reality.