I was watching a show about comedian Gary Shandling earlier, and something hit (a few things did, actually). One of his notes wrote "let go of the desire for spirituality, for that is also ego" (loose quote). That's a good sum of how I want to start this post (who knows where it will go now ?!). But I'm thinking about the old idea of earning and learning your way to spirituality, like it's a goal that can be achieved linearly, or an accomplishment that can be constructed by doing "the right things", and how I just don't look at it that way anymore.
Like how spirituality and non-spirituality are maybe not so different, in that they are labels and perspectives we create in reflection of ourselves and others compared to other reflections, and how there is a wholeness of being (everywhere) that encompasses all of what little segments of our lives we call spirituality (and non-spirituality).
Sure, we can create -and live within the framework of- a perspective that grows around the perceived evolution of our awareness , from less self-aware to more self-aware , but I also see that the difference between those two apparent polar opposites can sometimes be small, transient, short-lived, and possibly (ultimately) not real (like everything else of matter and energy . Real and not real . "Relatively stable , relatively autonomous sub-totalities abstracted out from undivided wholeness (so sue me , I'm on a David Bohm kick).
Anyway... this thing about falling off the path or whatever ... I don't know...
From one angle, I've always underachieved , spiritually . I was all into Guru at 15, but spent years 19-31 a complete drunk; the lowest of lows , and spiritually forsaken, suicide, kaput, dead as a dead duck. 30 years ago all that changed , but it's always been sort of ....not what certain parts of me expected, or thought it should be, whatever. I see that nothing ever is what it appears to be , and that's essential to my sanity and contentment. So why always asses and analyze and compare ? I need to just keep moving, because that's all I ever do anyway . Stillness in motion, motion in stillness, whatever .
Our favorite doggie got sick and died almost a year ago and it's been the hardest thing in 30 years . WE're still very sad sometimes, and we were angry about it . There was no way around the pain and angush, no overseeing spiritual wonderment that cured us, or made us feel that this was all part of a beautiful plan or some nonsense . It sucked bad, and still does sometimes , but life goes on. The level of sadness and missing our baby just doesn't go away in a few weeks, or months , and you can't tell me anything about any great wisdom or awareness that removes the reality of the emotions, or speeds up the process .
These things of life are part of our experience here , and we are Spirit manifest; we are the Universe experiencing itself . That's the perspective I have, when I remove value judgements and acquired ideas about meaning and purpose . Meaning and purpose are what we apply later , to try and make some sense out of the Universe experiencing itself . Aspects and understandings flow out of the wholeness and look back upon themselves and create and tell stories, but, bare bones, it is a self-aware cosmos , and we are all (relatively stable , etc.) it . Holographic-type universe (a theory Bohm helped develop) .
This recent period of disconnect from the path ...wasn't even that . It was a choice to not feel connected . I didn't feel like being spiritual , and at the same time, I accepted that perspective as part of my wholeness ; the totality of my experience here . So there's no real "on the path" or "off the path" when I look at things this way ..
Ramble concluded; as you were
Dar
edit : ps: also, now, almost a year later, after the worst sadness is over, I feel my little Zeus the Moose (Chihuahua) over there
beyond the veil, and even though he's more than a little dog now, his spirit is a new way of connecting me to that world. So, what
feels like pain is pain, but the other side of that same coin is connection to the underlying love in all things (as things are not separate things,
it just seems that way) .
Linear Mode
