Tag Archives: spiritual growth

Quest For Truth

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Chances are you are on some type of quest. What your individual quest is and whether it is defined in your being is something only you know. Most quests are completed silently in solitude. They range from rampaging emotions through to quiet desperation, always looking for a speck of confirmation telling you that you are on the right path.

Once the basic three needs were solved, who knows long ago, regular amounts of food, shelter, and offspring, we started to have have time to ponder other life mysteries. The search for, The Fountain of Youth, goes on yet today, as does the quest for ruling the world, the secret to creating and sustaining life, and the search for our own personal truth(s). Searching for our own personal truth, whether it be religion, lack of religion, or fairies in the hedge row, we all are on the same search, hoping to give meaning to our life.

Michael Ayers has been on a quest for his personal truth for some time now. Michael’s blog has a dedicated following who have stood along side of Michael at various times and topographies, as Michael set off to pursue his own personal truth looking for answers to the question of his own reason for being alive.

You will have to read Michael’s blog yourself to find what Michael has found to be true for him. Michael searched and suffered, hitting deep lows and reaching new heights, only to be plunged into new lows, a repeating cycle of ups and downs. Perhaps Michael’s search is not over yet. Maybe Michael has only reached a higher plateau, and is unknown to himself resting and regrouping, before his insatiable curiosity spurs him onward to find more.

My own quest for what is true for me took decades. I tried to fit everything I knew to be true into a hand me down mold. What I believed to be true was always at odds with my inherited package of what was supposedly true. It was not until I accepted almost everything I was told to believe was not quite true, and my flighty willingness to accept what I knew rather than what I had been told, that I started to believe my own truths.

I am curious if you are your own quest for your own personal truths? Does the version of truth you were given by your family meet your needs, or is there a little niggling voice coming out of the background of your mind every now and then suggesting what you think you believe is not quite true?

If you have heard the voice, have you done anything about it? The first steps as Michael can attest to are the easiest. It is once you are well down the path when the cobble stones beneath your feet start to crumble, and the way becomes slippery, frustrating, and difficult. During these times a second voice is heard. Every explorer and risk taker who stepped out from the herd knows this voice. It is a voice of steeling.

You rarely hear the second voice when the sun is shining and you are sure of the route. You know the truth you are seeking is just around the corner, you can almost see it if you strain your eyes the right way and bend your neck in the correct position. Our final truth is only a short way up the path, we are almost there.

Maybe we become too needy in this moment. We are worn and haggard, and we want to find what we are looking for and be done with it. We are tired from our journey. The quest that seemed so romantic, simple, and fun in the beginning is taking more time and energy than we bargained for.

As the sun sets, and we are tired we hear a new voice, “Maybe we made a mistake? Maybe there is no truth to find? Maybe what we were told is the only truth we need to believe?” The same question formulated into a hundred different doubts makes its presence known. Maybe we should quit it say’s

Putty or steel, what are we made of? To give up the search because it is not fun and is becoming painful, or move one foot in front of the other to the end? Fall back into the fold and safety of the herd, accept their murmurs of welcome, or continue on?

Moving on means more of the same, deprivation, restlessness, loneliness, and doubt become our companions if we choose to continue. It is not an easy choice, and there may not be a correct answer. It is a test of your spirit, and everything you are made of. If you are like Michael and others like him, you too may find what you are looking for.

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Misunderstood Roadblock to Growing 2

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Then one day we suddenly have a need to improve our spiritual self.

We start out in our Mothers body growing from a tiny piece of flesh waiting to being born in what will be our vehicle for this life. We grow into childhood, teenage years, adulthood, old age, and eventually we die, unless our life is cut short by an accident or other cause. It is an automatic process, and whether we want it to happen or not, whether we appreciate it happening, or hate the fact we get older, it happens. This is our physical body as it conforms to the concept of time, and the wear and tear we place on our physical self.

Our non-physical self, no matter what you choose to call it, and please call it whatever you are comfortable calling this part of you, does not have a need to change with the years. Almost all of us have certain behaviors we use that we learned and used as toddlers. If a behavior works, why bother changing it? So we do not change certain behaviors because they have worked – more or less – since we were toddlers.

Then comes a day when for some nagging yet vague reason, we start out on our journey of  spiritual growth. We want to become more than we are. At first with the help of books and copying successful behaviors, we find we are very successful. In fact, we find it amazing how much easier life has become since we started out on our path.

We are not satisfied of course, because it has been pretty easy up until this moment. If it is this easy getting here, why stop now? That is how I felt, and I bet this is how you feel if you want to grow even more. Next, we go out and find books, articles, and people who use all these jumbled words I mentioned in part one. We try our best at doing what we understand those words and phrases to mean, but nothing really happens.

We do not seem to be making progress, and our development, growth, path, whatever you choose to call it, grinds to a halt. “What in the heck are they talking about and why isn’t it working for me?”, you find yourself asking in your head, in a hundred different ways.

If you want to further personal growth, you can not grow much further only reading books, listening to someone talk, or sitting at your computer. You may not be able to grow because of the life style you have, or the career you are in. You may not be able to grow because of how you choose to live your life. You may not be ready to hear the truth. Truth and direction does not arrive until you are ready.

If you want to change and grow beyond where you are now, it is not easy. Here is a start of what you need to do. You must to develop real and true empathy and compassion for all people. Step out of the center of the circle, and know there is no circle with you in the center.

Find a way to care for people around you. Help them in and with their struggles, but let them do the struggling. Know you are in each and every person, and they are in you. You need to drop, “me” from your thinking and your speech. Learn, know, and believe that you are part of everything and everything is part of you.

Until you can do these things, you may as well go back to what you were doing before you came to the spot on the path you are now on. There is no other way of finding and understanding what all those words and ideas mean otherwise.

This is why a few people have found their way, while so many remain stuck. This is how your new spiritual growth, path, journey, whatever you choose to name it will progress. None of us may ever make it as far as we want to go along our path, though we all need to keep growing.  My best to you on your path.

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Importance of Synchronicity and You

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I know a Man who was driving home from a trip out of state. Along the way he stopped to help another Man and his Son who were broke down on the side of a back road far from the nearest town. What followed was for the Man a life changing experience.

I have another friend who was chatting to a man and passing time when the man mentioned he was looking for someone who could do some custom woodwork for his home. My friend wants to be able to make a living doing custom woodwork.

I know you are reading this post and wondering what is in it for you. What are you going to get out of this post? As I write, I am wondering the same thing. Where is this post going and how is going to end with something you can take away knowing you read something worth your time.

A few months ago, I read of a poem and some notes, Dark Night of the Soul, written by a Spanish Monk hundreds of years ago. If you have been following this blog for a while, you know I have written of The Dark Night of the Soul too. The title of the book caught my attention because when I wrote my post I had no idea the title was already in use for hundreds of years.

I bought the book, which contains a poem and extensive notes explaining the written by St. John of the Cross, who was a Carmelite friar and priest. St. John of the Cross is also considered a Mystic which is how I stumbled across his writings. I read the poem and it made complete sense to me explaining the journey of the ourselves when we are transition to something different than we were before.

After reading the poem and starting on the rest of the book, I put the book aside as I was really interested in Sufism. I first came across Sufism years ago. Sufism is unique, considered both religious and mystical, arcane knowledge is/was well known by the Sufi’s of old. It seemed everything I read said Sufi’s were familiar old forgotten knowledge. So much so it seemed Sufi’s from the past were quite familiar with Angels, and other concepts mainstream religion rarely mentions.

Remembering this thought sent me scurrying to the library to see what I might find on Sufism. There was not much, nothing was uncovered in my search of the catalogue system, though I know I am not good at searching out information this way. I went to the section on religion and there was a book by someone named Hazrat Inayat Khan titled, “The Inner Life”.

The Inner Life will not appeal to many people. If the idea of Sufism and or Spiritual Growth is something you are interested in, you may find the book a breath of fresh air. If not, you will find it filled with thoughts and proclamations that make little sense, and are foreign to how you think.

I finished, The Inner Life, or most of it as the book was due back at the library, and I decided it was not on the most checked out list, I could read the last pages sometime in the future. While I was at the library, I looked for more books on mysticism or Sufism, and came up empty handed.

That left the bookstores here in town. The selections vary, probably more from the way books are put on the shelves than the books themselves. Quality and knowledge seem to vary from book to book. While at one bookstore, I asked for help finding the section where books on Sufism would be if they had any.

There was a man at the section and he was holding two books, and looking for at least a third book. I said to the man, I was looking for a book on either Sufism, or mysticism. The man without a moments pause replied I may enjoy this book, as he reached down and removed a book from the shelf. He then said he finds the writings in this book beautiful and the words reach into both his mind and his soul. I thought that was a lot of information about how he felt about a book jammed into the ‘New Age” section which generally has a lot in common with fantasy.

As I looked down to see the book he was offering as good reading I was quite surprised. In his hand was a copy of the book, “Dark Night of the Soul, by St. John of the Cross. Somehow I was not surprised, yet at the same time I was very surprised. The man continued that he found the writing to be among the best of any books on mysticism. Written in simple words, he said the book has had a profound impact on him, and his life.

Synchronicity according to my e-dictionary is: The simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. If ever you were or are on a search for anything in in life, it is vital to pay attention to synchronicity as it happens. There is a Buddhist proverb (I think), “When the student is ready, the Master appears”.

For many of us, I believe synchronicity leads is to our destiny of we are aware enough to know it is happening and go with it. My friend stopping on the road, my other friend in a casual chat, and myself searching for books, each found something important and potentially life changing because of chance, or perhaps due to the action of synchronicity. Is it synchronicity that led you to this post, or is it this post which will change something in your day to take you to where you want to go and learn what you want to learn?

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