In Training For The Journey

 Anyone truly on the spiritual journey knows that walking the ‘road less traveled’ is not always a bowl of cherries. The breakthroughs are marvelous - ecstatic and illuminating. But the walk can also feel heavy and difficult.

 We may be divine Beings, just masquerading as human beings. But some days we might not feel the least bit of immortal or wise. Just tired or sad perhaps. Maybe even lonesome, a stranger in a strange land, not quite sure if we will ever find our true home.

In the big picture, the spiritual journey is very safe. No matter what happens in our human existences, the sages promise that at death, we will discover our life was a dream, full of sound and fury maybe, but not permanently real after all.

Life is mysterious; don’t take it too serious.

Still while here on earth, the illusion is very, very persuasive and it can be challenging trying to awaken to true reality within our very human lives.

Part of the trouble is our extraverted Western cultures lack the guidance of ancient spiritual traditions enjoyed by the East. But even if we Westerners lack wise counsel, the spiritual journey still requires that we starve our egos into submission, turning instead to feed the still small voice within.

The rub is that while we might sincerely wish to give our lives over to a higher purpose, being the  equivalent of toddlers on the spiritual journey, we might try to stay in control at first, like a two year old trying to boss around a parent.

 “Candy for dinner!” we scream…metaphorically.

This approach definitely does not work, as young children and spiritual seekers soon learn. That’s why the journey is compared to the razor’s edge. We soon learn that the way of truth is narrow.  Our mistakes and false steps can hurt.   Care and precision are required.

We have to learn to listen and follow - to genuflect to the Great Mystery. To put the guidance into action, we must walk out on what feels like thin ice only to discover that everything goes well after all. With 20/20 hindsight we realize our apprehensions were groundless – our ego was just trying to stay in control.

Truly, the tin pot tyrant of our conditioned mind will try every trick in the book to maintain its fear-based domination. Yet patience is required - it takes time to learn how to see through the despot’s machinations, and learn to walk our talk.

There is a famous joke about a very successful businessman who was asked how he learned to make such good decisions.

 “Bad decisions,” he answered.

Others have compared the spiritual journey to climbing a mountain, with its rock cliffs, steep climbs, and plateaus of beautiful alpine meadows. There among the scented wild flowers, we might rest in light and beauty after the rigors of a particularly steep and rocky passage, before arising again to continue the climb.  

For centuries spiritual aspirants have sought refuge in monasteries and churches. But in present time, many ordinary folk seek enlightenment while living an outwardly worldly life, with jobs and families.

This way is the most challenging because it lacks the assured physical safety that a monastery provides.

But its implicit insecurity makes for the best training.

For example, a therapist, unknowingly becoming stuck, might suddenly lose clients. But this threat to the pocket book, can be the best spur to force one to turn inward, to understand the lesson, and to make the shift in awareness. Rest assured, when the spiritual step is taken, the clients will return or new ones will arrive. It will all work out just fine.

An authentic journey is not theoretical. It is living without plan B. It is knocking on the doors of the infinite and weaving that immortal Essence into a very human life. It requires learning how to allow the conditioned ego to die so that the eternal Essence can be embodied within a  life being currently lived.  

To do all this while paying the rent, keeping a job, staying married, running a business, seeing to the needs of children and more, is a triumph of the human spirit.

This is living the hard Promethean way, celebrated in the ancient myth.

Prometheus was a noble figure of Greek legend, who so wanted to help humanity that he stole fire from the gods. For punishment, Zeus chains him to a rock and sends an eagle to eat Prometheus’ liver.

What’s worse, the liver grows back every night

Sometimes the myth is told in this shortened form, which can promote a hopeless feeling. But in the full version, Hercules arrives and cuts the chains binding Prometheus, releasing him from his suffering.

There is much symbolic meaning here. The myth of Prometheus is the story of transformation, with all its pain and glory. An important key is that the eagle eats his liver, considered in ancient times, the seat of anger.

Even today we might describe an irritable, angry person as liverish.  

Nowadays one doesn’t have to be a mental health professional to know that the ego is built out of anger, together the fear and grief underneath it.

Hence Prometheus’ suffering reflects what walking through ego deaths feel like for us

It hurts. We feel like we are being punished for something. We feel helpless and hopeless. It feels like our down will never end…

Just as Prometheus’ liver constantly grows back, the same issue endlessly repeats in our lives. But the truth is every clearing occurs at a deeper level, as we struggle to grow beyond the trauma or misunderstandings accumulated during early childhood and perhaps other lives.

Happily, Prometheus’ suffering finally ends. Our suffering will too, when all the levels of our conditioning are cleared and we emerge triumphant, living in our true Natures.  

Still when still a work in progress, we can feel tense, anxious, hostile and hopeless. Dense emotions arise as our lives replay the same dreary and terrible kinds of events we experienced in childhood, such as being misunderstood, poorly loved, abandoned or bullied. It is just a clearing but it can feel like a re -imprint.

When the ego is really struggling to stay in power, our minds will endlessly repeat all the slights and hurts we’ve experienced, all our mistakes and humiliations, in an attempt to hold us in its sway. In these situations, it can help to repeat a mantra. Even observing these thoughts, rather than buying into them completely, will help.

We find freedom when our dense emotions are acknowledged and their resentful, self-pitying storylines all seen through. No longer blinded by the dark glasses of the ego, we see that everything is one.

Scientists know everything is made out Energy. We just don’t realize it is love.

Back to Prometheus. Notice he gets help. He does not solve it all by himself.

The ancient traditions of the East emphasize the importance of support and guidance along the way. This can be anathema for Westerners with our independent ways and celebration of the individual.

But without help, progress can be slow. That old tin pot dictator knows how to keep us distracted and lost in negative storylines and feeling hopeless. No human being is an island, to paraphrase the quote. We all need assistance sometimes.

In some ways, life itself is our best teacher. The same lesson will keep coming until we understand it, often intensifying for emphasis. Or someone suggests a helpful book. A sign might catch our eye, giving us a message. Or we have an important dream. Or a big breakthrough of perception during meditation.

But the sweetest kind of help is someone like Hercules to come along! We are lucky if we encounter an unconditionally loving person who sees where we are on the journey, and can help. Even a reassuring word to remind us of our true nature can help cut the chains of our ego and reduce our suffering.

 When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, it is said and it is true.  

The symbol of God and man that is Hercules shows us who we could become, if we dare awaken and live with a fire in our belly.  Hercules is more than just human. Such a person has cut the chains of the ego and is free to live in full power. We could do this too.

Like Prometheus, an authentic seeker dares to reach beyond the earth plane.

Maybe originally Prometheus felt confident and ecstatic as he stole the fire and brought it to earth. Certainly on the journey, the initial opening is joyful, like a delicious honeymoon period when one’s whole life feels graced by angel dust.

Joy is in the air and everything feels possible. Perhaps at first, Prometheus felt that he got away with it unscathed.

Alas…

All too soon Zeus discovers the theft. Likewise, after that honeymoon period of tantalizing joyful lightness, inevitably the ego starts to rock the boat and express its displease

 Oh well. Over time, we do learn to see through the ego’s tricks. Besides, our suffering is the mud from which the lotus grows. Going through our challenges makes us wise

The Prometheus myth also signals that it is worth it to try to help others.

Because quite reasonably we might think: ‘If suffering is the price we pay for stealing the fire of the Gods…for embodying our eternal Essence, maybe the struggle isn’t worth it.’

But suffering in life is inevitable. We only can choose which kind.

 There will be suffering if we try to stay asleep. Despite the pressures of our materialistic culture, how could it possibly be safe to ignore the still, small voice of our eternal Nature? Even if we try to hide in overwork, drugs or binge watching television or computer games, we can’t escape ourselves or the unease that comes with hiding our light under a bushel. Besides, deathbeds have a terrible way of facing us with the truth of how we lived our life.

So we might as well aim for an authentic life. That way we will trade the useless neurotic suffering that brings no wisdom for the Promethean example of the hero’s journey, where the hero consciously chooses to undergo ordeals in order to bring back the boon to the collective. This kind of suffering shrinks our egos and births us into our true capacities.

And what about the eagle? The highest flying of all birds, the eagle symbolizes humanity’s connection to the divine.

The eagle sees great vistas at a glance. As we can too, as we become wise.

As anger and ego fall away, we become broadminded, dispassionate, stable, open hearted, nobler calm, more relaxed, more precise, stronger, more fluid and powerful, compassionate, able to solve our difficulties, more capable of selfless action and less demanding of others.  

Like the eagle, we can see the whole situation at once glance. We also become Herculean in a way, generously offering compassionate help to any trapped souls we might find along the way.

It becomes a joy to cut away their chains.

It also hurts a little sometimes…

Oh well!

By Premasudha Janet Hobbs,

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