Several years ago, Stu and I lived in a small town that was home to a number of people who thought of themselves as quite spiritual and otherworldly. Overhearing conversations around town was interesting. Once at a restaurant, we heard two young men sitting at the bar talking. “Where are you from?” one asked casually. Reply (in a mysterious tone): “I’m not from anywhere. I’ve always been here.” Questioner: “No, but really, where did you come from?” Reply: “I come from the stars; I’m made of stardust.” Now, that may be literally true. Science tells us everything in the Universe, including ourselves, came out of the Big Bang and was formed in the stars. We contain the same intelligence that formed the Universe. But in the case of the young man talking to his friend, was this really his experiential truth? (He finally admitted that he was actually from New Jersey.) I believe that people who are truly enlightened probably don’t feel the need to speak in these esoteric terms.
I’m pretty sure most of us try to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others at times. But in the spiritual world, this tendency can be particularly pervasive. A common pitfall on the spiritual path is pretending to ourselves and others that we are something we are not, that we have embodied some truth that remains undigested and is therefore not true for us. We can so easily believe that we truly understand the teachings of the masters just because we have mentally grasped some spiritual concepts.
There is a popular story of a Zen master pouring a cup of tea for a disciple. As I remember it, the master filled the cup and continued pouring, spilling tea on the table. He was showing the disciple, who believed he understood the master’s teachings, that if our cup is full of ignorance, there is no room for truth. The truths expressed by the masters must be lived, embodied or they remain mere mental concepts. Our teacher at the ashram in India often answered our questions in a very simple way and then said, “That’s all I will say. Otherwise you will make a concept out of it.” Spiritual development requires much more of us than the mind would like to believe.
A related idea is the concept of spiritual bypass, which can be a convenient way to avoid facing off with ourselves. We can convince ourselves we are above it all, that life can’t touch us because we are so advanced. We may be able to ‘talk the talk,’ to use all the spiritual jargon, but does our life reflect our authentic understanding of spiritual truths? Spiritual bypass doesn’t work because, one way or another, life is going to deliver our karma to us. We can pretend all we want, but eventually we will have to face what we have been avoiding.
Sometimes, we need to heal psychological trauma before we can progress on the spiritual path. It’s easy for the mind to deny the need for the difficult task of confronting and healing the issues that are keeping us stuck. It is so much easier to skate along the surface of life in the mental realm of beliefs and trick ourselves into thinking we are somewhere we are not. But using spirituality as a means of avoidance is not the answer. Our authentic commitment to our spiritual evolution will guide us around and through all the pitfalls along the way.
We can only evolve from where we are right here and now, not in some wished-for reality. It’s not always easy and comfortable to see the truth about ourselves, but the alternative is to remain in ignorance. Being true to ourselves in the moment is key to evolution. Our authenticity is our most valuable resource, our greatest gift to life. We may be stardust, but we still have to navigate our unpredictable and often challenging lives here on Earth.
Consider This: Are you being authentic to who you are here and now?
