My own spiritual path is based not on abstaining from passion, but on embracing it. When you truly embrace it and let it consume you, you learn something surprising. This you it consumed is not “you”. Not the all encompassing thing. Some have described me as having strong self control. I don’t actually. I don’t bother with self control. I have a different understanding of self.
When people think of self control they think of control of their impulses, their reactions, their thinking. But the mind thinks. Is this self? And who has actually controlled that? Direct it maybe, focus it, but is this control or just the natural function of the mind? Who reading this actually controls their feelings? Do you just say “I will feel happy now”? Does this work?
Are feelings a response or is it a part of a bigger cycle of consciousness? We look to control because we do not understand. You do not learn to swim by leaning to control water. You learn to swim by coming to understand your relationship to water. All these things we call self, we didn’t create it. We can choose how we deal with it. How we relate to it in parts and in its entirety. In fact, over time by gaining this experience, making these choices, all of this self we deal with, we come to realize this self is the world. This self is all of creation. Yes, you are you. Yes, you exist and you exist here, now. What control is necessary? What is there to defend? What is there to keep or rid yourself of? All these things happen quite naturally, don’t they? Why do we need an agenda?
There is no life and us to distinguish from life. Life is joy and we are life. If you have to put a word to it, as to what we are and what our purpose is, it is one word, life. I am that I am. All things will play out and nothing ends. Nothing began. Time is a thought and idea. No basis even in science actually. All of life is a stage and the people in it merely players. We strut and fret for a time and then eventually we take the final bow. Lay these bodies down and go on to further this wondrous full life. Perhaps again in this way. Perhaps in another. But the Buddha who does not return only seems to have withdrawn. In fact, the one who returns to teach has withdrawn as you did. We all eventually see this cycle and will choose consciously, where we chose without knowing before.
So we need not worry about our progress in any absolute sense. Spiritual practice is much like using the rake in a zen garden, we merely just choose this tool to smooth the path. Nothing makes us.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~