‘Hello Serge. I am just starting out on my spiritual journey but I haven’t yet found something that works for me, that honours what is true for me as a human being. Perhaps, to do so, I need to give up the work I am currently doing. I am not sure. Can you advise me?
Serge
I think that very few of us find our true ‘soul path’ or a path that honours our heart ( I see both as the same thing) to start off with. It may take time and often it emerges as a result of our discovering what does or does not work for us or what is true or not true for us. What can be important at the start is that we find something that gives us some kind of initial entrée into the world of soul. It may not be our true path but it can act as a starter and get us going.
For example, in my case, after I left university and felt a spiritual calling, I had a friend who was a student of yoga and who brought me into her world. I practiced Kriya Yoga. This subsequently turned out not to be my way, but doing this yoga brought about certain temporary openings, which in turn gave me a wider panorama into the spiritual world as a whole, and from that I gradually discovered what worked for me.
It may be that your path will be very specific, that is, that you alight, say, upon Buddhism or Sufism early on, or you meet a particular Shaman, whom you feel drawn to, and, hey presto, the rest of your spiritual life is mapped out for you. Or it may be, as is the case with more and more people today, that your way is to be more eclectic and that you feel attracted by many different paths or approaches to the sacred. That has certainly been my way, and it has both its advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages of being eclectic is that it makes for a certain freedom of spirit - you are not tied down by a particular tradition which can sometimes be limiting ( a lot of traditions. I think, look back too much into the past and not sufficiently forward into the future) . Also, you can ‘find something’ that corresponds to what you feel you need in your life at any time.
You can do ‘your thing’ in ‘your own time’. The disadvantages of this is that you risk delving superficially into a lot of things and not deeply into any one thing, mistaking, say, quantity of gurus visited for quality of wisdom derived from them. The eclectic way, therefore, requires a lot of discernment and inner discipline. Sometimes it can be tough. One can feel lonely. Where do I go now? What do I need? Here, we are challenged to be both our own teacher and student ; we need to evaluate our requirements and also try to assess our progress!
So if the latter is your way, and I suspect, from what you say, that it might be, then your key guide will be your heart, for it is only in our hearts that we can access the wisdom to tell us what we need at any time. This is why so many teachers tell us to follow our hearts. They really are our best friend as inside them lie many awesome capacities such as tenderness, kindness, love, compassion, courage, the ability to be peaceful, feel awe, see beauty and experience joy, in short, to honour and respect all of life.
The more we learn to live with heart, the more quality we have in our lives, the less we feel separate from ourselves and our world. With heart, we can let others in more deeply and reach out towards them more tenderly. Our capacity to heal ourselves, for example, or to transform indifference into love, or anxiety into compassionate concern, lies in our hearts.
It is only in their transforming fire that our conflicts can be reconciled and we can learn to metabolise our pain and gobble up our shadow side. Through attuning to the essence contained within them, we come more and more into the presence of our true nature.And this for me is what ‘being spiritual’ is all about.
However, just because heart contains all these riches, is no indication that we know how to open to them and so embody them at any depth. That may take time and is essentially ‘the work’. Thus your task is to find a way that works for you to support you opening your heart to yourself and to life, learning not to judge yourself or others, for it is so much through kindness and self-acceptance that we grow and evolve. As such, the more you allow you to be you, the more you tread a path of heart. Put another way, finding that mysterious ‘path of heart’ is not ‘out there’ but within you right now.
It may be that there is no need for you to go to the Himalayas or give up your job as a Bank manager (or whatever you do) to find your calling.
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