Dear….Whoever is Reading ;-),
I have been struggling to reconnect with my
spiritual path for the past 4 months. I’ve gone back and forth between the
society or the world and God or Soul for quite some time. Despite all the
knowledge I’ve accumulated and the spiritual experiences I’ve had, I still
struggled with what and how serious I should take my spiritual path and growth.
I started simply wanting to see and hear
God in everything and everyone. To hear God speaking to me as clearly as I talk
to my mom on the telephone. To have the same compassion and love for all living
beings animals and plants alike that I believe God has for all living beings.
But as my spiritual path progressed, my desire for Truth for enlightenment and
true awareness increased as well.
As that increased so did the difficulty of
walking the spiritual path. It became too hard, too difficult, too time
consuming, too anything that sounded like a good reason to not to it. As I
slipped away from my spiritual path, I grew nearer and nearer to material
things and worldly pleasures. I became lonely and desired a companion more and
more. I wanted to escape and travel and live a life of luxury. I started
thinking of ways to improve my physical appearance and more. But why?
Why would I slip back when I know that they
will not and do not bring me true lasting happiness? Why would I settle for
temporary, insignificant fleeting happiness? Why would I settle for a happiness
that would never be real? A happiness that I would have to constantly work at
and have to make sacrifices for only to experience that “happiness” for a few
moments when I knew that permanent happiness accompanied by peace and pure
bliss was waiting on the other side.
I’ll tell you why because I was scared and
still am. I am scared to let go of the comfortable, the known rather. I know
the time, energy and effort it will take for me to be happy. I can see it. I’ve
experienced material happiness….I haven’t experience transcendental happiness.
The happiness that can only come from an eternal, powerful divine source. The only source that could create the
material beauty I see in front of me.
But the problem lies in my trust, my belief that that happiness actually
exists.
I’m currently undergoing a 6 week intensive
Jain Studies program in India. And we are presently residing in Jaipur,
Rajasthan on the grounds of a Digambar Jain temple. Today we had a class
entitled, “The Path of Spiritual Awakening/Purification.” I won’t give the
professor’s name for confidential reasons, but in any case, she was amazing and
obviously knew her stuff.
Everything she was saying spoke to me and
reminded me of my present dilemma and my struggles with spirituality this year;
especially my struggles with letting go of worldly pleasures. But the one thing
she said that really made me feel like I needed to get my…..together was this:
“There is no way
that one can fulfill their desires. Desires are insatiable. Absence of desires
gives happiness not the fulfillment of those desires. The only way to eliminate
those desires is to learn more about the true nature of soul and experience and
realize that true nature. Then and only then will all desires cease to exist. ”
This is so true and yet one of the hardest
things for me to do. Especially coming from an American background where desire
is the number one motivation for the masses. So how do I get rid of my desires?
Do I force myself to go into solitude? Do I go on a month long retreat in the
middle of nowhere? Do I just simply stop going out with friends and family? Cut
myself out from the world when at times I desperately yearn to be in it?
Why does being spiritual have to be so
hard?
