From the archives:
Originally Posted on December 22, 2012
There were three conversations yesterday about essentially the same subject. Three viewpoints, three different perspectives. And a blog post that I just scrapped as over-complicated.
When we began working to build the Silent Eye, it quickly became obvious that there needed to be a melding, a synthesis, of approach to the Work. For those who haven’t come across the School yet, let me explain. We seek to create a School of Consciousness that has its feet firmly rooted in the soil of this life, is not fluffy and yet reaches for the Divine, by whatever Name you choose to call It. That which Is neither within nor without but which pervades All. We see a need to bring the intellect to bear so that knowledge and reason play a significant part, and for the emotions to be engaged so that what is discovered is both felt and experienced vividly, so that it is Lived in full awareness.
Most of all, we see a need to practice what we preach, and that means learning to Live and Be as fully as we can on all levels. It is a natural state and at the simplest level requires only that we accept ourselves as we truly and fully are. And that, of course, is never as simple as it sounds.
It is easy to get caught up in the emotions of the mystic, the blaze of Light blinding our eyes to the everyday realities of life and growth. There is a yearning for oneness with the One where the world can be forgotten. Or we can become so lost in study and the pursuit of knowledge that we lose sight of the reason for which we began the quest, stalling over questions and speculations to which we may never find an answer. There is a fine line, however, between the two where they blend and fuse into what one could call an alchemical marriage.
This blending and melding is also part of the key to the Work, where on yet another axis both human and divine can be fully realised in a life. This spiritual evolution happens whether we will or no, slowly and inexorably over time. It is when we enter into this quest consciously, however, that we become aware of its impact on our lives. By actively seeking that growth we engage with aspects of ourselves and the greater reality and find what one could call an accelerated evolution.
Preparing one of the presentations for the School’s launch weekend, the Song of the Troubadour in April 2013, a dear friend and I have been delving into the symbolism in medieval art. There is a particular painting where the Christ is portrayed standing in the river at the moment of baptism. The reflections in the water are not those of the world around Him, but are subtly different. We were discussing this yesterday, wondering if this were an attempt to portray the altered perspective and clarity of vision that comes when one learns to walk in the world fully in both the human and divine aspects of Self.
This threw up another train of thought and the third conversation. Most faiths and paths teach us to leave the ego behind and forget self, striving towards the ethereal goal of Divinity. This puts the Divine at a distance and leaves us stripping ourselves bare, flaying ourselves on the thorns of life in an attempt to reach for an intangible dream. Yet these same schools of thought also tell us that we are part of God, of His creation, or are his children. And they call it Love. Which means there is no distance and we are striving for something we can find within our innermost selves, in each other and in everything around us. And suddenly you are confronted with this glimpse of Glory and have to realise it is part of the greatest Ego there is… and It is part of you.
Just to make things even more complicated, some of us are driven to find a way to teach that without looking like members of the lunatic fringe.
It is a spiritual culture shock, glimpsing something so truly Awesome through the myopic eyes of life, wondering who on earth we are to be worthy of It, yet sensing also that we are OF It and a way must be found to reconcile the two and simply Be It.
Which, as I said to my friend, is a bit of a bugger to come to terms with.
