I have a question for you, reader. The tagline for this blog is, “A Maverick on the Path of Personal Mastery.” Yet, this series that I’ve been writing about for 54 days (and counting) is based on oneness of all things. Is there a contradiction here?
Yesterday, I wrote about the story of Ali Hafed in Acres of Diamonds which attempts to teach us that we already have everything we need. This morning I read a footnote in Autobiography of a Yogi (AOAY), by Paramahansa Yogananda, that further emphasizes this point. It included a quote from Kabir, a 16th century saint with a Hindu and Moslem following:
“Path presupposes distance;
If He be near, no path needest thou at all.
Verily it maketh me smile
To hear of a fish in water athirst!”
If we already have everything we need, there is nowhere to go and therefore no path is needed. This short poem seems to be the inspiration for the joke about the fish that doesn’t understand what water is because he’s become so used to it he doesn’t realize it surrounds him. Talk about a blind spot!
A few days earlier, I read another passage in the same book,
“Dull minds discredit the possibility of divine justice, love, omniscience, immortality. ‘Airy scriptural conjectures!’ Men with this insensitive viewpoint, aweless before the cosmic spectacle, set into motion in their lives a discordant train of events that ultimately compels them to seek wisdom.” AOAY
Let’s bring all of this together for a moment. The search for wisdom is a journey along a path that leads back to the same place where we started. If we are to heed the advice in these few brief messages, we must sharpen our minds to the realization of divine justice, love, omniscience and immortality and thereby end the search.
“A maverick” is an independent thinker, yet oneness suggests we are not separate, not independent. “Along the path of personal mastery,”, suggests a distance we must travel in order to become better than we already are. Does a desire to become better, imply an “insensitive viewpoint, aweless before the cosmic spectacle?”
I have been told I am overly analytical and that I often think too much. I once heard the question asked, would you rather talk about heaven or live it? It’s a head scratcher. Frankly, I enjoy talking about it! Perhaps I’d be better off just watching the sunrise.
I have more questions than answers. What do you think?
Photo by Lili Popper on Unsplash
