Spiritual Stepping Stones
Have you ever noticed how inviting stepping stones are?
Be they across a stream or river, a lawn, a garden or even something like the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz.
There’s an inviting quality about them that says follow me, follow these steps, they lead somewhere, see where they take you and feel the call to adventure.
As you follow the call to cross them have you noticed how much more in the moment you are? You are focused on the unfolding staying centred on the path may be so you don’t fall in the water, step on the lawn or soil or stray off The Yellow Brick Road.
It’s fun as well with a little tinge of excitement and perhaps the sense of the intrepid and also some fear. All sorts of awareness may come.
‘Is that next stone secure?’,’ is it slippy?’, ‘oh that next one seems like a big step’, ‘that next one seems well worn and at angle take care not to slip’ and so on!
Yet, they are just stepping stones. A pathway. A Safe Passage. An Invitation.
The Invitation to Self Realisation can be like this too.
With physical stepping stones they make take you somewhere to the other side perhaps or they may even go full circle. In many ways all steps go full circle. We all take circular walks or pathways and end up where we started.
It is like that Poem from TS Elliot (The Little Gidding) and perhaps one of its most quoted sections:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Herein is the crux of the apparent spiritual exploration or journey.
And know the place for the first time.
What will be known or more accurately remembered?
The SELF, the ONE TRUE SELF.
That YOU in your divine essence are it, always were it and always will be it.
That you are beyond time, beyond space, before I AM, before the idea of concept. The Infinite Self.
Infinite Silence.
So revisiting our stepping stones. The spiritual realisation links beautifully to this metaphor and the apparent steps we encounter.
The word apparent is important because in linear time it appears like a journey and that steps are being taken towards a goal. However, in ultimate truth, this is not the case.
We are already that which we truly seek. We just forgot.
The apparent journey then is one of remembering that.
The same essence of the experiences on the physical stepping stones is there. Looking at those identified above again in this new light:
“There’s an inviting quality about them that says follow me, follow these steps, they lead somewhere, see where they take you and feel the call to adventure.”
This is the spiritual calling home, the hearts calling. It’s an Invitation. An Invitation Home. An Invitation to YOUR truth.
This Invitation has been ever present. No matter what, where or when. Much of the time we probably haven’t even noticed it but it was and is there. Other times like with physical stepping stones we may choose to avoid it and them.
Also within the Invitation if one looks deeply enough is a knowing. A knowing of something profound. That something is totally OK. It is the sense of the Ultimate the Infinite that YOU truly are. It may seem like the faintest whisper depending on how off-centre your attention is but you may just catch a glimpse.
A glimpse of the Invitation of the Spiritual Stepping Stone Home.
“As you follow the call to cross them have you noticed how much more in the moment you are? You are focused on the unfolding staying centred on the path may be so you don’t fall in the water, step on the lawn or soil or stray off The Yellow Brick Road.”
This devotion of time and most importantly attention to the apparent path and unfolding is crucial. As with physical stepping stones it calls for your attention. As with physical stepping stones if you don’t pay attention you may fall. You will realise very quickly in the physical world you weren’t paying attention and apart from being hurt may admonish yourself for it, or blame the person who placed the stones, lick your wounds and quickly try to get back on the stones. After the fall and you’ve crossed you may still be analysing the journey even though you are on the other side.
In the Spiritual Life Journey though you can easily get lost in over-analysing, admonishing yourself, blame others, lick your wounds and so on. You see the analogy.
Here though is the key, it is where your attention is placed that is crucial. If you are centred in the inner and Infinite Silence you will know and experience that all is already well. If you start to listen to the meanderings of mind. You will stray and you will suffer.
It is that simple!
“It’s fun as well with a little tinge of excitement and perhaps the sense of the intrepid and also some fear. All sorts of awareness may come.
Is that next stone secure, is it slippy, oh that next one seems like a big step, that next one seems well worn and at angle take care not to slip and so on!”
The Spiritual calling Home once felt follows a similar pattern.
It definitely can feel like fun and exciting, intrepid with a touch of fear. All at once. Especially as a whole new vista opens up. A new world it seems. All sorts of possibilities and thus awareness that somehow you had managed to miss in life up to now.
What were you up to?
Your attention had been in the wrong place. Listening the egoic mind rather than the calling of the heart.
The same is true as deeper exploration of your spiritual truth unfolds. Questions undoubtedly emerge? You may question the journey, consider turning back. Doubt what the heart is calling you towards. Wondering how safe it will be, will you slip and hurt yourself emotionally, oh that looks too big a step for little me, oh that looks a tricky one for me, what if I slip and fall?
All these to the egoic mind can feel like tests. It wants to stay safe – as it was.
Here’s a deep truth: There are no spiritual tests. NONE.
YOU are already that which you truly seek.
Who is the one that feels tested then? The illusory ego. The one to be let go of. The one that must ‘die’ so that you can truly live. This is the one that feels tested and discouraged. It knows it’s days are numbered if you are persistent and will use every trick in the book to divert you. It is a cunning fox is ego. Very cunning.
There’s great news though. It is but nothing to the Infinite. It will smile in the face of this and love it so much that it all melts away. But…
YOU have to allow it. YOU have to trust!
Ego will doubt. Heart will invite you to trust.
The highest form of this trust is the knowing spoken about earlier. The Ultimate Knowing that YOU are this Ultimate Truth already.
Your trust in life has been fundamentally misplaced thus far. You have trusted the transitory and cunning egoic mind and it has got you into all sorts of trouble. This is all ok though because even that showed you something very important. It didn’t or doesn’t work. Following the ego that is.
Refocus your trust in the essence that you can trust. The calling of your heart. This, in the light of truth, is fundamental common sense. It knows. Truly knows. The ego pretended to know but it knew nothing. It was all a pretense and a mask to retain its identity. Let it go.
Will you slip and fall on the spiritual journey? Ego says yes.
Heart knows it’s impossible. For there is, in truth, no journey. No path. No stepping stones.
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
This place is HOME and YOU were already there and here. NOW.
This ONE you can trust because you already KNOW.
So take the Step-less Spiritual Stepping Stone Home and KNOW you are there NOW.
Blessings as Infinite Silence,
Philip
The buttons to the Insights: SELF Realisation and There’s no question deepen the exploration.
