Our Path is Our Path But We Have Help
Some people don’t think we should glue ourselves to the guidance we’ve been given from enlightened teachers, and instead of listening solely to any external advice, we should find our own way through the confusion.
In many ways it does make a lot of sense, and endlessly following an enlightened teacher might be somewhat disempowering. After a while, you'll reach a time in which you will be ready to move on ... beyond.
I do think we’re meant to create our own path in a way, but in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with taking the advice we’ve been given from people who’ve elevated their consciousness and, as a result, have something valuable to offer. After all, there are many paths to the top of the mountain.
Maybe we can change the way we see spiritual teachers. Instead of treating them like exalted masters just because some of them have found enlightenment (which, admittedly, makes them worthy of some attention), we can see them as brothers or sisters who want to help us raise our consciousness ... just like they were able to.
Some spiritual teachers tend to sound a little overbearing or authoritative, but we don’t have to treat them like spiritual authorities. We don’t have to follow their every command, and there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with them. We are free on our spiritual journey, and we take in what feels right to our Spirit within.
I don’t think we should all-out abandon their advice, because a lot of it is valuable. I’ve gained a lot from the words of spiritual teachers, and if we consider their advice with an open mind without fully denouncing or embracing it, we might learn some crucial things about the spiritual path. Particularly if we listen more to the message, than the messenger.
The problem with a lot of older material about enlightenment is that it isn’t relevant to our current time, and like I’ve said before, the veil’s a lot thinner than it used to be.
Finding and anchoring a higher perception, is easier than it was when a lot of spiritual teachers were in their prime, and we don’t have to follow all of the strict rules they laid out when the elevation of consciousness was more difficult.
For the most part, we can find our own way and use whatever tools we have to help us expand our mind, and access our heart. Meditation is as helpful now as it ever was, but we don’t have to constantly meditate to expand our consciousness or uplift the world.
We can embrace things like creativity and self-expression, and if we stick with them, they’ll gradually (yet directly) help us raise our vibration and help others raise theirs. I’ll always recommend meditation, but the difference between now and before is that we aren’t required to practice it if we want to uplift ourselves. It sure does help though ... along with centered prayer and positive affirmations.
Nor are we required to rigidly follow everything a spiritual teacher says, but we feed the same duality if we all-out reject their teachings or we refuse to find any value in them. I think the majority of advice we’ve been given about enlightenment is very helpful if received with an open mind, and we can study enlightenment in a balanced way. Kind of like a department store display.
We can go our own way while integrating some of the advice we’re given into our attempts to raise our vibration. No matter which external source we listen to – an enlightened teacher, a spiritual writer or even a channeled source – we can take their advice with a grain of salt. Apply it to our journey and see if it works for us.
I think we need more self-empowerment in the conscious community. There’s a lot of empowerment already, but something’s missing for some of us. I can’t speak for everyone, but some of us tend to feel a spiritual or emotional void that we don’t know how to deal with or transcend, and I think it’s caused from a lack of self-empowerment. And we're not going to find much self-empowerment in the organized religion system.
Empowerment doesn’t have to be egotistical, and without aggrandizing our physical identity, we can recognize that we’re strong, powerful spiritual beings who can use our spirituality to enhance life in all kinds of amazing ways.
We can recognize that we’re here to uplift our consciousness (and the consciousness of the rest of the world) with creativity, meditation or any other practice that works for us, and we can openheartedly consider the advice we’re given along the way without renouncing or swearing by it.
We can take a self-empowered middle ground that lets us embrace creativity, and it might help us find the balance we require as we go about our day. For example – those of us who enjoy writing can write about advice from spiritual teachers but give our own opinion as we write, even if we disagree with them. I find myself doing this a lot.
Disagreement isn’t inherently negative, and it’s what we do with our disagreement that counts. We can disrespect the person (or people) we disagree with or refuse to take any further advice from them, or we can recognize that we’re all experiencing this evolutionary and involutionary process uniquely and what works for one might not work for another.
We’ll all find enlightenment in our own ways, and while certain avenues worked for some spiritual teachers when the veil was thicker, accessing spirit is easier than ever and just like they did, we have to find the things that work for us.
We have to commit to the practices that help us elevate our consciousness, and no matter how we raise our vibration, we’ll want to commit to it if our goal is continuous spiritual upliftment.
We can’t use upliftment as an excuse to ignore or avoid the negative things in life. We can continuously uplift ourselves without blinding ourselves to the negativity that needs exposed and healed ... one of many things that can be learned from spiritual teachers.
I think we can use creativity, meditation and other tools to completely transcend duality, and I’ll use another example. Music uplifts us in a way that transcends simple happiness or upliftment, and our mindset when we play usually determines what we get out of it.
Music unlocks something powerfully transcendental in us, and the same can be said for writing and meditation. If we seek it because we want simple happiness, then that’s all it’ll give us and we might wonder why our music makes us feel ‘good’ but seems hollow or spiritually empty.
If practiced with the goal of elevating our consciousness, however, it doesn’t necessarily make us just feel ‘happy’, but it fills us with an indescribable bliss that can only be described as "higher-vibrational." It brings our spirit into harmony.
Some people might think creativity (or especially music) is little more than a creature comfort that traps us in dualistic happiness like everything else, but I think it deserves more credit.
This is one thing that probably sets me apart from spiritual teachers who encourage us to transcend everything that has even the slightest connection with the world, but in my view, creativity bridges the gap between the physical and spiritual in a way similar to meditation. These are what I call "tools." For example, money should never be a goal ... but is an awesome TOOL to help achieve your goals.
Thus, music is just as helpful as meditation or anything else that helps us feel aligned, and when we can let our creativity continuously flow with no blocks or hindrances, we might start bridging the gap in a pure, unexpected way.
We’ll never know if we don’t try, however, and this is why creating our own path is so important. We’ll fail to really challenge ourselves or expand our creativity if we take the advice a lot of spiritual teachers have given to completely renounce the world (which can include creativity) and solely embrace meditation, and we have to embrace what works for us despite any advice to the contrary.
It kinda reminds me of the teacher/student talk. The Teacher gives the student the lesson of losing "desire." The student comes back a week later and says "in losing desire, I find that I must desire to lose desire." You see ... there are simply things that are pure lessons. It is what we desire that is of great importance.
We can still take little bits of advice that expands our knowledge and help us along the path, but with everything we learn, we’ll want to have an open, yet discerning mind, and a heart that’s willing to travel on its own path, even if it sets us apart from the world or the conscious community.
Our consciousness is ours to define, and our evolutionary process is ours to experience in whatever way works for us. We are the Observer, the Watcher. We really can use things like writing and music to raise our vibration and eventually enlighten ourselves, and I’d recommend meditation to increase our spiritual reception even more.
No matter what we do, let’s stay dedicated and be thankful for the decades of advice we’ve been given from people who’ve successfully traversed their own path and come back to share what they’ve learned with the world.
Pretty much any spiritual material is valuable, but it’s up to us to find what works for us and stick with it. Let it play to your heart and mind. If you get that "aha" moment ... then it's right for you.
Just a thought ...
~Justin Taylor, ORDM., OCP., DM.
My thanks to Waking Times
