It is a false privilege to seem to extract ourselves from the messy mosaic of life by reaching for, upholding and hiding behind, spiritual truths that end up serving a sense of entitlement.
I am of course not putting in question the value of spiritual understanding to help dispel the fog of our egoic divagations. When we find ourselves delaying taking the cold plunge (i.e. facing whatever it is we are avoiding that life presents us with) but rather stand, wallowing in the tepid waters of our familiar script, then, through Grace, the deep understanding found at the heart of all traditions may shine its light to dispel our confusion and set us free from the repetitive lines and juiceless scenarios we have been rehearsing and performing for far too long.
But beware, for those very teachings belong in the invisible mouth of God and are placed upon our tongue when and only when we stand cleansed inside the shrine, empty palmed, open bodied and humbled by the sacred perfection of their communication.
Too often, some of us carry them out into the secular arena, square them into glossy formulations to sell on the marketplace, while others of us use our plastic credit cards to buy a shinning promise of liberation.
Delusion goes both ways. The seller (i.e. spiritual teacher) having understood the teaching far too well, with an educated intellect and impeccable rational faculties, has in fact forsaken the place of life: Herself in themself, (i.e. the place of God) where no understanding can precede nor proceed, before the messy, alchemical confrontation with the unknown. They will become hostage to formulations, even as circumstances are demanding of them to wake up.
Rather than opening their eyes for fear of confronting a yet unconscious shadow, they will cover them with the blind light of empty formulations. Rather than admitting to the darker thoughts and feelings that are surfacing through the cracked varnish of persona, they will deny their very individuality (in the name of nonduality) and make others bear the burden of its shadow. This can and will cause suffering, and wreak havoc in their life and the lives of their close of kin.
The buyer on the other side, desperate to find the magical other who can give out the knowledge needed, forsakes their own inner still-hidden authority, that would guide them to a living and ever-unfolding understanding, reaching instead for a designer teaching that is dead.
Of course, in the end (and in the beginning) God is everywhere. The ever-present Truth shines then hides like a gem touched or not by light, unpredictably, and playfully, now in the charlatan and now in the authentic teacher, inside and outside the shrine, utterly free to ignite when and where it so pleases.
However, if we are devoted to (whatever noun or verb you choose to signify the un-nameable and un-speakable-of), it follows that we are equally devoted to living an individuated personal life according to known and unknown forces, to visible and invisible currents in our individual and collective psyches.
How could those two levels be nothing other than real! We are part of the garland of creation, inevitably coloured and textured in a palette of ambiguity and contradictions and unfolding according to a self-discovering intelligence. We MUST pay attention to our personal lives.
