THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH – Chapter 4

UNVEILING THE SPIRITUAL PATH

Chapter 4

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“As the Aquarian Age unfolds, individuals aligned with the thrust of evolution will increasingly step onto the spiritual path. For the present, it is common for this path to begin when a person questions the legitimacy of social and political institutions through a growing sensitivity to the inequities that plague humanity. It becomes evident that societies of all political orientations are designed to serve the interests of those in the top echelons, leaving those beneath them to grovel for crumbs. The awakening soul realizes there must be more to life than what meets the eye and is stirred to discover what lies behind outer appearances.

The search for truth generally begins as a solitary endeavor.  There are rare instances when two souls who have been closely joined may guide each other to spiritual teachers or centers.  But the chief characteristic of the first stage of the path—the first initiation into a greater reality—is the individual’s courage to break free of the limits of what they have been taught to believe is the only truth, or the only way to live life.  To turn one’s back on the foundations of early life—family values, religious traditions, learning attained in schools and universities—and set out to discover a deeper, higher, greater Reality requires considerable inner strength.

With rare exceptions, this is a lonely venture.  One leaves behind those people and institutions that have provided the social fabric of life and embarks upon a quest with an unknown destination.  The prospect may be filled with positive expectancy but also carries the anxiety of uncertainty.  This step into the unknown reflects the coming alive of the true self, which is moved to shed that which has lost meaning in life, as a snake sheds an old skin.

The path begins in earnest when one is able to hear the fledgling inner voice of the soul, which urges the seeker onward.  To make this possible, outer voices must be silenced for periods of time.  Yet paradoxically, the seeker’s life at this early stage is often filled with external stimulation:  books and teachers, classes and programs, travels and pilgrimages to holy sites.  One moves from pillar to post, searching for light, believing for a time that a reliable source has been found only to discover that something is lacking.  “Neti, Neti,” is the Hindu expression for this stage of the wanderer:  “Not this, Not that.”

A higher purpose served by these myriad experiences is sharpening the faculty of discernment, a vital aptitude for treading the path.  As it proceeds, there will be no outer structures to provide definition or give meaning to life.  Such guideposts will increasingly depend upon burnishing the light within.  The capacity to discern truth is honed during the wanderings that characterize this initial stage of the journey.  Over time, one learns to see through the eyes of the higher self and to distinguish the real from the unreal, the true from the false.

It is an ancient axiom that the heart knows what is true.  The basis of this axiom is that the heart vibrates in resonance with a flow of energy imperceptible to the five physical senses.  That energy—called Spirit, or God, or Divinity, or Holiness—is first sensed in the heart chakra of the subtle body, the etheric body that underlies the dense physical form.  By vibrational frequency, the etheric heart center filters out what is false and clears a pathway for the light of truth to enter awareness. 

When the spiritual journey begins, signals from the heart center are received in simple ways.  One has a feeling of what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false.  However, mind and emotion often obscure the knowledge of the heart.  It takes years of spiritual practice to diminish the influence of entrenched modes of thought and patterns of emotional reaction before one can clearly hear and follow the guidance of the heart which, over time, becomes imbued with the light of the soul. 

Spiritual practices such as meditation and contemplation become essential at this stage.  They serve to still the mind and emotions, allowing the light of Spirit to enter the consciousness.  The discipline of meditation has been used for a variety of purposes in modern life, including relaxation and physical healing.  At its core, however, this ancient practice is a method by which the programming of the lesser self—the persona that has previously held the center stage of life—is replaced by the higher Self.

The seeker who is serious about treading the path of ascent will find that it is imperative to master a method of stilling the mind and allowing the voice of the soul to be heard.  As long as external voices remain the loudest ones, they will drown out what begins as the ‘still small voice within.’  The aim of spiritual practices at this stage is to raise the volume of the inner voice and, over time, take stock of the usefulness of its guidance.

One of the pitfalls of early aspirants is to assume that everything registered as coming from the inner voice is accurate and reliable.  This assumption leads to many wrong turns along the way.  And yet, significant learning accrues through deviations from the straight and narrow path.  They teach the soul what it must know to proceed on the journey.  Every slip into an abyss of darkness can become an opportunity to retrieve rays of wisdom born of experience; every fall can supply an occasion to balance the karmic ledger and allow greater peace to enter one’s life.

During this stage of the path, the aspirant is moving from a state of consciousness circumscribed by external disciplines—rules, regulations, laws, social standards and norms of behavior—and entering a phase of life where progress depends on reining in the lesser self, which one is outgrowing, by developing internal disciplines.  With time and experience, as the personality releases the past and discovers higher ground, the Self becomes its navigator.

At this point of the journey, it is impossible to foresee where the path is leading.  The seeker’s main objective is to discover a source of light that will illumine the causes of suffering and the treacheries of human life.  The quest is born of an impelling need for relief from the pain of a life and a world that no longer makes sense.  It is only later, much later, that the true destination of the Path is realized.

The pain that drives an individual to seek greater light can derive from a variety of causes, ranging from the loss of a loved one, to the loss of good health, to the loss of ideals.  Many of those who set out to discover the deeper causes of suffering have spent years as ardent idealists—activists and humanitarians called to create a better world.  Their hearts have been opened to the interrelatedness of all lives and their sensitivity to suffering has driven them to engage in relieving that suffering.  They eventually discover, however, that personality limitations diminish or thwart the prospects of achieving the goal.  The politics that dominate every facet of personality life—from families to large institutions—inevitably foil the most noble and lofty goals.  Disillusionment becomes a strong impetus to search for higher truth.

The gift of this phase of the journey is that the pain propelling one to break free from former strictures also softens the heart, where the first dewdrops of higher awareness settle. Suffering from a broken heart is the universal plight of human beings. That which had seemed a reliable support—be it a person, a place, or circumstance—or that which was desperately hoped for but failed to materialize, creates a devastating sense of loss that is felt like a tear in the firmament of one’s being. An inner pillar collapses, creating dread that the whole house is coming down. Unknown at the time is that the loss of this inner pillar, provided by other people or external conditions, grants the space for rebuilding the house from within with finer materials. The coarseness of the original building materials is refined by passing through crises that become the purifying fires of life.”

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