"Outer travel at best only reflects the inner journey, and at worst substitutes for it. The world you perceive only provides symbols for what you seek. The sacred journey is inside you; before you can find what you're looking for in the world, you have to find it within. Otherwise, a master may greet you, but you'll walk right past without hearing."
-- Mama Chia (from Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior, Millman 1991)
something feels fundamentally wrong with my universe. i'm not even sure where it begins, if it has a beginning. i am surrounded by warm, loving people -- yet i am lonely. i continue to select the healthiest of food and drink available, making apparent my disdain for the rest -- and yet i feel unclean from the inside out, impure. it doesn't matter if i wash: this dirt won't wash away with soap and water. my books overload the sheves and comprise more that half of what i own -- yet words and concepts leak out the sides of my head, and i feel no smarter nor wiser than i did through secondary education: in fact, i have dulled since then, it seems.
western psychology, eastern religion: their realms are limitless. yet, no matter where i go, i reek of karma and i murder with thoughts. the eyes weren't made to look inside the observer, but neither can the introspective heart -- god blessed inner eye -- recall how to see. for the universe cannot possibly be wayward if i myself am not straying from the path. so, where to go? perhaps nowhere. it feels incomplete to simplify it all to an emphasis on the manner of the journey over the destination (though that does seem the less often acknowledged of the two in our american culture). the question seems to be, why the hell am i walking at all?
purpose can only accompany its perceiver. if it goes unwitnessed, it is not there. i'm not lacking its discovery -- i am procrastinating in its creation. the heart participates -- must participate -- in the forming of meaning, and where the world shows impurities i can more surely expect to find the reasons for them in myself, present by nature of the interaction.
this is why the inner journey takes first priority, at least for those of us who are relearning the sixth sense of our inner vision.
2 comments:
lieber 痛康華瑠詞,
i originally wanted to write something profoundly encouraging, but my words fall short of any meaning i would wish them to have, either that or they aren't powerful enough for the feeling i want to convey. so instead, i write a pause. take it with a breathe. i only hope it brings what i wish it to.
Alles gute, Spielgefährte.
hehe. sorry for the misspelling of breath. i meant well. (-:
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