Courage and Spirituality.

Keep walking
Though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see through the distances.
That's not for human beings.
Move within
but don't move
The way that fear makes you move.
- Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Many people are attracted to the allure and beauty of the spiritual path. Who wouldn’t wish for the blessings of inner peace, deep joy, and everlasting love? But for seekers who set their gaze toward the experience of the ultimate truth, this journey also requires courage and determination.

While my life has been a spiritual journey, it has only been fairly recently that I embraced the desire for true union with the divine. I was at a retreat when I began having stirring, profound experiences pulling me into sacred unity. My heart was opening to the spaciousness of divine peace, bliss, and love; love indescribable that pulled me closer to God. But that very night, I had a nightmare of a demon entering my room and trying to seize my soul. Throughout subsequent weeks, the dreams continued bringing wailing ghosts, and oceans of tigers and sharks deep into the midnight hours. These dreams were a shocking juxtaposition to the gorgeous meditations and deep spiritual reflections I was having during the day. For a time, I came to question just what it was I was trying to accomplish. At night, I didn’t want to sleep for fear of the dreams.

The mystics know that the path to spiritual union is both blissful and arduous. The journey begins with a desire for enlightenment. When the proper master arrives and gives us the spiritual practices, it is inevitable that fears begin to arise. After all, we are striving for the highest knowledge, and obstacles are always a part of lofty goals. In fact, they are an auspicious sign that things are progressing as they should, so long as we understand that the fears are a signpost, pointing us toward the barriers keeping us from divine union. Our fears ultimately illuminate our many cherished attachments, desires, and self-definitions like son, husband, wife, mother, engineer, poet, liberal (just about anything on our Facebook profiles!) Sri Ramana Maharshi writes that these fears are nothing but illusions, which emerge like a snake on the roadway ahead. We catch sight of it and begin to worry, but upon the approach we see the snake is nothing more than a rope.

When the fears come, keep faith in your spiritual master, and keep engaged in your practices. When the fears rise, most people withdraw, but the whole process is much easier when one has faith in and guideance from the guru. If focus, desire, and devotion are maintained, the practices will begin to take on less effort, and feel as if they are coming from the inside. When this happens, you will know you have entered the world of the inner-self, and from there, the journey becomes wonderful.

As for me, I had to ask myself what these demons were. What did they want to tell me? Through my work with my spiritual master, and meditation, and lots of self questioning, I came to realize that the shadows carried by these demons were issues of trust, self-worth, and fears of losing all that I loved as I delve deeper into the heart of God. What I learned is that even when things look scary, God is there, lovingly fine tuning His instrument. While this can cause some awkward disharmony for a while, ultimately, it’s a mercy and a blessing to be lovingly orchestrated this way into the divine symphony.

One by one, the seeker is called to face all his or her fears. One by one, we face the sharks and see them dissipate into the sea of consciousness. One by one, we grasp each tiger and say, “Oh, what a kitten you are!” One by one, we look the demons in the face and say, “I am not afraid of you.” We move forward with courage, toward the ultimate of self-knowledge, toward permanent truth and blissful delight at the point of realization.

When the fears rise in you, be glad to know how your journey has progressed! Be grateful for the opportunity to move deeper. Be brave, and see how the space within you opens, how your consciousness expands. Fall into the greater depths of those meditative and yogic experiences that delight you. See how you begin to shine. Move forward and dive deeper, without fear, toward the light and the truth and the divinity which is you.