The Same Shadow of Life

The divine that I seek, is not in the temple, if it is not also outside the temple,

Photo credit: Unsplash | Samdeep Adhikari

Our journeys through childhood, our lack of initiation into adulthood, our being lead and taught by people who themselves had never been properly inducted into life, programmed by a culture that had long since lost its way, has left us imagining that spirituality and truth, that attainment is something we find outside ourselves, up a mountain, in the stars, in deep caves, in tea leaves, in ancient books, in the jungles of Peru, in Alan Watts lectures, in temples, in piety…

There is no ladder. There is no mountain. There is no 'there' there. There is no quaint heaven, no paradise, no perfect pose, no singing bowl, no perfect mantra, no trick, no redemption, there is no 'thing'.

What you seek is not found in seeking, it is not come to by more doing, nor more trying, nor more reading, nor more affirmations and prayer.

It simply is. It always was, and always will be.

If anything, it is a ceasing, an undoing, a de-programming, a letting go, an unlearning,

It is an allowing, of the most ordinary moment.

The keys to all the locks lie, simply, of course, where we do not want to look.

The path lies beneath our feet, the great person we aim at, to be like, to one day become, is an idea we created and harbour in our mind, which we placed in the shrine of our own imagining.

If we can imagine it, it is contained already within us. 

And what is more, that shining noble ideal we envision, on the mountain top, is something we created.  The distance between that and where we are now, is the measure of our shame.

THE SAME SHADOW OF LIFE

The ringing 
of the sacred bowl 
is no more holy
than the sound 
of the pedal bin closing.

the consecrated altar
and the discarded shoes 
at the threshold
are the same seat of god.

the devotee 
in strict and practiced asana
in the silence of the temple 
sits in the same shadow of life
as the child 
striving with the kite 
in an errant wind.

© Rocco Jarman

The divine that I seek, is not in the temple, if it is not also outside the temple. It is not in the hymn, but I sing to it and with it in my voice. It is not up the mountain, but I meet it along the road thither.

The doors which bar our way to the freedoms which we seek, are locked always we discover, from within.