The primary barrier to spiritual discovery is fear. Where it cannot be dissolved, it will be impassable. This is elemental.
Specifically, the fear which dominates is that of the future (or,
conversely, the fear of not maintaining a future). Fear and any idea of
future time are unmistakably wedded. This irremediable relationship has
likely been the immediate insight of every saint who has come to the
confrontation with risk. Fear is insurmountable, as long as the future
gapes around it.
This pivotal recognition propels the adventurer into a seminal
contemplation of the alleged property of time. The only prospect for
surpassing the limitations of fear is to somehow transcend the bondage
of time. And this is precisely what each spiritual discoverer has
indicated. Fear does not die in the future, it dies with the future—as the future is laid to rest.
To pierce the heart of the dragon of time is the real function of
“sitting quietly, doing nothing.” Stillness, utter stillness, is the
antidote to the compulsion of volition, to the bondage of chronic
activity. It is to permit one’s future to wither and die of neglect, as
alarming as that may seem. A sudden unanticipated (even unintended)
lurch, and the chain falls aside. Buddha arises from under the Bo tree,
Jesus arrives on the shores of Galilee, Maharshi sits outside the
temple, Krishnamurti lights his parting bonfire at the Order of the
Star.
Not everyone finds themselves prepared to turn their face toward the
immaterial and their back on the material. We each do what we do. But
the dissolution of conflict is to see choice through to its ending, to be unequivocally consistent in one’s interpretation of truth. It is only in this way that truth can be interpreted. And only the firmament of truth is worthy of our exploration. In this, too, our mentors concur.
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