Navigating The Spiritual Path

The Spiritual Path is a long and winding road with many twists and turns. I talk about how to realize the true benefits of the journey and how you learn how to read the signposts along the way. It comes down to making many choices about what you need in your life. This is a conversation with examples from real life and deep meditation to experience it.

Transcript

Aloha,

I'm Reverend Cindy Palos and I was thinking about the benefits.

It's interesting when we submit courses to Insight Timer,

You have to choose what the benefits are.

And it can philosophically and metaphysically be a very interesting question.

Because I was reflecting back on the fact that when you start on this amazingly long and winding road,

This path that you begin when you're involved in meditation and self-realization,

You have this amazing energy.

Like it's like the beginning of a love affair.

You know,

You just are blissed out.

You think you have all the answers to the world and you feel so great.

And then you get really some wonderful inspiration.

And then after maybe,

You know,

A few years of this,

You still get other benefits,

You know,

And you find different benefits as you go along,

Right?

And some of them are life-changing.

Some of them are truly,

You change your direction in life,

You change your focus,

You change what you live for.

So benefit,

I guess there would be,

Well,

Your life gets changed.

You begin to understand your purpose in life.

You begin to understand what your destiny is.

You begin to have beyond that thing that is for you,

Then you begin to see what you can do to possibly help others.

And this is a tricky part here,

Because we can actually help others,

But it comes down to,

It really comes down to each person wanting to really find something in themselves at some point to be ready to commit.

And here's the tricky part that gets even trickier.

You really,

Say you were doing Zen,

You're not going to be promised enlightenment in Zen meditation.

In fact,

On one path,

You know,

That I follow,

Which is the mystical path,

Which is involved for me,

Some of the teachings of the masters and the Great White Brotherhood and the teachings there,

The teachings there say you really have to be able to sacrifice everything.

Now,

That's a hard selling point.

Say,

Okay,

Here's what you do.

You begin on this path and you feel great.

And then you have to sacrifice everything.

It's like,

Well,

I don't know if I want to sacrifice everything,

But it's not the words.

You see,

I was listening to a talk being done about,

Are you willing to sacrifice?

Or what are you willing to sacrifice for your development and your self-realization?

And it's just a tricky,

Again,

That word,

Tricky word,

Sacrifice,

Because it's not like you might think it is.

What happens is you expand your consciousness,

You expand your awareness.

You literally become,

Your values become different.

Your way of perception becomes different.

Your introspection and your connection becomes different.

So what may have been important to you when you began this journey,

At some point,

You realize you don't need it.

It's almost like you're taking this long trip and you're carrying a lot of baggage and you realize after a while,

Hey,

This baggage is pretty heavy.

I don't like carrying all this baggage.

It gets a little tiring.

So you leave some baggage along a city or a path and just let someone else take stuff.

You don't need that anymore.

You leave it behind.

Okay,

Then you feel good again.

It's a little lighter.

I can walk better.

And then you will encounter something else where the path gets a little higher,

Harder,

And you've got to drop some more baggage because you realize that maybe you really don't need that stuff.

So you leave more behind.

Now,

At that point,

Is it a sacrifice?

No,

At that point,

It's a choice that you make because you just realize it isn't going to help you to have that baggage on this trip.

Now,

If you've traveled a lot,

You know what I mean.

I've been there,

I've done that.

I've gone to train stations with three bags and with no porters and you have to go downstairs and catch another train through a tunnel and up another thing.

You're going,

Why am I carrying all this baggage?

It's like I can't do it with all this baggage.

But on the spiritual path,

I think it's safe to make that comparison because you realize when you want to get to your destination,

If you carry too much baggage,

You're not going to get to your destination.

Now,

What that would mean is you really want to get to your destination,

Right?

Because you might leave some baggage that you're pretty attached to behind.

So in the Buddhist path,

Many times you're told to drop your attachments.

Now,

Dropping attachments can be considered a sacrifice,

Right?

I mean,

It depends what you are really attached to.

But if you're attached to a lot of what was in that baggage,

It could be a sacrifice.

Maybe some clothes might not be,

But if you included maybe some jewelry or if you included a phone,

An iPhone,

Oh my gosh,

That could be a real big sacrifice,

Right?

So,

You know,

Here's where we're going to value comes in and you make the choices.

You make the choices,

The deep choices,

Because it is always up to you.

It's always up to you to choose.

I know that Yogananda said,

Everything else can wait,

But our search for God cannot wait.

But how many people really are at that point,

You know,

And you can't compare yourself to other people.

You can't compare yourself to others,

But you have to ask yourself,

Is the most important thing to me,

My search for God?

Now,

A lot of people would say,

No,

I mean,

I guess all I could compare this to would be someone who decides to go,

I have a friend,

Father Corral Pete Van Deeden,

Who just took his final vows.

And so at that point,

When you take your vows,

If you're taking a vow of being a nun or a monk,

That you give up your relationships,

That's a big sacrifice.

It could be,

But if you look at the story of some of the saints,

For them,

They were instead marrying God.

They were replacing a transient relationship with a person,

Which could have been a possibly beautiful,

Wonderful,

Loving relationship with a love of God that supplied them then with all of the needs.

Now,

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole,

But obviously some people who have chosen that path of celibacy could not fulfill their path of celibacy and then got into trouble with other situations.

So obviously this is,

You know,

Difficult.

We all have things we'd like to do,

But when we get down to doing it,

You know,

Think about a diet.

We all want to go on a diet if we're overweight or want to fit into some really tight jeans or something,

But are we willing to make the sacrifice to give up our comfort food to do that?

I mean,

It could be comparable to that.

So I just had to bring this up because it's such a relative thing.

And I think as we all are evolving here,

That we need to look at that destination we're going to and see what baggage we might need to drop to get to where we're going.

Because the road becomes a little tricky at times.

It becomes steep at times.

And the road is a long road.

And if you're carrying a lot of baggage,

You might see it being helpful to throw some of that stuff out or just let it go.

I know,

Easier said than done.

But it's not like you just say,

Okay,

I know when this is going to happen and this is when I'm going to drop my baggage.

It's not like that.

Life is much more fourth dimensional,

Fifth dimensional than that.

It's not like reading a book.

It happens.

Life happens.

And when it's happening,

It may be an illusion,

But it seems so real.

And it's not till you wake up that you realize,

Oh,

That was just that part of the illusion.

I see now that that wasn't really real.

It was just something I had to go through to get to where I needed to go.

Now I'm hoping you get the gist of it.

It's a hard thing to describe.

And I've noticed that so many on the path sometimes have a hard time describing this because we are in this multi-dimensional way of being and we don't necessarily take words into our reality as the real thing.

So all we can do is compare stories or maybe this is like that to bring you to that point to realize,

Okay,

I see what that signpost was trying to say.

I mean,

Really in life,

A funny story.

I live in Hawaii and just,

I think it was a week ago,

There was a story that came out.

There were tourists and they were on the big island and they were trying to go to a manta ray.

They have these beautiful manta ray tours.

You can go and go dive with the manta rays at night.

Anyway,

They were following the GPS.

It's mostly now a lot of people do when you try to get to a destination,

You follow your GPS.

And they were intently following their GPS trying to get to the destination and all of a sudden they followed their GPS right into the harbor.

Probably the manta boat cruise was a boat somewhere along the way that was pretty close to where the GPS was guiding them.

But the GPS had turned left here.

Well,

They turned into the boat ramp that took them right into the harbor.

And it wasn't until that the water was coming in the windows that they actually looked up enough and tried to figure out what was going on that they realized they were in deep water.

Now,

Hopefully we have a little more awareness of what's going on in our lives that we don't just listen to a warning and think that,

Oh,

Well,

Yeah,

But we were told to go here.

But maybe we should really take a real look around us and see what's going on before we get into deep water.

And life,

If you're open to it and if you're listening on this path,

Life will give you signposts that are probably better than your GPS.

I don't think they've created a GPS yet that I know of or an app to really let you know to watch out for things that might come up in your life that you need to be aware of.

And yeah,

I guess there's people who are psychics or intuitional people who might try to tell people something,

But you never know if they really do know what's coming up for you.

So it's up to you.

It's your responsibility to take a look at your life and see if you are really getting to that destination you want to get to.

Because if you don't have a clear vision of where you want to go,

You might land up in deep water and that might be part of the path.

That may be an awakening there,

Right?

Maybe that's the way you say,

Okay,

All right,

I got it.

I got it.

I got it.

Let's do a little meditation to kind of go within and get some intuition and some guidance and figure out really what is important to us on this long,

Long winding road we're on.

Now let's take some deep breaths in,

Breathing in.

Let your spine be straight and just feel comfortable.

Oh,

I just felt my neck align there.

Breathing in and holding and letting go.

Breathing in,

Pausing and letting go.

Breathing in,

Pausing and letting go.

And now let's do a little body scan.

How do you feel right now?

Is your body giving you some signs?

How's your head feel?

Scan your jaw and your eyes,

Your tongue,

Your ears.

Ah,

Let them release any tension you might have.

Let them feel good.

Go into your neck.

Anything in your neck you need to clear,

Any tension,

Any alignment.

Ah,

Go on down into your heart.

Allow your heart to be full,

Clear away.

Any blocks there.

Delve into your heart of hearts.

Go to that place of love.

Ah,

Just spend a few moments here in this wonderful place till you can sense the feeling.

Love,

Love,

Love.

Breathe it in,

Hold it and release it.

Expand your heart,

Breathing it in.

Ah,

And going on down to your solar plexus,

Feeling your heart.

Well,

There's lots of organs here.

Let's feel the stomach and the spleen and the liver and the kidneys and all of those organs filled with light,

Releasing any blocks or tension there,

Filling every single cell with light.

And go on down to the second chakra and just let that whole area be,

Releasing anything and any old baggage you need to release there.

Just let it go.

Ah,

And go down to the root chakra,

That red flower at the base of the spine.

Ah,

Breathing the energy there.

And down the legs,

The thighs,

The knees,

The calves,

The feet,

The toes.

Come back to your arms and your fingers and now let your entire body be filled with a wonderful energy of beautiful white,

White,

White light.

Way up above you,

Way,

Way up,

Up to your soul and then back down all the way through your head chakra to your third eye chakra,

To the throat chakra,

To the heart chakra.

Ah,

And down to the golden third ray chakra,

The beautiful second chakra with all the emotions and the peach color light and the root chakra.

And on down and out until all of your body is surrounded in light in front of you,

Behind you,

On either side of you.

You are surrounded in light and love and protected here and now.

Now in this beautiful safe space,

I want you to go to your soul.

Imagine it as a beautiful golden room which carries your highest self.

Be in that lovely light of your soul.

Feel that energy of your soul and be still,

Be still and just dwell here in this beautiful golden room of light.

And now take a look from this beautiful place where you can see objectively what is it in your life you may need to drop.

Are there any habit patterns that might make your trip a little easier if you dropped those habit patterns?

What comes to you when you say that?

Is there any attitude that you might think about that might make it easier?

An attitude of gratitude might help.

What other attitudes might you think that you might enhance to make this journey easier?

Take another moment or two and just see what it is.

What signpost are you looking for to make your journey more full of joy and happiness and excitement and enthusiasm?

What would it take?

What kind of love is it that can bring you that unconditional beautiful energy that inspires you to go for it,

To really give yourself 100% to it?

Imagine right now you are in that place.

100% love and light and joy.

Feel that wonderful energy of being at your destination because in this moment right here and right now you are able to access that point.

What has it taken to get to that point?

Whatever it is,

Imagine yourself implementing everything you need to get to that place in your life of absolute unconditional love and light.

Absorb that energy right now and breathe it in and let yourself be it.

Believe it.

Accept it.

Feel it.

And slowly come back,

Come back,

Come back and allow yourself to be present right here and now.

And feel yourself renewed and re-inspired and restored and rejuvenated,

Knowing that you can fulfill your destiny on this path.

And allow yourself to come back into your consciousness very slowly and take a few moments to write down what it takes to be in that place that you wish to be in.

I thank you for taking this journey with me.

Remember you are really never alone.

There are always others there on this pathway.

Sometimes you can't see them.

Sometimes they show up and you don't even recognize them.

But you are being guided.

You're being guided by so many that you might not even realize it to make your journey home possible.

I love you.

God bless you always.

Reviews

The journey is where the lessons and joys are. Lovely meditation. Thank you!