Any spiritual path, if you devote to it with integrity and purity of heart, can be your spiritual path leading you to God. All spiritual paths are just like different languages, but they will all inevitably lead you to the same greater truth. Devotion is the veil through which awareness shows its beautiful face; and if you truly learn to see and devote, the love of that will transform you; it will peel the layers off your bark, all the false identities and conditionings, and will reveal you the answers you seek, showing you your true essence.
This is why in older yogi texts we see how there are various ways to reach the yoga, which means union; and yet a secret esoteric recipe is given there also – that it’s not about doing all, because even doing one and mastering it will lead you to yoga. Spirituality essentially means an expansion of perceptions, so that one reaches union and the oneness. Yoga means union, but what is union – it is the expansion of perceptions also, which means being able to sense further out, beyond the boundaries of your skin and mind.
For example, the only reason why you feel the wooden table when you touch it is because there is a border between your skin and it – i.e. you have hands, and you know you hands, so when you touch something else, you know it’s something else. So in this way, yoga becomes you when you expand your sensation to such an extend that when you touch the wooden table, it is no longer your hand feeling the wooden table, you are the wood, the nature, and it’s as if it’s a part of you. And if we understand how all interconnects and interrelates, and it is all interdependent, how spirit is imbued in everything and one is part of the other and within one is the other, then we become the higher truth of union – and we wouldn’t hurt other other, because we’ll come through the awareness that by hurting them we hurt ourselves.
It doesn’t even have to be a path such as yoga, religion, spirituality – anything can become your walking meditation, your spiritual path. If you love gardening, devote to it, and this love will transform you and lead you to the higher truth; if you love your family, devote to them, this love and nurturing and caring for them will lead you to the divine and you’ll embody it through your caring and love for them. We learn through our tending to another; this is how the path reveals itself to us.
All that matters is whether or not you are truly in service, love and devotion to it. Not just sometimes, always. Not just when it’s convenient to you, always. Don’t be a sometimes, be an always. Show up for people you love, for your family. Many people are only a sometimes yet they expect everything, or only give barely yet they expect the everything and they want to take it; that’s not how it works. You need to be an always, wholebodily and wholeheartedly, and commit, dedicate and devote yourself. When you cook, cook fully with your heart and hands; when you clean the house, do it with intention that you family will now have a clean house; when you dress, do it with love that you have dresses; when you bathe, do it with love because your body has worked hard all day to lead you and hold you and support you. Do it all with full heart, intention and passion, and kindness and patience of rhythm, and this will transform you.
Just like yoga is union, just like prayer is union, love too is a union – a dissolution of the boundaries between us, a letting go of our selfishness, this is when true lovers meet and intimacy can happen, and deep love can happen – only when two people are selfless, and have the courage and vulnerability to show their true selves, allow themselves be seen and to see the other, and let the borders dissolve merging into one. Love is a path that will lead you to God; because if you truly know how to love, you are coming closer to God. Love peels us, transforms us, grows us, and we learn what union and oneness are. Love is a knowing, and of being known, a seeing, and of being seen, not of flesh but through the flesh.
Religions too are in a way different languages to God; there is no right or wrong, as long as you are true in heart and virtuous in action. Each person has their own path and will learn their own way eventually. There is no need to separate ourselves and hurt ourselves, people can dance together even while having different beliefs; judgment only leads to separation.
The real teachings are the teachings of the heart and love – and anyone who truly understands the real teachings knows the truth and the path. You cannot interpret spiritual and esoteric text by literalism; literalism sinks us in the water like stone. The spiritual path is the path led by the wisdom of the heart. God is not to be intellectualized by our human minds and limited understanding because this only assumes you are making God limited also, we are making him into a box, and that’s arrogant and ignorant and spiritually immature.
Dogma can be present in anything and everything not just religions; any person can dogmatize their beliefs and lives when they get fixated on something and no longer stay in openness to expand. Astrologers can be dogmatic when they say “Vedic astrology is the real astrology and everything else is false, etc.” Lovers can be dogmatic when they assume their partner is still the same and make judgments rather than staying curious and open to their continuous changes in likes and preferences; because no matter how long we’ve lived together with someone under the same roof, we’ll never know it all about them.
Twelve monks sat around an elephant, and each were to share what they saw. One described the trunk, the other the leg; one shared how the colour was light grey, and the other said no, it is a golden shade, as the sun was gently touching that part of the skin. So who was right? Was someone wrong? All are right simultaneously. They are describing the truth from their own vision and perspective – but the greater truth is one.
As human beings it is natural to want to know it all, because knowing gives us a sense of security and stability in this uncertain thing called life. It soothes our worries. This is why we love categories, numbers, information. But with our limited human minds and conditioned understanding we’ll never know it all. The humility of this deserves to be treasured. We were never meant to know it all also; and in this humility the mystery of life reveals itself as it needs us to see it.
The one, God and the divine; the one whose face we long to know perhaps we’ll never see not know; but we know him by the way his energy touches and moves things around us. Just like the sun. We can’t ever touch it, because its light is too strong for us, but we know its energy by the way it touches our skin with warmth, by the way it shows various shades through its light, by the way the roses bloom.
When we approach things with the right approach, they reveal themselves to us; a word reveals itself to us when we approach it with the right approach; a flower is seen when we see it right. When we open ourselves and enter something through the purity and innocence of heart, worlds within worlds reveal themselves to us. This is why Christ too points to the heart, our sacred heart, because this is the initiatory portal to the higher consciousness.
If we wait for unity to happen outside of us, it may not happen anytime soon. Theologians, politicians, astrologers, philosophers, cultures and even music and art may not always get to a point of unity of their beliefs, so fostering unity begins with us. It begins with hands, with open palms, open hearts and open minds. It begins with us reaching our hands across the lines that separate us and saying, “Hi, my name is … This is what I believe, but I’d love to hear what you believe.” And then, we sit, listen and learn. We sit, listen and learn.
Fostering unity within and externally is about cultivating compassion, respect and developing our spiritual maturity. It is about the courage to do the right thing and not hurt other people nor bring them down to make yourself all mighty. It is about not the words – it is about the embodiment of love, because love is the unity, which brings you to God.
Love has various shapes and forms, different speeds and movements. It unfolds through compassion, patience, humility, selflessness, tenderness, gentleness, joy, laughter, creativity, support, trust, hope and faith, and kindness. And while love is a consciousness, it isn’t air, it is like bread; it’s meant to be made and remade each morning, each day. It is meant to be embodied. We are meant to build the capacity to love within, strengthen it and nurture it, and then emit it.
Many people say they are Christians and go to church but they don’t carry Christ in they heart; many say they are devout Buddhists, but their actions speak differently as they harm others. Many say they are passionate humanitarians or environmentalists, and they give big speeches on big world stages, and then turn to the very person beside them, the one who helps them with the microphone perhaps, and they treat that person with complete arrogance and disrespect. I’ve seen these things happen over and over. People say a lot of things but their words are empty and they live in spiritual poverty. It’s about who we are when they lights are out and no one is watching.
In astrology we see the importance of seeking truth and its right way very clearly through the 3rd and 9th axis. The 9th house was known as the house of God – or higher truth; it is the place where boundaries dissolve and truth unveils itself to us when we are ready to see it; and the path to it is through the 3rd house, which is about our openness and willingness to learn and explore, and re-explore, and re-discover. It is about the courage of soul and commitment to higher truth, rather than our egos and need for validation or wanting to be right. The 3rd house is a movable house energy, which means it moves – it moves continuously and seeks and remain open to learning and expanding. It is of courage about discernment too, but discernment is a spiritual initiation which comes through spiritual maturity and wisdom. When you have walked the path enough, you’ll know what’s true and what isn’t.
The 3rd house is about effort – which is why the spiritual path is about effort and real commitment. In the old days when you’d go to a spiritual teacher to learn astrology or just as spiritual seeker, you’d spend years actually not being taught much; all you’d do is chop wood, carry water, i.e. doing chores and tasks, being in service to others and helping with the gardens or whatever the teacher needed you to. Sometimes years would go by – but what this is meant to do is prepare you to be able to absorb the knowledge; because to see and understanding something you need to have first created that space of awareness within you. So all this chop wood, carry water, was about devotion, through which you’d develop the qualities needed such as patience, humility, braving the weather and putting in the effort.
The 3rd house is about our human effort – it is about our human hands. It is about tending to the soils, within our inner lands and those external ones; and this is what opens us to the divine inspiration, wisdom and higher knowledge of the 9th. As anything in life, the two opposites must be balanced: we must balance the 9th house with the 3rd. Higher knowledge and grace must be balanced with dedication to self inquiry, research and one’s own efforts to find the truth. With sincere efforts, integrity and devotion, truth will be revealed. For astrologers and spiritual practitioners, it is especially important to stay away from dogmatic beliefs, literalism, fixed ways of thinking and unwillingness to learn and expand further, to stay open and do their own research. Astrologers must be committed to research and seeing how the systems evolve just as consciousness evolves.
Do you wear prescription glasses? Take them off. In the old days when people didn’t have prescription glasses, as they aged and their sight weakened they had to trust and sharpen their other instincts. At night, before the time people had lamps, they used candles; and they had to stare really hard, with the help of only a gentle flame, often even hurting their eyes, if they wanted to read something in the evenings.
If we are taken our artificial lights, lamps and ability to read, where would we find the divine? In the church of your skin, in the home of your heart, because this is where God resides: your heart. This is why wisdom comes with age – it comes with perhaps the need for prescription glasses, the lack of wifi, limited distractions and the need or freedom to shift our eyes inward – towards our inner spiritual and emotional wildlands, so that we can light the other flame – the one that truly sees.
Only the heart and its sound and voice, and its unique language to you can lead you; so you need to know how to understand it and give it the space it needs, with quietness, so that you can even hear it. So turn off the outer lights once in while, or close your eyes, and tune into the wisdom of your heart, hear its voice. Literalism has no space in spirituality. And while learning matters, we must never forget the real teachings – the teachings of the heart. Because God is an inner experience, just like love too is an inner experience.
It’s your own path, and it’s unique to you; along your personal walk and exploration of your inner lands, you will walk with your own lantern, your own inner flame, until it becomes brighter and brighter shining further ahead than before. Patience opens the soul of matter, kindness and love are the soils of the lands of the heart, and that’s the land that truly matters.
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