Here ends our spiritual quest
The vision of Istenqs is radical and
stripped of superfluous. Our race towards a
"greener valley", to "someone other than me", any status or
a realm of ecstasy is the root of all our suffering.
The
spiritual quest has largely contributed to our flight from ourselves. This
eccentric quest has curiously succeeded in bypassing the true encounter with
one’s self which is the original springboard for any quest.
Spiritual
ambition stifles the simplicity of being, the genuine hope at the root of all
our searching. By identifying with the spiritual seeker, we have simply
adopted a more sophisticated, more luminous mask.
We
are called upon to remove the masks. We are invited to a direct encounter,
beyond the tensions of the spiritual ego, its dogma and expectations.
But
the seeker is terrorized by such a bare prospect, and he has tools with which
to defend himself and survive.
I
propose the possibility of a fruitful encounter at the very place where your
flight begins. This means that our first task is to locate the primal fear of
individuality, the original fear on which the ego is built, the fear born from
a brutal interpretation at a moment of personal existence which makes us say
that the world is a hostile place, that our neighbor is potentially dangerous
and that we are alone.
When
the spiritual quest is founded on such a perception, which is generally the
case, it is distorted from the outset. Meditation, for example, can become a
refuge and it is possible to build up a system of thoughts which keep us
remote from ourselves. Spiritual thoughts form a sort of acceptable screen
that separates us from what we fear.
And
yet it is this fear which needs to be explored, for it lies to us about our
true nature. We can no longer sleep in the niche of our pious, intelligent and
sterilized thoughts.
Refusing
"what is" has certainly, and without your knowing it,
feathered its nest with your snug, definitive certainties, including those you
consider to be ultimate ones.
Istenqs is a challenge, and you will
need a little courage and simplicity. That’s all, and, in spiritual circles,
that’s also a lot.