Life itself, being a story, is also a heroic journey, a great work of art, a deep dream in which we are all players looking to find our part. The greatest reward that can be found is not in riches, achievements, pleasure, power, status, or anything achievable in the outer world, but the discovery of one’s true self, one’s true identity. To fully and deeply understand one’s personal history, identity and purpose in the world reveals a happiness and wholeness for which there is no substitute.

The spiritual journey begins with dissatisfaction. Having had one’s fill of the usual pleasures and pastimes and left with a feeling of dissatisfaction and emptiness, one’s soul yearns for something greater. It is then that one hears the call from Spirit and is compelled to leave behind familiar circumstances to seek out higher, deeper and more enriching paths.  This is the departure.  The struggle is to know ourselves, and in doing so we return to our spiritual home.

I first learned about the metaphor of the journey through the writing of Joseph Campbell, and to illustrate what the journey is like, I’d like to use the analogy of climbing a mountain.

Each of us has a mountain to climb in this lifetime. The mountain represents the major struggle, the great lesson, the unique journey that has been laid before us in order to progress our spiritual growth and evolution. It is not a single task or event but a series of challenges – some small, others large – that point the way upward and are woven together to form a great journey. On this path, we cannot move forward until we have understood and overcome the challenge that we are confronted with at each point.

The mountain is inside each of us. It lies within, but we experience it as if it is outside, in the world of the senses. It is the challenge we set for ourselves before being incarnated in the flesh.

When we confront the mountain it can be a daunting experience. It is not easy to take up the challenge willingly. Most of us would rather take cover in a comfortable cave, and have to be pushed onto the path. If we are courageous and wise we accept our journey and embark willingly, but as it happens, many people do whatever they can do avoid climbing the mountain.

There are many strategies to avoid the necessary suffering, transformation and learning.

Some people say: “I see the mountain but I don’t want to climb it” and dig their heels into the ground and refuse to move. They spend their lives stagnating at the bottom of the hill, with their familiar sufferings and habits, learning little. Their days are spent living unfulfilling lives, which they may come to regret only on their deathbed when it is too late.

Some people say: “It’s not my mountain; someone else is responsible for this mess and I want them to handle it”. They offload their fear, anger, frustration and suffering onto other people rather than taking it upon themselves. This is the method of projecting the burden, like passing the buck or hot potato that creates conflict between people. It gives rise to blame, hatred, and the roles of persecutor and victim. Once again very little is learned because of a mistaken orientation – outward rather than inward.

Some people say: “I see the mountain but it’s too hard and painful to climb; I want someone to airlift me directly to the top.” They seek a saviour, a rescuer who will take the burden off their shoulders and save them from the long dignified march to the top. Rather than finding their own answers they look for a book or guru that promises to provide all the answers and fulfill their every need in exchange for unwavering devotion and adoration. Both traditional religions and modern cults, when taken literally without using our own judgement to question and interpret the lessons offered, often fall into this category. The truth is that there are no shortcuts. We can and will be assisted by others at various points along the path – and this may include others who have gone before us – but the path is ours alone to take and it does us no service to skip the parts of the journey that we don’t like or seek pre-packaged solutions. The long slow way may be painful but it is the only way to make the profound lasting transformation of consciousness that is needed to reach the top.

Some people say: “I see the mountain but the trail is clouded and uncertain. I don’t want to take another step until I can see clearly where I’m going. I don’t want to run into anything threatening or dangerous.” This is the method taken by those who profess to be guided by the principles of science, reason and evidence. The fact is: the bottom of the mountain will always look like the safest place of all because there is nowhere to fall to and it is familiar. By trying to predict all of the twists and turns that await us along the journey and demanding to know the final outcome before taking a step, we deny ourselves the joy and mystery of venturing into the unknown and we hinder our progress. Faith and courage are needed.

What all of these strategies share in common is a refusal to take the journey out of a desire to avoid suffering. The truth is that suffering is inevitable in life, but we have a choice: do we suffer with dignity, or without dignity? The only question is whether you will remain at the bottom of the hill, suffering in the same old familiar ways without learning and growing, or whether you will use your suffering as a catalyst for your maturation and development as a person by continuing along the journey upward.

Some people begin the journey and refuse to ask for help or guidance as soon as they get stuck along the way. They then either turn around and go back down or they remain stuck and do not progress further. This is the method taken by those who think, out of pride, that they have to go it alone, and who cannot admit that they need help for fear of bruising their own ego or because they don’t trust others and don’t want to become dependent on others for assistance. Just because your journey is your own doesn’t mean that you have to take it alone. You can be accompanied by others along the way – your spouse/partner, friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, and fellow travelers are there to guide you in the right direction and give you support when you need it. They cannot take the journey for you but they can give you advice and help you find the inner resources to keep going. What you need is humility and an open heart to allow the help in.

Some people begin the journey and reach a certain point where they feel comfortable enough that they decide to stop. They think: “this is good enough; I’ve got a nice view now; I don’t need to go any further”. This is the aborted journey and is very common. Many people will work to get themselves to a point where their immediate survival is fairly secure and they are not suffering greatly. They then think that the journey is over and there’s nothing more to do but maintain their position and keep themselves entertained for the rest of their days. This is a small-minded view of the journey that misses the whole point. The journey takes us far beyond mere survival and avoidance of suffering into the heights and depths of ourselves. It is a call to claim our integrity and dignity, one that asks us to transcend our childish needs for constant security and satisfaction in exchange for the rewards of fully realizing our spiritual potential in all its aspects. This may require us to willingly welcome suffering upon ourselves in order that we may grow stronger and more resilient and adaptable as a result of it.

At each stage of the journey up the mountain we are faced with new challenges. A challenge is really a call toward expansion of self by assimilating something which we had previously seen as foreign, unfamiliar or hostile. In order to do this we must become bigger than the things we would absorb. We must listen and pay attention to the messages they are trying to send us so that we can incorporate those lessons into ourselves. We must take them in, digest them and grow from them. With appropriate-size lessons and healthy digestion we can grow and evolve well. When the lesson appears too big to swallow we must divide it into smaller pieces, and when digestion is poor or incomplete (as can happen with difficult childhood experiences) we must clear out the backlog in order to make room for the new. We do not need to go looking for lessons; the journey presents them to us in due course. What we must do is to keep our senses, hearts and minds open and create physical, mental and emotional space to allow new lessons to come in and be processed. The journey is all about pushing our limits one step at a time, one lesson at a time, to overcome challenges and take in ever greater swaths of creation.

How about when it comes to attractions to other people? Is it really a sexy body that we want most? Or is this merely the surface representation of a deeper longing? If you think about it, someone who is wearing revealing clothing is often considered to be more attractive than one who is completely naked, so it must not be the naked body part itself that compels us, but rather something about the mystery it holds, the wonder of something waiting to be revealed. This is especially obvious when you consider the fact that many adults who are dating or married to beautiful and wonderful partners nevertheless cheat with other partners just for the thrill of something new and different. It’s not the lack of a quality partner that causes them to stray and go searching; it’s the lack of novelty. It may explain why most people prefer to make love with the lights off – to enhance the mystery by keeping certain details hidden. It is also why people love to go out to dimly-lit night clubs, bars and restaurants which creatively use lighting to enhance the ambiance, infusing a bit of mystery and allure and tempting us with possibilities for meeting someone new.

Thus it seems it is not the achievement of something known and obvious that we really yearn for, though we often think that is what we want. When you know what you’re going to get and how it will make you feel, it becomes mundane and loses most of its appeal, unless of course you are suffering from illness or hunger and you wish to end the suffering and return to a normal state of health. What we really yearn for is to discover something that we’re not yet aware of, and to have an experience that we have never had before. This could be why travel is one of the most popular activities. In essence, we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for but we know we haven’t found it yet. Since, through the process of discovery, the unknown is always turning into the known and we can never fully capture mystery itself, this situation repeats itself and is always present.

What we really long for is to become whole by discovering and assimilating elements of ourselves that we did not know existed. The way we do this is by encountering these elements in other people and in the world. At the core of desire we find the universe striving to know itself through human consciousness. In order to experience the true joy of discovery, you must first forget that you know something. Seeing something for the very first time is one of the great joys of life. This is why the universe had to explode into countless pieces through the big bang and then reassemble itself through different forms of life: to experience the joy of rediscovering itself on the canvas of space-time.

How can this knowledge help us as individuals? When we feel attracted to several things at once, whose achievement may for practical purposes be mutually exclusive (such as multiple partners), it helps to look at the root of our desire. Surely it is not the person herself/himself that we desire, but some aspect of them that will evoke a feeling in us. Take a closer look at the personality and behaviour of the person you desire and ask yourself: “What is it about this person that I am attracted to? Do I not already have the potential to discover these aspects in myself and develop them in my own life? Can I learn what I need from them without having to upset my existing relationships?” See if you can find joy in the recognition that the aspects you so desire in the other person are aspects that are already part of yourself. All it takes is an open mind and heart and some time and practice to cultivate these qualities. As you meet more and more people, your sense of fulfillment and wholeness grows and you are more likely to behave with abundant love and generosity toward your partner rather than desperation and dependence which comes from a sense of wanting and incompleteness.

Anytime you enter into a relationship with anyone, if you go in with the expectation that “this person has something that I lack and by bringing them close to me in my life I will gain that which is missing” – in other words, expecting someone to make up for your own perceived deficiencies – you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Yet that is how most relationships begin, isn’t it? I call this “filling the void by consuming the other”. We see an attractive person who has some character qualities or special skills or traits that we deeply admire and yearn for – confidence, skill and talent, persuasiveness, etc. – or maybe even actual resources such as money, power, connections or access, and we try to bring those aspects into our lives by osmosis. In essence what we are doing is trying to take from the other by consuming their positive qualities.

A rewarding relationship with long-term potential arises not from a place of need, but from a place of wholeness and abundance. We must be able to say “I don’t need anything from you, but I respect and understand you and I feel that we would complement each other well.” Honouring and respecting the integrity of the other and committing to serve the highest good of both of you rather than trying to ‘get’ anything is the only path to fulfilment in a relationship.

The basic dilemma of the pursuit of happiness is as follows: we want to be surprised, yet we want to remain in control. We want to feel deeply, yet we don’t want to be hurt. We want to discover new things, yet we want to keep our familiar comforts. The fact is that if you want to reach for the new, you must let go of the old. In any given moment, either you choose control, safety and familiarity, or you choose adventure, vulnerability and novelty. As always, there is an ideal balance, but if you feel drawn toward novelty, the way to go there is through trust, love and an open heart.

In my personal experience, people seem to pass through what we may call “stages of knowing”:

1. First, you don’t know what you want. You experiment and try different things.
2. Second, you know what you don’t want. You run up against displeasing things and follow the process of elimination. In general our youth is spent moving through these first two stages.
3. Third, you know what you want. You get to know yourself better and clearly define the things you want. This is where personal development usually ends for most people – the attainment of known desires.
4. Finally, you want the unknown. You find the attainment of known desires to be shallow and ultimately unfulfilling, leading to the pursuit of mystery and wonder. This is the realm of true spirituality, the path of curiosity, faith and surrender.

Unlike superficial pleasure, which can be purchased at the nearest store, true joy comes from discovering aspects of yourself that you didn’t know existed. It is opening one’s eyes and inviting the unknown, rather than moving forward in a linear fashion toward predictable outcomes.

ATTENTION

First, pay close attention to what is happening. This means being able to sustain attention on a single object long enough to really see it for what it is. Attention is the opposite of distraction, and it can be directed inward or outward. Both perspectives offer valuable information.

To pay attention is to care. In my view it is the very definition of the verb and the two terms are synonymous. When you don’t pay attention to something it shows that you don’t care about it, regardless of what you might tell yourself or other people. Paying attention is necessary in order to love and is the highest form of respect we can give. It is a gift from the beholder to the beheld, a non-verbal expression of the principle: “you are the most important aspect of my reality at this moment, which is why I choose to pay attention to you above all else”.

When dealing with problems or dilemmas, if you want something to disappear, look directly at it. If you want something to sneak up on you and catch you off guard, shift your attention away from it. This is especially true when it comes to our personal shadow and the nagging habits and behaviours that seem to reoccur in our lives. A lesson is trying to reach us, and by turning our back on it we are asking it to come back to bite us in the butt. By looking straight at it, giving it the attention it deserves and understanding what it offers us, we can disarm the problem and integrate it into our sphere of power, just like a master training a dog rather than running from it.

It goes without saying that throughout life we face many problems. The greatest barrier to solving these problems is not lack of resources or ideas. It is lack of attention. We live in an age where the battle lines are not found on a piece of land but in our minds, and the prize being fought over is our attention. Information is a signpost that directs our attention. Thus in this century and beyond the collection, processing, presentation and dissemination of information will determine which problems receive adequate energy to be solved, and which continue to grow worse. Those who direct the flow of information hold great power. Keep this in mind the next time you catch yourself being distracted by television or other mass media.

ACCEPTANCE

Second, fully accept (at a cognitive level) the circumstances you perceive. This is a very important step and harder than it sounds. Do not ignore, deny, discount or repress any details. This means seeing things as they are, not as we would like them to be or as we’ve been told they ought to be.

To accept is to love. It does not mean giving moral agreement to the present state of affairs. There may be many times when we find the situation or the actions of people to be unjust, cruel, condemnable, irresponsible, short-signed or narrow-minded. Acceptance does not mean that we have to agree with what is happening. It does mean that we have to accept that it is what it is, rather than censoring our perception to ignore, disort or discount certian aspects that we would rather not perceive. We must take in the full picture and acknowledge that it is the case before we think about what if anything we might be able to do about it.

Many times we try to categorize our experiences by fitting them into a pre-established pattern which we have experienced often in the past. We are too quick to judge and we apply a label to the situation before really allowing it to sink in and getting to know the particularities of the present context. There are no two experiences that are identical just as there are no two people that are identical. Every experience and every person offers a unique lesson for us to learn. We must maintain an open channel of perception to allow information to reach us, and we must be slow to label events with words and judgements. Thus acceptance means also giving the experience time and space to unfold according to its own merits rather than hijacking it with labels and categories.

ACTION

Third, decide what course of action to take. This is actually the least important of the three principles because the main purpose of life is to learn, not to achieve anything grand. Yet we are called upon to act and it is necessary not only for survival of the body but for our personal growth and development as well. Remember, it is impossible to predict all the consequences of any action, event or change. When you choose the action, you choose all the consequences – even ones you did not anticipate or desire.

To act is to surrender. This may seem counter-intuitive because we are so used to thinking about acting in terms of willpower overcoming inertia. In my view this kind of deliberate, planned and forced action where one imposes one’s will onto an external object is the least beneficial kind of action. The best actions come from understanding a situation so clearly and deeply, using the head, heart and gut, that the best path of action arises naturally and presents itself. Action then becomes not a matter of making an arbitrary or forceful decision but rather surrendering to the demands of the situation.

A note on moral speed: if you pay attention to the speed of your action, you will find that it’s hard to do the wrong thing in slow motion, and it’s hard to do the best thing if you rush. Likewise, it’s hard to do the wrong thing if you really pay attention at every step of the way, and it’s hard to do the best thing if your attention is scattered. Moral action is related to the speed at which you act; usually slower is better.

All of this comes down to what we may call “What you can and cannot choose”.

You cannot choose your feelings, emotions and thoughts.

You can, however, choose how to direct your attention.

You cannot choose the broader context and specific situation you are placed into.

You can, however, choose to accept it – all of it – for what it is.

You cannot choose what other people do or what happens to you.

You can, however, choose your actions and reactions.

At the interface of Attention and Acceptance is where learning and forgiveness are found.

It seems that this world has been set up such that suffering is the only way to really learn valuable lessons. When things are easy we are carried by intertia and there appears no great need to learn. When things are hard and we suffer, we are forced to learn. Therefore our capacity for suffering determines our capacity for learning. There are different kinds of suffering, however. There is suffering with meaning and dignity, and suffering without meaning and dignity. When you suffer for the first time, pay attention, accept and learn from it, there is meaning and dignity. When you suffer repeatedly in the same way due to lack of attention or rejection of the lesson, there is no meaning or dignity. This shows the importance of paying attention and allowing the lesson to sink in.

In order to forgive you must see everything, and accept everything fully as it is now, without reservation or condition. This applies equally to other people as it does to life lessons. Forgiveness is a divine act, and a necessary one in order to be able to digest the past and move into the present. Forgiveness really means allowing the situation to be what it is without trying to change anything. In this way forgiveness is also necessary in order for us to learn, because as long as there is something we do not accept and try to change about a situation, we have not learned.

At the interface of Acceptance and Action is where faith and courage are found.

Attention and acceptance together give us an honest assessment of how far we have come along the journey, where we stand, and what awaits us. When we move toward action, faith and courage help us act by taking the next step along the path. We should not try to control the outcome or try to know what will happen before it happens. We must surrender to the necessity of acting without knowing exactly what the outcome will be or what awaits us around the next corner. This requires trust – in other words, faith.

Problems arise when we do not practice these principles. We often fail to pay attention to important things by tuning out, numbing our senses through drugs, alcohol or television, or ignoring what is in front of us. We often do not accept what we sense and perceive, and we bury our painful or unpleasant sensations and perceptions, which inevitably causes mental problems later on. We also fail to take action once we have witnessed something and do not assume our responsibility to do something to make things better. By remembering these principles we can avoid most major problems and learn from the ones that we do encounter.

Pay attention, accept, act.