There Where?



So then there was another moment in time and this time it was a moment on a plane. This time there was more clarity and perhaps more presence. This time he did not try too hard. He felt he had written and spoken and thought too many words. He had to accept that this process of self-inquiry ultimately reached a place where no amount of grasping with the spoken, said or thought out concept could help any further. Perhaps he had reached the end of the ladder, the support that he had achieved from the teachings and the readings and the meditations had finally placed him on the top rung of the ladder in the first stage of his spiritual journey. And now it was up to him to make that leap of faith from this top rung into what at this point seemed like oblivion beyond the thick fog of the unknown. He had been told that it was liberating to make that leap and that he would surely reach the other side, even if he did free fall into the deep abyss of fear and loneliness for a bit. But he would never be able to experience what it was like to be truly liberated until he jumped himself. And nobody could take him there and he couldn’t take anyone there with him. It was like the last time he had sky-dived, tandem, supported by another. There was no fear, he felt secure that he would be ‘shown’ the amazing sights from the sky by a ‘professional’. But for him to really feel the rush, live the thrill and experience the amazement, he’d have to do it alone, once again, on his own. So, too no Guru or Swami would take him there with them. He had to reach the end alone.

Now he was stumped. He thought about his life and his comforts and his needs and wants and all that he loved and held so close to his heart. Parents, siblings, relatives, lovers, friends, teachers, colleagues, pets, sex, drugs, alcohol, creativity, intellect, intelligence, culture, education, knowledge, wisdom, theories, philosophies, concepts and judgments, desires and dislikes, hopes and fears. All the forms and thoughts and other time and space bound entities and their attributes. And all the ‘tools’ that he had used thus far to get a clearer understanding of what distinguished the ‘real’ from the impermanent. Meditation and satsang and yoga and prayer and mindfulness and states of no-mind and absolute knowledge, truth and bliss. Ultimately, none of these really mattered much. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, there was no ‘there’ there. And that was the paradox. To get there one had to leave everything behind and put into disciplined practice what one had read, or learned or heard. The there, itself could never be reached, though, because, there was already here. There was everywhere and he was already there. So, there was no ladder and there was no top rung and there was no fog to jump into. There had never been there and there was never needed, nor to be found. All was infinite existence and all forms and shapes were simply building and fading in this infiniteness. But that could not be conceptualized, nor experienced with the instruments of cognition and perception that he possessed. Well, then what?