Giving Up On Once-And-For-All

I’ve been reading through old journals, finding the ends of threads for the book I am writing.  It’s a humbling experience. Repeatedly- sometimes only days apart- I have written in celebration and gratitude about realizing an insight or perspective that seems to clear all confusion and offer new possibilities for health and happiness. The humbling part is that the content of these insights are often very similar, if not identical to each other.  

Reading, I groan and think, “Oh good grief! When am I going to get this once and for all?”

My friend, Peter Marmorek, teaches an online writing course. One of the warm-ups he uses is- “What is the lesson you keep learning over and over throughout your life?” The question assumes that forgetting and re-discovering things we feel are significant is a universal experience, and so perhaps not the personal failure we sometimes fear it is.

We spiritual types are fond of phrases like, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” So why are we so frustrated with relearning a core truth, with “not getting anywhere?” Haven’t we already said there isn’t anywhere to go, that it’s about being here, now?

  

I think our frustration is harboured in a secret, semi-conscious, and very human hope that there is a. . . . place (inner or outer) on the other side of some critical spiritual or psychological experience or insight where we will be. . . .different than we are, transformed into someone who consistently embodies the spiritual values we hold dear- like love and compassion.

Is there no truth to this? Are we doomed to repeat patterns of misery, misunderstanding and the co-creation of suffering? 

Makes you want to just open a bag of Hersey Kisses  (dark chocolate of course) and lay down on the floor for a few moments. . . . or a week.

It’s a tricky business- leaving room for possibilities without grasping for signs of progress.

I often hear from people who’ve had experiences they feel are awakenings- experiences of knowing at a bone-deep level the beauty of life and their place in it. Often they are concerned, if not downright frantic, that they're not going to be able to hang on to the feeling or perspective their experiences have offered. They tell me, “I am afraid I am going to forget.”

Sometimes I reply, “You will never forget.” Other times I write, “You will forget, because that’s what humans being do- we forget and remember, wake up and go back to sleep over and over again.” Both things are true. We do forget and remember- but on some level we never go back to sleep quite as deeply as we once were, after we've had a moment of being truly awake. This is how we learn and grow, in an ever-spiralling meander. I suspect that most of the time we are too close, our noses pressed up against the details of managing daily life, to see the bigger pattern clearly.

In The Awakened Heart, author Gerald May calls our moments of insight and awakening “remembering love” and “homecomings.” He reminds us, “. . . . it is one of the most precious experiences of living: to have been kidnapped by some worry or striving and then suddenly to gracefully returned home to the present moment, reminded of love.”  He lays aside wanting once-and-for- all learning, writing: “If the one great homecoming were to happen too soon, I would so miss all the many little ones.”

I go back to my journals and begin to see the blessing of repeated homecomings- no two truly identical, each one slightly nuanced but always buoying me up and pointing me back to remembering and reconnecting with Life and Love.  

Oriah (c) 2012