To Understand the Art and Science of the Way, One Must Live It.
There is no other Way, because it is a Spirit that must be progressively experienced and rightly related to in order to be understood.
The Way cannot be placed in an institution. It cannot be captured in propositions. It cannot be fully articulated in a book. It cannot be mapped out, predicted, or placed on a wall. It cannot be owned or boxed in.
It is a living Way. It is a universal Way. It is an eternal Way. It is a dance with the Mystery. It is a wrestling with God. It is the fullness of life and being.
There are infinite techniques, infinite laws, infinite readings, infinite methods and knowledge. These hint at the Way, but they are not the Way.
The Way is mediated by Spirit and not by form.
There you approach the form and the writings. They are hints and they are True, so they transform you.
The transformed you goes out and interacts in the world and attempts to rightly relate to and embody the non-propositional Reality and Spirit of the Way.
The interaction with the world informs and transforms you.
When you come back to the forms and the writings, you are a different person, so they speak to you different things. Different aspects of the Spirit behind the form reveal themselves to you and transform you, so that you can go out once again to Practice, to transform, and to be transformed in and through the Way.
It is a pathway of experiential Living and Learning. There is no other Way.
We cannot afford to be so fundamental and literal in a world of infinite complexity and application. The words we are hearing are only rough approximations of an infinitely complex Reality, that only faintly point the Way towards the Ultimate Reality Beyond.
We must not confuse the maps and institutions that wise guides left us hundreds or thousands of years ago for the actual terrain we must actually and pragmatically traverse today if we are to reach our Goal.
They left us their best representations of what they saw, in art and language that cannot even begin to approach the Reality. They left us their best practices for the Quest, and their best descriptions of the Dangers, Toils, and Snares to avoid.
Yet we are livers of our own lives, the travelers of our own terrain; we are the protagonists of our own epic adventure towards The Goal.
Heed the warnings, apply the best practices, but always remember that you are a Son or Daughter of God. The Spirit of Infinite Wisdom and Intelligence is alive within you, an ever present and faithful Guide.
We must wisely interpret how to learn from and properly apply the keys, principles, poems, clues, songs, ceremonies and visual imagery fearlessly, one step at a time, as we walk the Path of Life. Do not cling to one map. Compare the different maps left by the wisest Guides who have progressed the farthest in the Way. Understand the motivations at the time when each map was left. Understand whose hands the map has passed through, and what their motivations may have been. The majority of the maps have been polluted and changed over time. They have been corrupted and concealed. Look for the commonalities, seek to reconcile the differences, listen to the stories and traditions of those from different cultures, and you will have the best probability of avoiding failure and achieving success.
Any single map or tradition may have been manipulated along the Way. Blind guides try to lead us astray and co-opt our journey to protect their positions and power. Beware of any guide or map that claims to hold a secret or exclusive answer. Triangulate to the Wise Right answer that obviously must be transcendent, eternal and beyond all form.
Think critically. Be fiercely independent and yet fiercely inter-dependent. Fearlessly search for Wisdom and Truth, and you will find It. Above all, have Faith and Courage and be led by Love.
The Way cannot be fully written down or legislated. To understand the art and science of the Way, one must look beyond the forms and techniques and writings and live the Way as a Practice. The Way is living and active.
A thousand schools teach a thousand forms and techniques. The Way is not based on specific techniques. It is Way of life based on principles, values, relationships, and intuitive wise right application of the Spirit in any circumstance or domain.
The Way harmonizes our unique individual nature with universal principles that transform us as we act on and transform the world. It is about coming into Right Relationship with the universe and its Source, and the Way that right relationship manifests into our co-creative thoughts, words, and action in the world.
The Way must be seen, tasted, and experienced. It cannot be known through books. It does not lie in a weekly visit to a place of worship. It can only be practiced and discovered experientially in each and every moment of life. This is why it is called an art, a science, a practice, and a Way of life.
Like Nature the Way is based on recursive patterns of transformation continuously applied to the product of previous transformations. Because of this, its outcomes cannot be calculated by our logical minds, but can only be observed as a pattern of emergent life unfolding with nuanced and surprising beauty that we could not have predicted or planned.
As we walk in the Way, as we undergo the series of progressive transformations individually and collectively, we come into increasing unity with the indescribable Power that we are designed to receive and become living conduits and expressions of. This is the only Way we can become truly and fully alive, vibrating and pulsating with the energy and power of Creative Love manifest into harmonious right action for the benefit of All.
This is the simple Way that is at the heart of every spiritual teaching. It is simple to understand, and simple to perform. Yet it is so difficult that few walk in the Way. It is far easier to remain blind, deaf, fearful, and self-focused, or trapped within the false comfort of The Caves.
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