Where are you on your spiritual path?

Where on the spiritual path you ask?  Perhaps at the fork where words lead us in polar opposite directions.  Pondering the way words can corrupt the very path they're attempting to illuminate.

Let's face it.  Every bit of spiritual advice we've received has been wrong.  Inaccurate.  Maybe even a bald faced lie.   

All the masters say the same thing, if they're being truthful.  They say "Don't listen to my words.  These words are only the finger pointing towards the moon."  And sometimes they say "Don't believe anything I say.  Words are empty shells.  Look at what is beyond the words."  

Yet what are we humans to do if we want to live deeply beyond our conditioning?  Many of us look for answers from books, masters, and the ever-fickle words.  We're asking to understand from a very instrument that can only gesture towards Truth.  So, being the humans we are, we take the words which seem to resonate with an inner truth, and we begin to reconstruct a new paradigm, a new set of beliefs.  But this time they're spiritual beliefs.  And sometimes we cling to those spiritual beliefs like a puppy with a bone.  We won't let go.  And these spiritual beliefs, while possibly useful and guiding, can sometimes be as misguided as the material beliefs we formerly espoused.  

So here we are with our new spiritual beliefs.  Now, please, don't think I'm stepping on anyone's toes in a personal manner.  I'm stepping on my own toes as well.  Here are a few of the spiritual words and phrases which can cause problems.  (I'm not saying they've caused problems for the reader.  They've just caused problems for some people who cling to the new verbiage without noticing the direction towards which the words are pointing.)  

The moment is all there is.  Now, this one, on the surface, seems to wrap it up nicely.  Anyone who's read the latest spiritual teachers will throw this one around.  Heck, I love to throw this one around.  The Now.  This Moment.  Right Now.  Here.  This is where it's at, baby.    

But let's go a bit deeper and consider the ways in which this spiritual belief can actually limit that which is beyond the Moment.  Let's say a desire arises in the moment to shoot heroin. An advocate of the preceding belief might think, "hey, this is the moment, it's all there is, pass the heroin!"  We can mention three dozen activities including rape, murder, addiction, petty actions which could utilize the spiritual phrase as justification.    

And truly, is the Moment all we have?  Yes, yes!  you're insisting.  But what about the moment which preceded this moment, in which you learned something valuable to the soul?  What about the moment which is close approaching, in which you have plans?  In reality, it's more like a multi-dimensional Now, a hologrammed Now.  It does include a past and present.  But we could still argue this one on technicalities, so let's instead just agree that there are many ways that believing the phrase The moment is all there is could be used to circumvent and short-circuit the Spirit which is flowing in, around, above and between this sacred moment.  We can use this as an excuse to act on every random emotion, desire, thought and dream.   

I am enough. Oh, I do like this one!  I am enough, and you are enough, and this Moment is enough.  But are there ways in which attaching to this belief actually limits us?  Let's say we're human beings with human conditioning.  And that conditioning rules the roost in our bodies.  If the desire flashes go, we go.  If the thought flashes "you are worthless" then it's so often believed.  Conditioning runs us like a well-oiled motor.  Not freedom.  Conditioning is a God we've worshiped since our mama first taught us.   Is that really enough, following the conditioning?  Am I enough, conditioning and all?  Maybe we are.  But this affirmation can lead to freedom, or it can lead to quicksand.  Or at least being stuck in mud for a long time.  There are ways we can use this belief to keep us roped and tied, yet thinking we're flying free.   

I am already enlightened or I am God.  Now, I'm not saying you're not.  You may well be.  But this little phrase can either send you soaring into that quintessential moment.....or keep you harnessed.  You can hide behind those words forever without the freedom that exists beyond it.  Or maybe it's better to say you can believe the words without knowing them.  Without experiencing them.  See, we're stuck in a quandary.  If we do nothing, we stay ensconced in our conditioning.  If we do something, we're often escaping the integral truth of Who We Are.  In the real moment before words, there's a time to seek enlightenment and a time to cease seeking enlightenment.  Only you can know when that moment is.  But our conditioning will sometimes try to co-opt this spiritual truth before its time.   

Silence is golden.  God exists in Silence.  Ahhh....yes....when we begin to realize the fickle nature of words, some of us grasp onto the opposite.  If words are useless, then Silence reigns!  We begin to create a duality between silence/words and worship at the altar of Silence.  But Silence is not God.  Silence is no nobler than yakking.  Silence may lead us towards something beyond Thought, but it is not a golden God worthy of blind worship.   

Our beliefs keep us from enlightenment.   Oh how I personally like to toss this one around!  Yet, is it true?  How ridiculous to believe even this....although it is one of those nuggets that shine brightly in the spiritual world.  A thought can not keep us from enlightenment.  Never.   Enlightenment contains a thousand billion thoughts, and yet is also contains None.   

So what are we to do?  We search for these scriptures, these spiritual beliefs, these bits of manna to guide us.  Yet not a single one, by itself, means anything. Worse, the belief can be used to keep us stuck, corrupted and lost.  Here's my suggestion from half-way between living the beliefs and getting stuck in them:

Take the belief and live it fully, always aware of how conditioning may attempt to steal the purity of the gesture.  Live it to the best of your ability, up, down and sideways.  Then, when it's integrated, open your palm and let the bird fly free.  Then you can say anything, be totally silent, spout beliefs, eschew them, turn somersaults in the Moment or sit in the Himalayas.  Or just keep pointing at the moon and laughing.   At least that's what "they" say.....the Ones who are not separate from the spiritual path....