Walking the spiritual path means questioning your thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions in order to discover your True Self.
Walking the spiritual path means questioning your thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions in order to discover your True Self.A few decades ago, I was having a conversation with my mother on the phone. You might say it was a little heated. We were discussing my life direction. She and I didn’t see eye to eye back then (and we never really did, but late in life she was at least willing to look in my direction!). We not only had different interests, but very different ways of perceiving “life, the universe, and everything”.
I said to her, “Mom, don’t you remember when you were a teenager and you questioned who you were and what life was about?” My mother’s response was, “Connie, I never questioned who I was!”
Complete shock. I couldn’t believe that my mother never once investigated who she was. And yet, when I thought about how she lived and what she believed, it fit just right. Questioning was too threatening to her. It was much safer to just believe what she was told and what always has been. It has its advantages – makes for more stability, and keeps things very simple. But worlds apart from where I viewed things.
When we choose to walk a spiritual path, we must be willing to question everything, most especially the idea of who we think we are. This process reveals our most essential assumptions, our habitual thinking process. To discover who we truly are – our true Self – we learn to go beyond our thinking to discover our essence (click here for a free meditation on essence and Oneness). Essence is in-the-now beingness, without mental or emotional limitations, and it is divinely creative, peaceful, and alive. It just is, no matter what the circumstances are in our lives.
We meditate and practice yoga – or any serious spiritual practice – in order to remove these layers of thinking that obstruct the True Self. You don’t have to “figure out” who you really are. Practice letting go of who you are not – your thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions. Like polishing silver, as you remove the tarnish, your True Self naturally shines through.
