River of Tenderness

River of Tenderness

There's a river of tenderness that flows through life. We know it when our child's soft arms encircle our neck in perfect trust; in the voice of encouragement when we are feeling unsure; in a genuine smile of a stranger. These moments touch a chord in our deepest selves and resonate against a longing that we feel but cannot name. They are beautiful moments but we don't really live there. In a way they sharpen our awareness that most of life is lived, not in these special moments but, in the turbulence of a demanding world.

Tapping into this river and making a conscious choice to bring more and more of these moments into our life - either as giver or receiver - is the beginning of living a spiritual life. It's as simple as that. Stepping onto the path of spiritual awakening is just a choice we make. Awakening is about opening our eyes from sleep. Physically, we do it every morning. It's about reviving our sense of wonder in the small things in life. It's about living fully through our physical body and mind, experiencing the subtlety and nuance of the natural world. It's about using our humanness as instruments to express our individual and singular melody.

The river's source flows from the beginning, before time. It is love, truth, energy, light, God, Allah, Buddha. It is laughter, joy and bliss. Some of us walk the parched desert of fear unaware that the river flows beneath our feet. Others roil and splash in its sparkling spray and ride the crest of oneness with the source. Most of us are somewhere in between. I know it's there. I discovered it by divine "accident". I slipped down the muddy banks of loss, grief, defeat and despair and landed in a heap with the waters gently lapping against my feet. That was my beginning.

I suppose it's like a newborn child recognizing its mother's heartbeat. It is profoundly soothing and comforting. It is the wellspring of our creation. It is pure unequivocal love and it nurtures our seedling soul. It is infinite tenderness and it flows through our hearts and forms a still, deep pool of quietude and peace. It is the font that, at once, expresses our oneness with the universe and our unique individuality.

The spiritual path, then, is about realizing this river exists and then cutting away the bracken and trodding down the dams that hinder its flow through our lives. It's an adventure. It's scary and exciting and rewarding. It's the quest for the treasure of our true self. As we begin to unravel our true self from the bonds of woundedness and extraneous baggage that we've picked up through life, we will begin to live in the fullness of the moment. We'll discover what really makes us happy, what colours make us feel good, what we really like. And we'll realize how important that is to our sense of balance and harmony. We'll discover what we're really good at doing and will do it with full creative abandon. We will begin to live in authenticity. We will become the conduit for the flow of love and creation as it expresses itself through our person.

The wonderful thing that happens when we make this discovery is that all of a sudden , as if unseen forces have been waiting for us to clear our eyes, we are helped along our way. Call it synchronicity, serendipity, coincidence, it matters not -it's what happens. A book will come to your attention, you'll hear someone speak on the radio, a person will come into your life and feel closer than a sibling. You'll read or hear something and say, "Oh, I knew that.". Where we "knew" these truths from and how and why we forgot them is moot. We're hearing them now when we are able to listen to them. It's like unseen hands passing us from step to step.

In a word or deed or gesture you will know a kindred spirit. He may be the courier delivering a package, the president of the corporation where you work or your own child. They will guide you in the simple truth of authentic living.

Truth as we come to hear it with our heart is not about facts. It is not about heredity, environment, culture, science, religion or wealth. It is the recognition (re-seeing) of a immutable force that connects us to the life energy that pulsates through the cosmos - in its magnitude and its minutiae. The sense is captured in Desiderata, You are a child of the universe/, No less than the trees and the stars,/ You have a right to be here. And beyond a rightful place and being part of the whole, we are also a working, functional part. If we commit our life to the discovery and the living of who we truly are then we are living fully functional lives.

The challenging part about being human is that we don't automatically blossom in full genetic imprint. We do not replicate who went before. By virtue of a rationalizing mind, the development of ego and the voice of the soul we have our hands full of the tangled string of our own existence. We winkle out one string and follow it to daughter, mother, son, father. Another string leads to male, female, red, white, black, yellow. Another, president, bus driver, writer. When we try to connect these strings and weave a life out of it we live a role that is defined from the outside in. This living in subjectivity lays us open to reality by interpretation. We are good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, victim or victor, according to whose eyes we look into. Living a lifetime holding together an identity thus defined can be a very precarious and fearful passage.

Look into your own eyes. The stranger you see will be the unnamed, unformed you that awaits your attention with infinite patience. It is the You who desires to answer when, finally fired by fear, frustration, rage or even depression, you ask the question, "Who am I?" If you really want to know the answer and let that frail little voice speak, it will be the last voice you hear before stepping onto the path to awakening. When you hear that whisper you will also realize that you've probably heard it many times before. You just weren't listening.

Awakening to spirit is about rousing oneself from a walking sleep. It is about redefining your life from the inside out. It takes work and courage and the conscious awareness that the way is simple but not easy. As we disentangle our essential self from the person formed by our individual history we will inevitably meet with dark and painful memories. We need to gather up our objectivity and see these passages and witness how they shaped us before we can release them and move on. Some barriers are so formidable that we are afraid of what nasty surprise lurks behind. But as we chip away, aided by compassion and forgiveness, from ourselves, for ourselves, we draw light into our souls and the way becomes less frightening. We will discover that we have been fearing fear and in our misguided protection of these bleak places, we have been caught in the darkness of our own blindness.

Sometimes the pain we protect is simply an uncaring word from someone we trusted and our hurt has lived on to shape our perception of who we are. Other times the pain stems from an horrific infliction of violence or aggression that cripples us. What we will come to know is that these pains are the expression of another's woundedness. They are our experience, they are not our truth. Just so, we will witness our own acts against others and will release our guilt and heal the woundedness that engendered our acts of unkindness. We will learn how to forgive others as we learn how to forgive ourselves.

As we release the detritus of the past we will inevitably be juggling life's ongoing challenges. This time of release and clearing can be very heavy slogging. It's a time of doubt and uncertainty. It's a passage where only trust in a benign creator and faith in love can carry us through. As we uncover our authentic self we strengthen in self reliance. We learn to trust the voice of creation as it speaks through our spirit. As we become more grounded we are less prone to the buffeting of the winds of the world. Circumstances surround us, but we will choose how they shape us.

Some steps will be forward, some will be sideways and some will be back the way we came. We know the difference by the way that we feel. Like walking a labyrinth, wrong steps lead to obstacles, right steps lead us to the centre.

Awakening to our soul journey is ultimately personal. Only we can make this commitment for ourselves and only we can travel our path, but it is definitely not a solitary journey. We get infinite support and reinforcement. "the gods are smiling" is an apt phrase for this phenomenon.

Our circle of support is rarely found in family, friends or those we work with. As we bubble with excitement and recount the first baby steps of our awakening soul, we are often met with blank stares or eyes that slide away to look at something solid like the floor or the walls. As we plunge deep to do the excavating that's necessary for our release, we will get worried looks and the recommendation to seek 'help'. Perhaps this is as it should be. We need to release the surface dependence on those closest to us to strengthen our internal validation. We also need to protect this fledgling soul from those who would keep it captive to assure the stability and predictability of their own existence.

We will also recognize that as we free ourselves, we must free those we love to be as they are. Fighting to defend ourselves only serves to keep us in the forum of superficial external validation. Remaining calm and sure and living your own growth process in quiet certainty will protect you. It will also empower those around you to make significant choices - or not. What is, is. You are released from what if's and if only's. Growth is about working with the material at hand. Just as a loved one is part of your growth so you are to theirs. You are only in control of your own outcome.

The beauty of this is that you needn't fear the loss of love. Love merely transforms and emerges on a different level. It is more compassionate and giving and kind. It is the love of non-judgment for yourself and for those around you. If you are in a toxic relationship you will choose to move on. If you are in a challenging relationship, you may choose to clear the debris and love more purely. You will recognize in your friendships if they are supportive for you or if you need to keep a little distance. You need not sever ties, merely rearrange them.

Living spiritually and authentically allows the coming together and merging of our essential selves with others. If you are on a different level than those around you, you will be like oil and water. Both are elements of the earth, but do not mix. Press on. You are about to meet someone who will speak the same language. They will help you stay on course. You will help them as well.

Those on the path of their soul awakening see with different eyes. You will "see" the creative essence in another. There is no holding back. You share genuine pleasure at another's accomplishments and genuine empathy for another's struggle. You are neither diminished by what another has or does, nor are you superior by misperceived virtues. It is not an exclusive club. As you are strengthened, you give strength to those around you. The circle broadens and the joy is exponential.

We will also inevitably discover that our step becomes lighter as we travel the path. We look behind and see in our wake the detritus of life as we knew it. We are living a stripped down version of who we used to be. We drop a lot of baggage of what used to be important, but realize we hardly noticed as is slipped from our grasp. The 'new' riches have no weight. They are the child's hug, the tender word, the sound of the rain and the flight of a bird. They are the moments of pure distilled love and beauty. These moments surround us, nurture us, restore us and are as plentiful as the stars. They are free for the taking if our eyes are open and our arms are wide.

As we slip deeper into the enlivening flow of the river we can call back to shore, "Come on in, the water's fine!".