double-edged sword

Everything is teaching me a lesson. I have realized that acceptance is liberating. Not fighting the flow brings relief. Throughout my adult life I have found the rat race to be tiring and frustrating in that you can never get ahead. No matter how much more wealth you accumulate, the demands increase to the point where more is always asked of you. Work more. Earn more. There's bills to pay. Buy more stuff you want with the extra money. Get a bigger house and stretch your pay. Need more! On and on it goes.

There has been a synthesis of understanding in conjunction with my spiritual path. The advice of the maestro rings true when he exclaims, "There's always more." The pronouncement had a double meaning. He knew it, but it's fun to throw it out there and have the student forever chase the adventure. You see, there's the accumulation of knowledge which I did through books, and then experiential exploration of physical locations on earth. Then came the exploration of the subconscious through psychedelic substances. Inner exploration is brimming with the knowledge a man like me seeks and in conjunction with the search is a fear of the unknown which makes inner exploration quite the adventure. In his books about the teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda writes about the "Man of Knowledge." Through mental challenges, peyote, and mushrooms, Don Juan imparts his knowledge to Carlos. Carlos admits to being as thick as a brick and doesn't understand the knowledge right away. The same is true with my psychedelic experiences where the information I gleaned was immediately spun by the mind to fit into my personal narrative. It was only after discovering the deceit of the ego that I was able to integrate what I was shown in vision and extract the alchemical gold.

Understanding is a way off from ceremony. What it is you seek is all revealed, and the unfolding comes through the passage of time which bequeaths the understanding to the attentive student. A good teacher does not give the show away, but instead guides the student to the tools which will allow them to solve the puzzle or understand their predicament. The maestro has been through the process themselves, knows what it takes, and is keenly aware that the student must realize the answers through their own faculties for understanding. Telling the student, "There's always more," is a double-edged sword. Failure to marinate knowledge into understanding might lead you onto a path of an accumulation of contradictory knowledge that becomes a tangled web of incoherence.

So, there's an accumulation of knowledge. There's an integration of that knowledge in order to understand it. I have left out wisdom so far. What's wisdom? Well, let me give you an analogy. When you feed a dog, a dog will keep eating until they vomit. The same is true with knowledge and understanding. I can keep accumulating knowledge and transmuting it into understanding until I vomit. There is always more! Wisdom is knowing when you are full. No one else is going to tell you when you are full. Instead, they will do the opposite. They will always tell you there is more. There is another mountain to climb! Hey, you got to try this new flavour. It goes on and on. Recognizing you have had your fill allows you to put your fork down and walk away from the table.

I intuited when I graduated from the lessons from my shadow and onto the path of the heart that this was my last stop. I found the answer I was looking for, well, I found it a while back, but I didn't understand it. I still had to accumulate knowledge and get understanding of my incarnation. I did all that. It has been over a 15-year collection of knowledge exercise and I'm past 10 years of being involved with plant medicines. Wisdom finally came to me a short while ago and told me I was full. I kept seeing more on the menu and thought maybe I should try a new dish, but Sophia sat me down and said I have all I need. Follow the path to the heart. Remember the lesson of the simpleton with the open heart is wiser than the man who knows everything and owns the world. I remember that lesson well from over five years ago. I remember being taught the knowledge of the divine outpouring of love, and being allowed access to the Garden of the Heart for a short while before being kicked out when the drug wore off.

This wisdom I have found very practical for my material life. I do have enough, and I lead a simple life. I look at my bank account every month and wonder how I am going to pay all the bills now that my children have immersed themselves in post-secondary education? There's tuition, rent, food, transportation, and entertainment. There is constant pressure to make more money and provide. This can be very draining. After fighting the flow for so long, I finally learned to let go. Personally, I don't need to accumulate more. In fact, I want less. Recently has been a purging of physical attachments. I took so much to the curb so the garbage truck could haul it away. I felt relief in letting go of the metaphorical physical attachments which felt like a lifting of life that weighed me down. Being light and free is exhilarating. I realized to let go and go with the flow. Allow the work to come to me, earn money, and then support those who need it. I don't need it. I have been blessed and discovered everything I came here for. Why do I need to accumulate more? Instead, I can be of service and help others find their path. That leads to another conundrum. I know we all have a personal reason we incarnated and it's a puzzle of life to find out the reason. I want to tell people to devote all their time to discovering the reason, but I realize it doesn't work that way. They must do what they do, and hopefully this will lead them to seek out answers. I will be like the maestro and point them in the direction if they are receptive, but I won't tell them the answer. Everyone must find that out for themselves.

Here I am, a pilgrim taking the left-hand path of the heart, one step at a time back home. I don't need anything else. I have it all.