“’Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought,’” said my son, reading out the daily inspirational quote he has delivered to his phone. “It says it is by Basho. Who’s he?”
“Seventeenth century Japanese poet.” It was a short answer, but enough for the question.
“Okay, Google,” he said with disgust. He was not using voice commands…that is one of the politer names he calls me.
It was a good quote though, when I had just been writing up another of our visits to an ancient sacred site. It summed up perfectly why these places matter so much to us and what it is we find there. We do not seek to return to an earlier time or belief system, but to move beyond the imposed and acquired dogma of our times. Somewhere, beyond both the beliefs of the ancients and our own, is the source of the questions mankind has asked of both his heart and the heavens; whatever path we have chosen to follow and in whatever era we have lived, ultimately our goal is the same.
The symbols we use, the stories we believe, or in which we have faith, all arose from a need to understand. We want to know about the origins of life and our planetary home, our place in the cosmos and the forces that shape all we know. We want to know why we are here, and what is the purpose of it all.
We have sought answers to how we should live and developed moral codes by which we are supposed to abide. Some are practical… if we must live as part of a community, then there are basic behaviours by which we abide. Other rules we have made and think of as universal, yet across time and culture, they too have changed and shifted their parameters so much, and so often, that mankind starts wars because we cannot agree on the basic details of how we ought to live. Or how our gods should behave.
At one point in history, gods could be vengeful, jealous, permissively polyamorous and sometimes downright vicious. Another era sees its gods…or at least their priests… exercising strict control over every aspect of their people, while yet another time sees the gods as loving, forgiving and nurturing. And sometimes, the same god, over the course of time, will run the gamut of all of the above.
Within their time and place, all these manifestations were acceptable to the populace. They filled a need that matched the era and culture… and when they ceased to fill it, new gods came in to supplant them. But the same questions remained.
There is knowledge to be had about our planet and solar system. We now know a great deal about how nature actually works. We can see brain activity and are busily engineering nano-robots to send into the body to fix its problems. The scope of human knowledge is vast, even if there is still far more to learn than we can know or imagine at this moment. But all these things are just facts.
The questions held in the recesses of the human heart and mind cannot be answered so simply and the answers must be found by each of us, in our own way and our own time. Only knowledge can be transmitted. Knowledge may point a way, but it cannot grant understanding, only show us what and where someone else sought and found their own answers.
And then there is the dichotomy of seeking and not-seeking. The only way we know how to find anything is to look for it, or stumble across it by accident. We are told by spiritual teachers and philosophers that we should seek and strive to grow… and told by just as many of them that we should neither seek nor strive, but just be. We are promised paradise if we adhere to one set of rules or another, and a thousand shades of torment if we choose the wrong path. And that path can be any or all of the ones who promised paradise in the first place.
Spirituality is a minefield. So, what is a seeker, especially when we are not supposed to seek, supposed to do?
Seek what they sought. Look beyond the stories to why they were told… beyond the dogma, the rules and conventions and listen for what sings to your heart. We may be too small to encompass the entire understanding of Creation, but we may get a glimpse that sheds enough light on our path to carry us forward. It matters little upon which path we begin, for once we have found a song of the soul that calls to us, the path chooses us and it lives in truth within us.
Reblogged this on Not Tomatoes.
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Profound quote Sue, that your son unearthed. I feel it’s so true. And your post, as always, is beautifully written. But I doubt those ‘men of old’ found what they sought by looking back to those who were ‘men of old’ to them in their time. I’m sure they found what they were seeking within their own selves. As the wonderful Hindu hermit I worked with in Northern India and whom I have quoted in my own blog, said, – “Why would you look for that which you are holding in your hand?”
I think also that if we seek to ‘understand’ life and find a ‘point’ in it, we’ll seek to the day we die having got nowhere. ‘Understanding’ and ‘points’ are of the mind and of the ego. Life is not ‘understandable’. We are life. As I’ve said in another context, trying to ‘understand’ life is like using the beam of the torch in an attempt to find the torch.
I think it is rather a case of not needing to look for what already holds us in its hand… except, we need to start by looking, in order to know there was never any need.
Bit of a misunderstanding, I think Sue. The man was not saying that anything holds us in its hand. But that we ourselves hold in our own hands the very thing we seek – and therefore, by implication, the answer lies within one’s self. Quote Ramana Maharshi and others – ‘You are that which you seek.’ And by looking to find that elusive thing beyond and outside our own selves, we are looking in the wrong place. It may be however that searching outside one’s own self may be a necessary step along the path.
Agreed, Jeff… the answers are within, but my personal belief is that we are part of a greater whole… and therefore there are answers within that reflect that which is without… even though nothing is ‘without’ if we are ‘of’ it.
So well put my friend. We are meant to seek and question.
But only until we realise that what we sought was alreasy waiting patiently to be noticed.
This is very interesting. Somehow I lost touch with your blog. I kept going to the home page of your website instead. I agree totally – seeking what they sought is the journey for me too.
Thanks, Suzanne. There is always a source… and behind all mankind’s efforts to understand, and all our attempts at explanation, it remains itself.
I think of it as what was before the Big Bang.
I think of it as intelligent potential… but I am not sure we need to ‘think’ of it at all.
True 🙂
I have always enjoyed every single post, but this post is my favorite of all time because it says so much about what we are working to understand or interpret, or to solve. I put all three of these words because I guess I have been in all three roles, and actually, despite the fact that I might have missed the boat with my thinking, it did increase my awareness of things I did not know at all. And yes, to understand our own selves and our environment/universe is a wonderful thing and likely the most important, but the rest has not at all been a waste of time. I have loved, and I mean absolutely loved, every minute of study I have done. It may not be what direction I need to be going, but it has been a blast to go where I have gone. I do not regret a second of any of this. The writing and explanation is the best for me that I have read of anything so far, and all of it was way over good! I am so glad I somehow stumbled onto this course of study. I have benefited in so many ways. Thank you one and all, and I am looking forward to my next lesson.
Thanks, Anne. I love learning too…and have also enjoyed the journey into knowledge, but there are things that knowledge alone cannot give us and, if we centre allour learning in the mind, we miss what the body and heart can teach us There needs to be a balance.
well written. I like the metaphor. I think you will enjoy the Power of Now. it’s a spiritual book about learning to be in the present moment. I wrote about it in my recent blog but the book is incredible. changed my life. you seem be in the same mindset
Thanks, Josh, I know of Tolle’s book and know a few people who would agree with you on its value.
Josh – I know Tolle’s book very well indeed. And perhaps rather like you, he slotted a most crucial missing piece into place in my lifelong quest. And this may sound like a nit-pick of something you say, but it’s more than that as I hope you’ll agree. Tolle’s book is not about ‘learning to be in the present moment’ – you can’t learn to be there – that’s where you already are, always and ever; it’s the only place you will ever, can ever be. His book is about perceiving then accepting that inescapable fact and living life accordingly.
He’s by no means the only one to say this sort of thing – it goes back thousands of years, at least in the East. But saying it, as he does, in completely modern parlance, makes it readily accessible to those Westerners who have the ears to hear.
Just came across your blog – I particularly loved some of the last words – ” listen to what sings to your heart – for once we have found a song of the soul that calls to us the path chooses us and it lives in truth within us – blessings Lois
Thank you, Lois. I don’t think the heart ever guides us too far away from its own path.