Confusion

Spiritual Confusion, perhaps no other field of study offers so many choices with such inexactness. This most eloquent article was submitted by one of our viewers in response to our April newsletters challenge entitled, "Spiritual Confusion". from: David Yehudah - Subject: Spiritual Confusion One thing that sets man apart from other animals is heightened self-awareness, a sense of self that transcends the body and includes an awareness of place. By that I mean where one fits into the scheme of things, not only the physical location but also the spiritual. So far so good. One can say, "Well, I live at 100 Main St., Anytown, U.S.A., on the third planet from the sun in the galaxy called the Milky Way. My spiritual location is just a little lower than the angels and considerably higher than the 'lower animals.' I think." "How do you know all this?" "On the front of my house is the number 100. . ." , "100 what?" , ?????, "Well?". "I don't know. Everyone says that a 1 followed by 2 zeros is one hundred." "Everyone? Some people might say 'cien.' Or 'cent.' What would you say if someone told you you live at 'Numero cien, Calle Principal, Ciudad Cualquiera, Estados Unidos Americanos, en la tercera planeta del sol en la galaxia Via Lechosa?'" "Now hold on. I told you where I live and what it's called. This doesn't sound anywhere near like what I said." "Nevertheless, that's where you live. Now let's suppose for a moment you find yourself in a strange part of town and need to ask directions how to get home. You know where you live; you just told me. But the first person you ask for directions answers you in Urdu. The next in Afghan, and the next in French. You know precisely where in the entire universe you live, yet no one you've met can tell you how to get there in a way you can understand. But if you keep trying eventually you will probably find someone who can help you. If not, you can buy a cheap, readily available map and find your own way. "That covers the easy part; your physical address. How about your Spiritual? Where is 'a little lower than the angels and considerably higher than the lower animals?" "Heck if I know. You have me so turned around, I can't even find my way home from the grocery store, now. I wasn't even aware I was lost until you asked me to find my way home." "But the physical address part is easy. Come, come, now. What is your Spiritual address? Surely if you can find where your body goes, you can find your spirit." "It's where my body is." "Okay, point to it. Show me. Where is your spirit?" "Well, it's. . .hang it, it's around here somewhere. Is it in my head?" "You tell me." "I don't know." "You don't know? Excellent. You have just taken the first step toward Enlightenment. To know that you don't know is a tremendous advance. To say your spirit is 'a little lower than the angels, etc.' is pretty good poetry but very poor theology. The answer might as well have been in Urdu for all the good it did you. "You are going to have to find your spiritual location the same way you found the way to your physical address. First you have to become aware. Look. Seek. Ask. Buy a map. Learn Urdu. Ask someone who can tell you in a way you can understand. And never forget that just as your physical address is unique to you in all the universe, so is your spiritual address. "The reward is not always in arriving at your destination. Sometimes the trip itself is even more worthwhile, or perhaps helping others find the way. Learn to recognize that not every green valley is the goal; some are merely resting places along the way. "Never stop looking. When you think you have finally found the end of your journey, you may discover on closer examination that you have only just begun." Part II Our subconscious does funny things to us. Just yesterday I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I noticed something crawling on Maccabee, my miniature dachshund. On close examination I saw a tick was making the long journey, well, long for a tick, from one end of the dog to the other. Absentmindedly I picked the insect off and crushed him between my fingernails. So far, so good. A few minutes later I felt something crawling up my leg. I pulled my pants leg up and looked, but nothing was there but leg. Then it started crawling up my arm. Again I looked, but nothing. Within five minutes I was in the shower looking over every inch of my body. I had distinctly felt ticks crawling all over me, but not one was really there. So it is with Spiritual Confusion. We sense something isn't quite right. Something is bothering us, something is crawling all over us, something that our fears and worries magnify until something has us frantic. But when we look, nothing's there. I suspected ticks in my case, because, a) I have felt them crawling on me before and therefore know what they feel like, and b) just seeing one earlier had planted the idea in my head. On the other hand, I wasn't sure what Spiritual Confusion felt like. Although I have felt it keenly at times, I've never seen it or crushed it between my fingernails. I knew I had it, or thought I had it, or felt maybe I had it, but how was I to know for sure? Hoping someone could explain it to me, I asked several members of the clergy of various sects, and they all said the same; I needed faith. . .no, make that FAITH. ??? Well, that shed a glow but not a glare. "Faith in what?" I asked, and since I had asked ten different religious leaders, I got ten different answers, all mutually exclusive. Each had the "only" answer; all others were false; only theirs was true. To find the answer I began observing the practitioners of these faiths. Not the generals who get paid top dollar for observing the tenets of their beliefs (if I were being paid that kind of money, I could get pretty religious myself), but the grunts, the soldiers in the trenches. Most of them were typical draftees, sunshine patriots untouched by deep conviction. But that's okay, too. A person may rightly have other concerns. I saw people whose creed was "love thy neighbor" killing their neighbors. I saw some whose sect was named "peace" constantly at war with others of the same sect, gleefully, self-righteously slaughtering their co-religionists over some real or imagined hair's-breadth difference in interpretations of some obscure text none of them could quote from memory or even find without help. Some who claimed to worship their ancestors let them die from neglect and starvation; others said they placed their children above all else, then abandoned them to the world at large. I saw people who were Spiritually Confused, "buggy," who sometimes felt the phantom ticks crawling on their bodies, yet didn't notice the real ones tearing away pieces of their flesh. Finally I also saw members of those same sects who were serene in their faiths and their lives, and not one creed was any better than the others for producing that peace. Indeed, some belonged to no group. It was all in the individuals. Each individual had found peace for himself. And some really rare ones had pulled others into their orbit and shared that peace without even trying. How? What made the difference? Was it because of their faith or in spite of it?