NO ROAD NOT TAKEN

 

A young man who came to our last retreat had been an intern at a hospital in Baltimore, USA, when he received what he felt was a "spiritual calling." He left his wife and young baby daughter and traveled to India where he met many gurus, including one who insisted he fast and then eat only a strict Ayurvedic diet and donate what was left of his savings to the guru. One day while fasting, he realized his guru was false, but felt moved to take a lifetime vow of silence. Luckily it did not keep him from from the internet, so he "chatted" incessantly online with other seekers. Our retreat owner saw him giving a concert at a New Age music emporium that specialized in Tibetan Bowls, and invited him to attend a silent retreat on the land where I am caretaker.

 

A few months ago, he wrote everyone who had attended that retreat that the lesson he learned was that his life in the city with his family and all the hectic craziness of the hospital was as spiritual as his life in India. He even gave up his vow of silence, and said the idea that there is a path that is more spiritual than any other no longer makes sense. He ended up saying that "we may choose a path less traveled, but in the end we always return to our true selves."

 

Seeing that there is no better path or way seems to have brought him some peace. But really, there is no path, nor any one to embark upon one. Life does us, we do not choose it, and there are no rules and anything may happen. 

 

From the perspective of those identified as my family and friends, this Miranda thingie seemed to give up everything she had known that made her who she was, choosing to go live in the woods doing God knows what, filled with bizarre beliefs, and wasting her life. But this is no more a way of life of my choosing than being an assistant choreographer in Chicago, teaching dance in London, touring with a performing arts troupe through Eastern Europe, going to University, or any of the other apparent things in my imaginary misremembered dream of a life. 

 

For there is no sense of anyone who ever made a choice, or even any one that did any thing at all. And there is no life or apparent path that is any less filled with wonder and awe and aliveness than any other. 

 

There is no such thing as "spiritual."

There is no such thing as a "true nature."

There is no such thing as a "path."

There is no such thing as a "choice."

There is no such thing as a "you."

And there is no such thing as...

"No Such Thing." 

💓