Set Fire To Your Life

"Set fire to your life. Seek those who fan your flames." - Rumi

For the last 6 years I have been wandering around the world and, to any observer, it would seen rather aimless. Indeed, I would agree, that is quite the accurate assessment.

In the Tao they would say it is useless and, to the Taoist, that is a high compliment. It is useless. There was no necessity for any of this. None the less, it has been quite a wondrous and satisfying, albeit challenging experience.​

Perhaps, that is enough!

Although I will be 70 soon I have only a peripheral interest in "the pasture." Thanks to this primitive nervous system connecting all humanity called the Internet, I can continue to do what I love to do, what I feel absolutely called to do and (due to an irresistible inner imperative) what I simply have to do, from anywhere in the world.

For me the "have to" is teach, heal, inspire, enlighten, exemplify and guide seeking beings into those deep inner channels of unexplored wonder.

There are things I simply did not want to leave

Doing is Life and Life is the dynamic aspect of Being.

Unlike the last couple of moves where I could bring stuff with me, this time all my worldly possession needed to fit into two checked bags weighing no more than 50 pounds each.

Once again I let go of everything I owned, things I simply did not want to leave behind, but had to. There are moments that will be that I know I can never recapture... a foretaste of that final exit that brings the value of all things into sharp relief and reorders priorities in an instant.

Part of me was connected, at the most primal level, to those that I love and also to the sweet but bland safety of the familiar. I could have remained, content in my "old age."

But, instead it became a a time of assessment and hard choices. What did I really need? These were difficult moments of reluctant, even painful decision making. Letting go has become cliche, like some self-help technique that leads to great bounty and reward. But the actual experience of it can be quite wrenching.

From my earliest spiritual experience at 19 years old, mine has not been a paint-by-numbers life. At first, this was not by choice. I truly believed that, since I had an ongoing conversation with God in progress, everything would surely be smooth sailing, rainbows and unicorns.

It turns out the unicorns don't exist and rainbows are an illusion. And so were my expectations. The pothole free path was not the plan. It never is. Turns out, we were never meant to stay in Eden. Eating the forbidden fruit, and tasting its inevitable and bitter consequences, WAS the plan.

The transcendent wisdom we personalized into the name God is not found in the static and repetitious. It is not found in the familiar. It is found in the dynamic and ever changing scenery of the impermanent and unexpected.

Do you truly want spiritual growth?

Do you truly want to see what you are capable of?

Do you truly want to discover whether you really are a limitless being?

Do you truly want to wander through the landscape of eternity?

Then do as Rumi suggests... "Set fire to your life. Seek those who fan your flames."

I am standing by, kerosene in hand, eager to participate in the ceremony of flame fanning. You light the match. I will help it burn.

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GP offers dozens of workshops, meditations and courses on his learning platform, The OM School

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