Spiritual teachings are both complex and simple—at the same time. But this simultaneousness is not how you experience it. Through great complexities we emerge into the simplicity of practice and the calming of the mind and the fading of questions. The mind becomes increasingly tranquil. Finally in breakthrough the absurdity of the journey you have taken to your natural present state causes great humor and laughter, inwardly and/or outwardly. To take hold of any particular piece of this process and cling to it is merely to reveal your prejudice and the part of the elephant you can touch. Spiritual teaching is worthless, nothing, without the correct elements of delivery or transmission in place. A spiritual teacher, a community of like-minded souls, as well as the teaching are all necessary. Not only are they all necessary but they need to be in correct relationship to each other. Now the relationship between any three elements is immensely powerful but it is also complex. Why then do people insist that spiritual teaching and insight and awakening are simple? Because they are leaping on to the later experience of the realization of absurdity. Let us not oversimplify, undersimplify, or be opinionated. Let us face the truth as squarely as we can. Neither our experience nor anyone else's will define spirituality. Spirituality, if it has any pertinent meaning at all, cannot be defined unequivocally. Neither are words a method of conveying the teaching solely. These words must be spoken by a genuine teacher; then even words, like movements, intonation, and feeling are drenched in Truth.

BLOG entry #1