The spiritual teacher is a poet, an artist, a balladeer. And let us hear this once and for all: organized religion or spirituality or paths to enlightenment or systems of spiritual practice must be transcended. You cannot organize a storm. You cannot contain the nuclear fusion at the core of the sun. You cannot predict the trajectory of a leaf in the wind. You cannot even dictate your mood on any given day.

Nothing natural and real and organic can be constrained by predictable structures. The most natural thing in the world is the Divine. Everything is divine. Everything from the biggest to the smallest is participating, merging, through and through permeated, created, and destroyed in the Divine. It is not structured, predictable, or organized. It is rebellious, wild, spontaneous, and perfectly random. There is no master plan, no divine assembly line of life lessons and world predicaments through which some Creator makes His point. He neither showers you with blessings nor inflicts great cruelty with a view to your edification.

Truth, Reality is. It is a simple matter. In order for you to find it, take away, take away, take away, and then take away some more. Everything must go! Then what remains is the god Reality. No father in the sky. No voice of guidance in your heart or your head. No miracle worker heeding your prayers, your thoughts, or your worries. It is an act of great self-responsibility, this learning to go beyond indoctrination, beyond belief, beyond the forms you have been taught to believe.

It is, as Joseph Campbell amplified for us, a hero's journey. This is where the spiritual teacher comes in. Teaching through parables, wisdom stories, metaphors, anecdotes that hint at profundity while appearing simple. We use means and paint word pictures and etheric shapes to explain, to guide and cajole, to point and describe... what?... that which is of course indescribable. That which is beyond thought is necessarily indescribable, that which is outside of time contains no narrative, that which is beyond relationships as we know them is void of connection.

It matters little exactly what the spiritual teacher does , says, or how he or she presents Truth. Truth is. Can you be sure of what is in your life? Are you convinced of the verity of your word, your step, your every action? Do you live, breathe, and imbibe Truth, Love, God, Reality, Compassion in every moment... every day. In every encounter you have an opportunity for illumination. To show, to reveal light and to receive it. If you are not there, perfectly present and alive in each moment please see this as an exciting occasion for a stock-taking of your life. What needs to change? What must go? What needs to be brought in? Consider time, relationships, your daily schedule, your activities throughout the day, the balance in your life.

You cannot organize a storm, but you can organize your life so that the Divine can enter in. Let's end with some inspired words of encouragement from the great master of unknowing, Meister Eckhart:

BLOG entry #18