Spirituality

I feel that any supposed spiritual path that does not have risk in it is false.  I feel the need for darkness, and I am beginning to see why the Tibetans have angry demons on many of their mandalas.  Darkness and danger coexist with light and love.  A path which does not demand of you the ability to travel through a dark forest alone at night, figuratively at least, is not one which will lead to interesting places.

Then as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that in any path of growth, loss is inevitable.  Some part of you will have to be sacrificed–your vanity, your complacency, your sloth–in order that you can reintegrate on a higher level.  You have to die, in some ways, on one qualitative level, so that you can be reborn on a higher level.

I would add, too, as a general thought that I have been many places and done many things.  Among those things I have attended meditation retreats, and would submit that many people who like to say they are “on a spiritual path” just need to grow up.  They live their lives as silly people, then get all mellow and metaphysical on the weekends.  Fuck that.

Pondering this, what I would submit is that the first task is always to make your peace with your physical environment as a mature adult, to interact socially in a felicitous way, work effectively, love others effectively, and THEN expand your sense of self to the non-physical.  All spirituality is is incorporating higher realities into your current reality.  Becoming a Buddha is just growing up in a different world, after growing up in this one.  It is hypermaturity. 

Few thoughts.  This didn’t quite hit the mark, but screw it.  I’m whiskey bound.