Befriending Dragons on the Path

This week I encountered the full swing across the entire spectrum of human and divine consciousness in a mere 12 hours. On Monday afternoon I was feeling purely blissful, and as I sat with the family enjoying lunch al fresco I said with misty eyes, "Life is so good...I am so grateful and happy!"  By Tuesday morning, I was in the proverbial pit of despair feeling inferior, frustrated and generally lousy on all levels of awareness. 

What happened in the interim to account for this great fall?  Nothing.  Nothing external anyway.  Internally, however, all hell had broken loose and I was replaying a lifetime story of how I was not good enough...a lousy golfer, a struggling piano student, an inadequate minister, and not a particularly good father either. In the dangerous neighborhood of my surface mind I had confronted the dragon of self loathing, and went from seeing life's perfection to beholding nothing but yuck.

Those of us who have been on this path for any length of time have become all too acquainted with the "dragons" on the path. Like every hero's journey, our journey to spiritual enlightenment is fraught with disheartening obstacles that threaten our progress and undermine our resolve. 

These seeming enemies of our spiritual progress can take many forms but universally share the motivation to deny and refute the emerging awareness of our true self.

Our true identity has nothing to do with external definitions of human life. Neither gender, family history, social standing, occupation, material possession or dispossession, nor even internal definitions formed by our beliefs, experiences or personal perceptions of life define our true selves.  To truly awaken we are consistently asked to drop our identification with all forms, including thought forms, and become conscious of our pure Being-ness; the pure consciousness that stands under and behind all that arises in form.

The greatest dragons we confront in our life are the inner demons of our wounds.  Eckhart Tolle calls these elements of the human experience, the "pain body."  He defines the pain body as the "energy field of old but still-very-much-alive emotion that lives in almost every human being---the remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted and let go."

Naturally, we would rather take this hero's journey without dealing with these dragons.  Yet the truth, discovered by every spiritual master that has gone the distance to self-realization, is that these apparent obstacles take us to the edge of an abyss, to the edge of the person we fear we are, so that we can take the heroic step that shows us what we are really made of.

What is not real, will not survive the Light of Truth. With courage we can remain present to our pain body, thus discovering our greater self that is the container and the hidden wholeness for all that arises. It is the place where a breakdown can become a breakthrough, where we can awaken through pain, and find transformation through suffering brought to light.

By Wednesday morning I sat with a very good friend who listened with extraordinary presence and compassion while I related my extreme attitude swing of the day before. In the field of acceptance, I was able to notice how I had become a victim of my story about me, not the facts of my life. Like a child who had acted out, I got to see how some deeper need in me had driven me to despair. He invited me to accept my feelings and forgive myself.  I was willing. By Wednesday afternoon, I was able to play the piano a little, plan another golf outing, embrace my humanity as a minister, and see my imperfection as father with kinder eyes.

As I reflected on this experience I noticed that it was one more lesson about bringing Big Love to whatever challenges us. Most specifically I recalled Jesus high teaching about loving our enemies. He surely meant enemies within and without. When we love our enemies (inner or outer types) and can forgive them  they cease to be enemies. Then peace is possible once more.