Internal Landscapes

This is something I wrote a few years ago for a friends web-site. The web-site is no longer in existence but I still like this piece. I hope you enjoy it.

upsidedowncarl

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Internal Landscapes
The Vastness and Majestic Beauty of the Night Sky Within

I would like to ask you to do me a favor. For a moment see if you can let go of your rational mind. Close your eyes and connect with that internal perspective of your creative imagination. The power of this internal world of thoughts and imagination is far greater than most of us are capable of fully realizing. With your eyes closed I want you to imagine the most beautiful sunrise you have ever seen. Take your time with this. You can start with the night sky slowly becoming lighter in the east. It continues getting lighter until that moment when the sun peeks over the horizon and everything is illuminated with brilliance and color. Allow yourself to stay with this for a little while.

Now visualize a snowcapped mountain off in the distance towards the west. There is a power to this mountain; the power of earth rising up to meet sky. The sun is shining above. Imagine the beauty of the sky and the smell of the air. As you are watching the sun gets lower and begins to burn red. The fiery light of the setting sun reflects off the clouds and the snow capped peaks of the mountain. Slowly the sun sinks below the horizon line as though merging with the earth. Sit for a few moments more imagining this scene. Okay. Thank you.

Now I want you to think about the seed of a plant for a moment. Let us just say it is the seed of a morning glory. This seed is seemingly inert matter. It does not appear to be alive. And yet, with the right circumstances, the fortunate circumstances of fertile earth, the right amount of water and enough sunlight, this seed will root and sprout. It will grow, slowly at first. A stalk, some leaves. A morning glory is a vine. If it has something to climb up it will climb. It grows long, thin, green tentacles that reach out, grab onto and wrap around what ever they can as the morning glory grows and climbs. In the course of about six months the vine that started out as that little morning glory seed can climb more than six feet in several directions turning into a beautiful plant with delicate green leaves. Eventually it will sprout buds and then flower. It is pretty amazing that the intelligence of the life force contained within this little seed has the potential to transform in such dramatic fashion.

As humans we often forget the simple wonders. Conditioned by our daily routines we are creatures of habit and this creates the desire for change. Frequently we look for answers outside of ourselves. We look at the world outside and are drawn away from ourselves. We are complex beings and there is a need for certain things from the outside world. It is, in part, nature’s way of insuring that our basic needs are met: food, shelter and the continuation of the species. But so often when these basic needs have been met we still look outside of ourselves for things. Clearly many of us feel something is missing. We want. We do not feel whole; we feel fragmented. Or perhaps we are so used to looking outside of ourselves that we need to relearn how to look within.

The wholeness that so many of us seem to be seeking is not something that we can obtain from outside of our selves. If we are lucky we can find people who can help point us in the right direction. But even this is hard to find in the outside world. As often as not, when we are looking outside for what we feel is missing, what we find winds up leading us in many different directions at once and heightening this sense of fragmentation. The true spiritual guide will help you access what is already inside you; will help you connect with that internal source of knowledge that is within each of us.

The hard part of this is that it takes a lot of self motivation and internal strength to really take responsibility for yourself. It is much easier to have someone else give you the answers. But it will mean much less if someone else has spoon fed you the answers to your problems. In the end those kinds of solutions can often wind up creating problems of their own. In fact, perhaps the solution, or the idea of a solution, might be part of the problem in the first place.

The idea of truth as other creates this complex response of searching for truth outside of ourselves. But life is our natural condition and understood correctly life is the result of the natural intelligence of the universe and at the same time life is the natural intelligence of the universe. Within each of us is contained this intelligence of life force. We are the result of this natural process: sun, stars, earth, water, plants. The interrelationships between the natural processes create and sustain all life on our planet. Without this natural process we cannot exist. By being alive we are participating in the life of the universe and all its natural wonder. We are not separate from source. At our deepest level, within, we are whole; we are the truth that we seek. We only need to realize this.

If you think about it there are very few things in the universe that are as amazing as the simple fact that we are alive in the first place. Nobody can really explain or fully understand how this is even possible. How is it that we are alive? What is this livingness that we are? This is a wonder as profound as any that can be experienced. Perhaps we don’t even need to realize this in the intellectual sense. We may just need to participate with awareness in the experience of our aliveness.

Here of course is the problem. We have forgotten how to experience life. We are so caught up in our day to day routines and in our expectations of how our lives are supposed to be that we end up forgetting or losing ourselves. And then, to try and ease the distressing feeling that we are not enough as we are, we search in the outside world for answers or for things to distract us from our current condition. An interesting example is what happens when we go to the movies. We go to watch and experience life vicariously through observing others pretending to feel and live and experience life. Somehow we feel the need to experience the emotions of life by watching others pretend to live for us. I want to be clear about this; this medium can be a powerful tool to help us connect with ourselves, to help us get in contact with, to re-experience and to understand certain things.

However, it is very easy for the misuse of this type of medium to heighten that fragmentation and that longing for wholeness. The effect of watching as others act out the lives we would like to live can easily end up implying that we are not enough as we are. One result of this is that the real situations of our lives are devalued, and, by trying to ignore and/or escape from them, we disconnect from the things that could actually help us improve our current situation. Another result is that we end up thinking that something really dramatic has to happen in our lives in order for us to feel and experience life deeply. We become anesthetized and then only extreme experiences will live up to our expectations of what life is supposed to be like. So recreational activities like jumping out of air planes or doing drugs are common place for many in our culture.

Even when someone begins to question things the tendency is to look outside. There is someone else who must have the answers or who must know better than we do ourselves. There is something to this. One of the hardest things when you are stuck in habitual patterns of behavior that are holding you back is to be able to see those patterns which are creating the problems. Although we all need some help in certain areas, the problem with looking outside comes if we expect to find someone who will take care of our problems for us; give us a cure or give us the answers to the problems so that they just go away without our having to do any of the real work for ourselves.

Of course the work can be hard, but usually when someone has enough of an idea of what is going on to formulate some questions, if they are directed appropriately, they will realize they actually know the answers to their questions as well. We have the answers within. We just need to learn how to access this. A true spiritual teacher may not give you the answers. He/she may instead show you how to find the right questions and the answers within yourself. A true teacher is like a person who can hold up a mirror to help you see parts of yourself which would have been hard to become aware of otherwise. This process is empowering because it gives you the understanding that you can learn how to take responsibility for your life yourself.

Of course, finding this source of wisdom within yourself is only the first step. The next would be actually beginning to understand how to get the actions in your life to be in harmony with the internal intelligence of this life force. Participating in this process of self discovery is a good part of what we need in order to experience ourselves as more whole. And although this can take a lifetime of striving, taking the first step can help things begin to fall into place.

I am suggesting a simple concept: you can start this process right now.

Just closing your eyes and allowing yourself to go within is a big step. Perhaps at first you will not see much. Or perhaps you will have the idea that there is something you are supposed to see. There is no doubt that our minds are powerful enough for us to imagine the whole universe within. Stars, galaxies, trees, flowers, the cells in our body, DNA; there is nothing that exists that is beyond the reach of our imaginations. There is nothing that you need to do besides close your eyes. Interestingly, the things that we need to deal with in order to feel more whole will often come up if we do this simple thing. Just closing your eyes will allow you to observe and participate in the life that you are; and the questions and answers to the issues that are seeking resolution within you are quite likely to come up on their own. With some thoughtful consideration and time you will be able to move through some of these issues a little more gracefully. Closing your eyes and allowing yourself to feel and experience the life current within you, as you live and breathe, will make it possible for you to bring a little of this self awareness into your everyday life. And this will help your thoughts, feelings and actions begin to align themselves with the inner intelligence of your life.

There are thousands of different teachings and thousands of different kinds of techniques. All have there benefits. Some teachings work better for certain individuals than others. Different types of techniques create slightly different results. But all paths ultimately have the potential to bring us in contact with the intelligence of life force. One technique that is quite powerful is almost not a technique at all. Just close your eyes and sit and watch as your thoughts wander. Let them wander. All you have to do is try to observe with self awareness as your thoughts come and go. It is so simple it is hard to imagine that this would do anything. But I am confident that, if you do this, something will happen and you will begin to see the vastness and majestic beauty of the night sky within.