The Write Place To Be

True spiritual teachers and gurus are not very thick on the ground here in North America. Yet there is an impressive array of options to choose from when it comes to raising your consciousness. We seem to have the idea that answers and solutions lay outside of us somewhere, in another place, person or philosophy. This misconception is a byproduct of our cultural emphasis on rational thinking and seeking tangible, real time answers to intangible problems.

Your answers are inside you. Every answer to every problem you had, presently have or will have is inside you. It's that simple. Yet I'm not pretending it is easy to get at those answers. If you had a real guru at your disposal, and you worked sincerely, your answers would appear with discomforting speed. I don't have a guru to work with, and I doubt you do, either. Yet there is an answer to the problem (as always).

Sitting with a guru means sitting with someone with clear vision. Their mind is not clouded with ego, fear, emotion or samsara (illusion). We experience this clarity as discomfort with our own agendas and games as they are reflected back to us by the guru's detachment. Inside every human being is the inner guru, the inner teacher and guide. This inner part of us has been given many names. For our purposes, let's call it "Heart."

Contacting Heart is simple, though not always easy, in the beginning. Yet since when did anything worth having come easy? All you need is a pad of paper, a pen, patience and persistence. Then you find a quiet place to sit and you begin to write about your feelings. Write whatever comes out of the end of your pen. If you feel awkward or stuck about what to write, then write down "I feel awkward and stuck about what to write." Start where you are at
What you write is what you write, what you feel is what you feel, what comes out of the pen is what comes out of the pen. Don't judge it.

This is the equivalent experience to sitting with a true guru. There is no place to hide. You can get up and walk away, the guru doesn't care. You can put the pen down and walk away, the pen doesn't care, either. Yet if you care about yourself, you will stay with the pen. There may be long gaps in-between writing, this isn't the point. The point is that you care enough to come back, to work through the discomfort and emerge on the other side, experiencing more of your bliss, further down your path with heart.

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