The Path Least Travelled
Enlightenment is egocentricity.”
A Matter of Experience
I just returned from an annual, community event in the wilderness of northern Michigan. After 21 years of extraordinary encounters, I have established an ability to step outside of the everyday ordinary, be present and relate with many things beyond this world. What I experience in those days is so profound, it takes weeks, months or years to understand, let alone embody. There are no reference points for what it is; no books can be read or classes taken, no YouTube videos to watch, no seminars to explain or services to attend. Over the years, I have observed the community have a vast spectrum of encounters. Some fulfill their experience, while others return to who they were before it all began.
A History of Mystery
In the previous article, I shared about my personal exodus from inebriation and my continued confrontations with darkness. When I shifted the lifestyle that would certainly have ended in my early death, I emerged full force into being. This is distinct from a practice of religion or spirituality. I chose my own path, often without peripheral guidance. For 28 of my 53 years, I have lived a diverse existence from what is best identified as social reality. While most engage and invest in its simulation to gratify their individual desires for survival, I thrived being outside of its virtuality in my unique progression of personal evolution.
Exponential Beginnings
In the Spring of 1996, many things shifted in my personal experience. The musical group I performed with ended, as did my party lifestyle. I began writing poems, short stories and a different kind of music, spending as much time in the woods as possible. Soon after, I met a group of people who would gather at the coffeehouse where I worked. One of the people introduced me to the Fourth Way School, which was deeply in rhythm with my experience at that time. Meditation became a daily practice, empowering me to distinguish myself from the simulation. Over the years, I discovered my Celtic lineage and explored a diversity of spiritualities.
Ceremonial Invitation
When I was 30, my sister Bronwyn invited me to a ceremony she was hosting at her house. It resonated with me on more levels than I could imagine. To this day, I am still in a progression of understanding. After 23 years, it is evident to me that every practice I had observed was guiding me to the tradition I will walk until I pass from this earth, and beyond. Every ceremony is an invitation to experience and relate with prayer. Yet, it is not something to acquiesce my personal power in pursuit of my desires. It is an intentionality of universal relativity with which I commit my prayer as an expression of holding a space for all.
“Egocentricity is at the root of spirituality.”
Victim of the Crime
When we experience an awakening, it is an overwhelming convergence of being, a surge of universal energy akin to a downed, power line. In our revelation, we do not have the acuity, capacity, relativity or resonance to contain, develop or fulfill our natural progression. Essentially, we energetically short circuit, which leaves us depleted, disempowered and empty. I was 25 when my awakening began. In that seminal era of my experience, it was not long before my ego began to distort, manipulate and transmute my universal metamorphosis into a toxic existence of arrogance, entitlement, self-righteousness and superiority.
The Egocentricity of Spirituality
During my awakening, my spirituality expanded, as did my egocentricity. Without an awareness of its tandem progression, I became addicted to and dependent upon the virtual bliss of spiritual fantasy; obsessed with intellectual proselytizing and instinctual sensuality. I eventually drifted from my center of being, enamored with peripheral existence. I neglected my soul in an aimless quest to gratify my vanity, succumbing to control, delusion and manipulation to conceal and defend my personal dysfunction, fear and insecurity. My oblivion grew with every superficial epiphany. By the time I believed I was “spiritual,” my ego had already claimed victory over my experience.
A Shift in Understanding
When I began to walk a traditional path 23 years ago, I observed the influences, impacts and impositions of my oblivion to my egocentricity. I realized that knowing pales in comparison to understanding. When we claim to know, it is a declaration of our mind (ego.) However, when we understand, it is an immersive experience of transcendence, which manifests in our actions, thoughts, feelings and intuition (soul.) Personally, I have no interest in knowing anything, as this is often the indoctrinated projection of propagandized information. Understanding is an omnidimensional experience of universal empowerment, which emboldens us to embody our soul.
In Solitude
Years ago, I came to the realization that popular philosophy, religion and spirituality is all trivial. In this New Era, the only thing that truly matters is our relativity with our soul. Our relationship with our spirit is the embodiment and expression of the universe. Only we can empower our unique path to universality. For me, it has been a lonely journey. Yet the most fulfilled experiences are those walked in solitude, free from assimilation, exaltation, indoctrination, manipulation and transmutation. In the most challenging moments of my experiences, my soul held a space for me to endure, evolve and thrive.
Holding the Space
My role in ceremony is holding a space for the community to have an experience. Often, I am not aware of the personal encounters people have, as it is not my place to fulfill their purpose. This is empowered by their commitment to understand and embody their vision. Spiritual leadership has been contaminated with egocentric toxicity, transmuted into cultic dictatorship. Contemporary gurus are opportunists of the New Age, preying upon their followers for control, influence, notoriety, profit and power. While they deceive their devotees with their interpretation of spirituality, true leaders simply empower people to embody their soul.
The Path Least Travelled
With any traditional practice, it is worthless until we frequently express it in our daily lives. There will always be a maelstrom of social amusements, conflicts, ideologies, indoctrinations, media, narratives, propaganda and other triviality to seize our awareness. When we are not present, we are not conscious. When we are unbalanced, we are uncentered. In the dissonance of sociality, we cannot flow with the resonance of universality. We are severed from our soul; therefore, we cannot be. 28 years ago, I chose a path least travelled. It was the journey I was destined to experience. I do not profess to know anyone else’s path to personal fulfillment. However, I understand our collective purpose is empowering each other to experience our own.
“Our soul relativity is universality.”
