To use a title like, “Road to God,” might seem fairly
arrogant. If I were to see this title, I
might think the author knows the road to God and is going to share the
secret. I can assure you this author
does not know the road to God and I don’t have any secrets. So at least I am not arrogant! In fact on this issue, I am incredibly
humble. I would like to learn something
about that road so I could begin the journey.
This topic arose as I was preparing for a class. One of the ongoing joys in teaching
spirituality is getting a chance to keep reading and thinking about something
that is so personally important to me.
In fact, I might well claim spirituality is the most important thing in
the world to me. That is because I do
think it offers insight and assistance in finding my way to God. And to find my way there is to discover
meaning and purpose for myself and, indeed, for the life we are can live. That helps me understand my life as a miracle
and not a waste.
A key book I use for the contemplative spirituality class I
teach is by Roger Walsh, entitled Essential
Spirituality. The book is full of
nuggets that help the beginning in the journey, as well as the seasoned
pilgrim. Most of the time I feel like
the beginner. Half the time I am
reminded of something I forgot and by this forgetting realize why I am such a
slogger on the divine trail to the Holy One.
But I plan to “keep on keepin’on.”
In a section in Walsh’s book called, “Cultivate Spiritual
Intelligence,” Walsh focuses a great deal on wisdom. Sprinkled throughout the text are one-liners
from the spiritual giants of the past.
These sayings usually illustrate the point Walsh is making. Typically, I am amazed at how simple these
sayings are, but also how difficult they can be to implement in my life. I would like to share one of these now.
Walsh quotes a line from the Buddha. The Buddha says, “Self-knowledge is the
shortest road to the knowledge of God.” I
immediately want to say, “Yes…of course that is true.” But then I realize how tricky it is to feel
confident that I know myself. I laugh at
how long I have lived “being myself,” I assume. But I am really? Walsh and other spiritual writers are pretty
confident many of us spend time---maybe a lifetime---being someone other than
who we really are.
It is commonplace to know that we often are presenting a
mask to the world. We pretend to be
someone we really are not. Like actors
on a stage, we perform a role. We often
become so adept at playing our role, we forget that we are actually in a
role. The role becomes real---in our
mind, at least. We can spend so much
time “outside of ourselves” that we no longer have a clue who we really
are. We are a mystery to ourselves as
much as we are a mystery to others.
Another version of what the monk, Thomas Merton, calls the
“false self” is the illusion that our self can be. This illusion can take various forms. Many of us think we are better than we
actually are. For example, most of us do
not think we lie. But if ask about
gossiping---which may be a mild form of not telling the truth---we squirm a
little. I know when gossiping comes up
in the classroom, every student admits to participating! And I am not immune to the gossip disease.
I conclude that self-knowledge is not as easy as it seems
when I first read the Buddha’s sentence.
So what is the road to self-knowledge?
Here I am no expert, but a couple things seem obvious. In the first place honesty---brutal honesty---is
necessary. I think a lie about myself
never brings me to self-knowledge. And
illusion and pretension are forms of a lie about who I am. They are not bad, so much as they are
wrong. You cannot start down a wrong
path and get to a right end. So I have
to be honest with myself.
Secondly, I am confident that being honest with myself is
more possible if I have some form of community in which I practice
honesty. A community might be a little
as a very good friend. I need another to
help me not pretend. I need that friend
occasionally to say, “Really?” The other
needs to ask me if what I just assumed about myself is really true? If a good friend comes to know me pretty
deeply, then that is a great mirror to my own look at myself. In fact there are times others may know us
better than we know ourselves.
Honesty and community are keys for the beginning of
self-knowledge, which is the way we begin the journey on the road to God. Perhaps the further down the road we get, the
more knowledge of myself I get. The good
news is it takes a lifetime to travel that road to God. It is not a sprint.
I suspect that our true self continues to grow and deepen,
so the journey is ever progressing. It
does not mean we can never rest, but to stop means life is over. I am on the way!
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