The Gift of Discontent

I have felt from a very young age that I was on a quest. That of course isn’t the terminology I originally would have used to describe my early promptings. It does from my adult perspective appear to be just that: a quest. I have, even in my most serene of moments, felt a stirring, a calling, and a discontent. I recognize even as I type these words that I am admitting to my spiritual incorrectness, yet part of what is stirring within me is the need to be authentic at any cost. I sometimes allow my thoughts to drift into wishes of being like one of our modern day gurus, completely calm and spacious in having no desires or dreams or promptings. At least that is my perception of them. Non-attachment is their aura, as they perfectly presence whatever arises in consciousness. They know that this too shall pass, and they are grounded in the realization of the impermanence of this human experience. This knowing turns any inner chaos to mist, as they watch the content of the mind as the perfect curious observer.

As accurately as I believe I can report this, the experience, at least in any prolonged sense, continues to allude me. As one who has practiced meditation religiously for an extended period of time, I most certainly have times of timelessness, spaces in the thinking process that point to a reality far more expansive than our three dimensional reality. I have glimpsed the cosmos and felt the depths of a Love that contains and informs all that is and will ever be. I know a peace transcendent of what I used to think was possible. And yet as soon as I reach and begin to bask in these Depths of Being, the stirring begins. I recognize the calling to something more, the prompting to open more fully, more radically.

It may seem an odd word to use in this context, and yet in me it feels completely accurate. Radical. In the expansiveness of Spirit, usually portrayed as stillness and serene, there is a radical calling. A kind of pressure. It seems to me to be the activity that I imagine occurs within a chrysalis. As I allow the mind to quiet and the body to still, the heightened awareness allows me to observe a melting of perception and past limitation. A liquefying of programming and conditioning. The caterpillar me, once content to crawl upon the earth of tribal belief, have been called within for a radical re-working of consciousness. This begins, as in nature, with a melting down of what was. I can’t vouch for the actual caterpillar, but for me, this is a most disturbing process. The “me” that was so carefully constructed is disintegrating belief by belief, and I feel as if I am heading into an abyss of unknowing and uncertainty. There is an aspect of this that is akin to trapeze artistry; I must let go of the old in order to grab onto what is new. The sight lines don’t allow me, however, to do this in a logical or linear fashion. I am asked to let go before I can actually see the bar of the next trapeze. In coming back to the chrysalis illustration, I am being melted with no indication of what is to come. It’s like the old caterpillar joke:” what- only two wings for a thousand legs?” Am I really willing to give up what is known, even if it is uncomfortable? And yet the ceaseless yearning to become beckons me beyond what I can withstand. I must follow the urge, the impulse, the stirring. I must....

And so even as I develop a posture within of poise and detachment, I also feel the incessant urge to be more of me. It seems to me that rather than fighting the human impulses, they are an invitation to spirits infiltration and integration. Each longing contains it’s own fulfillment, and it is in going into the discontent that the path is revealed. I tried for decades to spiritually circumvent longing. I didn’t recognize it as gift. It is the language of my Soul. It is the leading of my higher calling. It is the impulse that calls me to reconcile heaven and earth. I remain detached as to particular outcomes, and certainly to the “how’s” of my un-foldment. No one knows how the caterpillar becomes the butterfly. It is telling that the whole process is hidden away from our interference, as is much of creation. It is in the stillness of the withinness that the process unfolds and emerges naturally and easily. I didn’t say comfortably. The little caterpillar may melt kicking and screaming with it’s one thousand legs. Yet it is destined for transformation, and transform it must. The same is true for me. The invitation of the process is to remain serene within, even as the chaos of renewal wreaks havoc with my emotional system. The struggles are inherent in the process, in the quest. Every mythic journey of transformation has it’s upheaval. We are no exception. Transformation is a messy affair. We so often want the evolved consciousness of the Masters, yet we don’t want to experience what they did to get there. It begins with a longing, a stirring, and a discontent, a calling. Can you hear it? Will you listen? Will you answer? We can only deny it so long. It is the call of our own Highest Self, and answer we will. Yes, it may seem a little askew to only receive two wings for a thousand legs, but when it’s time to fly, it’s the only choice to be made. Say yes to the “I must” of your soulful Self, and give way to what is destined to occur. It is only the limited sense of self that is to be lost. And is that a loss at all? That sense of separation and limitation is the root of the discontent. We are not meant to crawl upon the surface forever acting like robots of conditioning. We are meant to soar on the wings of Truth, and that inevitability will stir within until it is actualized. We are radical beings who have been playing limiting roles. When it’s time to fly, you will not be able to stave off the power of your own True Nature. Give way, release those thousand legs, and let fly.