The Healing Journey

Life is a journey … and when we go on Journeys — like when we go on a vacation to a new place — we often come to learn things about that destination, the people, the logistics, which restaurants were great, which hotels were not so great, that sort of thing. When we find out that somebody else is going to that same location on vacation, what is our natural tendency? Our inclination is to offer to share what we’ve learned to make that person’s experience easier.

Same thing with a healing journey, which sometimes becomes a spiritual journey. As we explore, we find out that other people have done a similar journey already and have come back with information about what really works. We call those people spiritual teachers (or gurus). On some level, a spiritual teacher is like a travel agent who can tell you about this ‘foreign land’ of the inner world — the spiritual world — the amazing places to go, what’s not so great to do, and what to avoid! (this part is very important*).

In another way, a spiritual teacher is like a University Professor with expertise in certain subject matter, and an intention to share that with other people wanting to learn and explore that same subject. Like any student, your job is to be receptive, to listen carefully, then trying it out, exploring the material and making your own conclusion. And then to apply what you have received and accepted as your truth. If we leave this on the intellectual level it remains an intellectual engagement. But when we use this information in our daily lives, this is what actually begins to change Who We Are — this is when it supports our growth.

Because then we start to notice changes in our thoughts, which gradually changes our emotional experience, which changes our words, which changes our actions … which changes our relationships (and so many other aspects of our lives), including the opportunities that show up for us. New and different opportunities in our lives change the trajectory of our life path to something we couldn’t have imagined before. All of this from the starting point of implementing a spiritual truth that changes our thoughts.

Ultimately, we ‘graduate’ and become our own spiritual teacher.

So … what are you studying these days?

*Of course, there are two main ways we learn things. There’s the hard way (learning from personal experience), and the easy way (learning from someone else’s experience). Guess which is more kind.