Several years ago, a very dear relative, a Catholic priest, was preparing to leave this world. When we visited him for the last time, I felt such a sense of appreciation for all he had meant to me throughout my life. He was very committed to his own religion and did not subscribe to many of the systems I explored. However, there was always a sense of mutual respect, a common ground between us. Even when other members of the family were praying that I would see the error of my ways and come back to the fold!
I can’t remember if we actually said the words. However, when our eyes met, there was a deep recognition that we shared a common purpose and approach to life. It didn’t matter that we may have expressed this differently. “Same club, different team” were the words that came to me. His values were my values, his aspirations mine too, though we had channelled them along seemingly different paths.
Respecting the Common Ground We Share
If you are visiting this Highest Road website, it is very likely that meaning and purpose, truth and love, spirit and a sense of core connection with the sacred are very important to you in some way. They may even be the intrinsic motivation that inspires your whole existence.
This much you have in common with each of us in this team. We may express this motivation, this knowingness, in different terms. And for each of us individually, at various stages in our lives, it may expand or develop within us in a multitude of ways. We may have aha! moments of enlightenment or bliss. We may have confused moments of doubt or questioning. We may have times of peaceful certainty and security.
But whether the sea is stormy, calm or gently rippling, we sense the presence of the ocean within which the currents flow and from which the waves emerge. Beyond the language or non-language that attempts to describe the depth of this ocean, there is a sentience, a cognition, of something that not only transcends space and time. It may even be the core source or spring from which our essence births. Not only may our essence birth there. We may also sense that we have an eternal home within this depth.
Definitions that do not Define Us
In the Highest Road, we are not presuming to define this spring or ocean bed in terms of a particular belief or philosophical system. This essence is not something which can be neatly labelled and classified under this religion or that philosophy. Even within a given system, definitions can mean one thing to one person and something completely different to another.
This diversity in understanding can in itself be a catalyst for profound and growing understanding. It does not have to be a trigger for dispute or confusion. When using language, we sometimes need to define an idea or experience, to give it some kind of framework. This is valid as long as we don’t get caught in the trap of regarding our definitions (or other people’s) as being set in stone. They can be more like a working definition for mutual understanding. A springboard for a deep felt-sense of the common ground at the core of our being.
A Collective Collage
The terms we use are not as important as the essence which they seek to express. Poets, songwriters, saints, scholars, philosophers, artists and countless others have expressed their understanding of this essence in their unique ways throughout time itself.
Each expression, rather than being interpreted in terms of differences, could be seen as contributing to a collective collage of the awe, wonder and mystery we feel at something which is profoundly intimate and intrinsic to our very nature. In putting words or form or music to this knowingness, we realize we can never fully define it. Yet we also realize that the attempt to express it is in itself a creative act. This allows the core essence of the ocean to rise to the surface where we can recognise it. And where we can sense the common ground we share with all creation.
Knowingness
This knowingness may not ever be fully known by the intellect, in the sense of being fully defined. And that may be part of its gift to us. We may be able to give a dictionary definition of words such as “infinity” or “being.” However, their true meaning, which we sense in our unique way, implies something which we cannot be neatly label and package.
And ultimately, isn’t that what we intend when we use these terms to express these concepts? If they could be neatly categorized, how could they fully convey the depth and expansiveness, the mystery and awe, of what we know cannot be completely captured in words?
We use these terms to imply something that is beyond verbal definition. We can acknowledge that, and even rejoice in it. The fact that someone else would use different terms, or mean the same terms in different ways, is not a threat to our world view. On the contrary, it offers a fascinating insight into a whole new layer of understanding.
Finding common ground
This is reminiscent of a well-known Indian story. Several blindfolded men feel different parts of an elephant. Each of them decides, on the basis of his individual experience, what an elephant is. One of them decides an elephant is a trunk, another a tusk, another a tail, and so on. Hopefully they get to pool their information (take off their blindfolds). An elephant is all of these, but so much more!
It is helpful to acknowledge that as people interested in growth, purpose, meaning, whatever the terms, we have much more in common than we don’t have in common. It is often the definitions and attachment to them which can trigger dissent, competition or one-upmanship. History is full of religious bickering which had so little to do with the essence of spirit itself. “The elephant is a tusk versus the elephant is a tail” kind of thinking.
As you visit us here, it does not matter what your belief system is. It does not matter if you don’t believe in anything or if you are not sure of anything anymore. You have your unique world view. You have a life experience that is part of the collage of consciousness.
Reverence for the Reverence of Others
There is no such thing as a worthless being, no such thing as a wasted life. Every life has value. We can view every experience in a different light.
What emerges for many of us on a spiritual path is a growing reverence for the core essence of each other. A respect for the varying ways in which this essence expresses. The respect for the common ground we share in God or Source can only inspire us to look at each other with deeper understanding and acceptance. It also inspires us to respect our own processes more.
I can remember having the arrogance to think that my path (whatever it was at the time) was better, or more true, than others. Gradually, Inner Self has prompted me to cultivate a sense of reverence for other people’s reverence.
I remind myself of this when I visit places of worship, or meet people from other traditions, or even from the tradition in which I was brought up but from which I have moved out to explore many “roads less travelled.” We are all aspects of the same life or spirit force and are ultimately seeking the same truth.
Our core nature
Ultimately no individual words can fully capture the essence of the depths we sense within us and at the heart of our world. However, we are nevertheless communicating, in this site and indeed in our everyday world, mainly through the medium of words.
Some of the most neutral words we know of to express this essence, without connotations of specific systems, are “”Source”, “Life” and “Spirit”. We could also use the word “God” or “god” or “God-Source.” These are comfortable and familiar terms for so many. We do not have to limited them to the god of this or that religion.
For many of us, “Source” seems a good working term.
Our Sacred Common Ground
Our relationship with and awareness of this essence and beingness, our core nature, is the most fundamental principle of what the spiritual path is about. The Indian greeting of Namaste expresses this beautifully. It could be translated as “the sacred in me acknowledges the sacred in you.” We could also say, enriching this even further, that the Source or Spirit or Life in me acknowledges the same in you, whatever we choose to call it.
Other Topics
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