This post is the result of some musings of mine that relate to my own journey, but I’m sharing them because I feel that other people will have had a similar experience and may have drawn the same conclusion. Looking back, I would describe my evolution in this life as follows: It seems as though I have gone through two stages and am now going through a third. The first stage is that I’m born into this world and immediately start to be conditioned by my surroundings. My conditioning ensures that as I grow, I lose sight of my true nature and become fully entrenched in “life” and remain completely oblivious to the bigger picture. I’m completely unaware of the grip that the ego has on me and my only understanding of reality is what I see around me and what I’m told by my parents, teachers, peers and the media.

I think that is fairly general and probably applies to pretty much all souls taking human birth. Although, I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule. The conclusion from the first stage is that “I am this body and my reality is the world around me and its inhabitants.”

The second stage starts thus: I feel uncomfortable; there is something missing but I don’t know what it is. I start to seek, but I don’t really know what I’m seeking or how to seek it. Personally, I never felt that I belonged anywhere and this period, which started during my teenage years and carried on until I reached my 50s, was a very difficult time for me. The first place I looked was towards religion. However, the Christian church didn’t do it for me and I just drifted aimlessly for many years, getting more and more confused and feeling more and more isolated. Eventually, I realised that spirituality was far more expansive than my conditioning had led me to believe. I became aware of other forms of spirituality that were more appealing. By the time the 1980s came along my experiences and contacts at that time led me towards Spiritualism. It was also a religion that didn’t do it for me and I walked away for several years.

For various reasons, I ventured back and remained involved for many years. During this time I never considered myself to be a Spiritualist, but through other contacts that I made became drawn towards Eastern religions; particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. In the early 2000s I also acquired a guru in the form of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. What I conclude from this stage is that although Spiritualism pointed out the truth of eternal life to me, it seemed firmly entrenched in the past. In addition and in hindsight, I realised that it encouraged me to become attached to “objects” such as spirit guides, wolves, angels and crystals etc. These things have their place along the way, but ultimately, all objectivity, being dualistic in nature, is an illusion. It was Buddhist principles in particular that brought me to the awareness of “Oneness.”

Other milestones from stage two are that I became aware also of my greatest influences, namely – Paramahansa Yogananda, Neil Donald Walsch, Ramana Maharshi and of course Sai Baba. I read quite a lot of their writings without properly understanding what I was reading.

As I embarked on stage three I was dealing with the realisation that Buddhism and Hinduism, although still very appealing, also did not complete the picture for me. It made me further realise that all religions have their limitations and are mere stepping stones along the way.

I had the knowledge of Oneness but not the knowing. There is a huge difference. We have a habit of gathering lots of knowledge, which generally speaking is the experience of others and not ourselves. Knowing is to know something through the experience of it. An example that is used very often is the fragrance of a rose. How can you know what the fragrance of a rose is like through someone else telling you? You can only truly know by smelling the beauty of its fragrance yourself. A huge help to me has been the “discovery” of Rupert Spira. His videos and writings have helped me greatly to understand in greater depth the works of Neil Donald Walsch and Ramana Maharshi. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the greatest thing that Sai Baba taught me was that at no time would I have a need to worship, or become attached to, his physical form; the physical form being akin to the objectivity mentioned above in stage two.

I can conclude this post by describing my soul’s journey as follows: From the complete knowing of Infinite Consciousness to complete ignorance on embarking on a physical experience. Then awakening to the understanding that I am not a body/mind but making the mistake of thinking that all the answers are in the esoteric and pretty much at one point believing that the world had no significance whatsoever. To the further understanding that the only reality is Consciousness, therefore the world and the esoteric are in fact One, both being projections of Consciousness, by Consciousness within Consciousness.

Will there be a stage four? I don’t know, but what I do know is that one day I will complete the cycle of changing perceptions by returning to the complete knowing of Infinite Consciousness.