Spiritual Paths: Are You A Painter Or A Dancer?
Spiritual Paths: Are You A Painter Or A Dancer?
One great mystery is the very concept of a “spiritual path,” or the methods and techniques that are meant to be the means to a spiritual end. The realized ones found that their very path was a hindrance, for each path is founded on a “desire” which creates attachments. Of course the paths are not founded on worldly desires, but the desire for God!!
The reality is that desire for God is still a desire! So is it wrong that we have this strong desire for God? No, and let us explore this desire using the analogy of the painter and the dancer. The Creator has created seekers who are the painters and the dancers who express their love of God differently.
The Painter
We are the artists of our own lives. We paint our lives with the brushes and colors of our choice, only wishing to see a life that is beautiful and free of misery and unhappiness.
We keep painting, with the brush of our mind and heart, revealing through time the picture that we see of ourselves. We are the creators and shapers of our own destiny; the past creates the present and the present creates the future.
The Art of Life is a continual swirl of creation. The eternal creator who is the very core of our spiritual being keeps expressing every moment through varied situations and circumstances and we smile or cry as they manifest at the physical level.
The Creator Mother wants us to be a good artist first, but at some point in time the object or goal of our life painting starts to change, and our externalized mind turns inward as we begin to understand that externals are only reflections of our internal wishes and desires. The whole process is the very law of the universe of continual evolution of consciousness.
As we keep painting with the brush of our attachments, we go through various stages of bitter and sweet experiences, and pass into a phase of higher life. The pain suffered is not just a negative experience, but is the stepping stone to a new level of our life process. We realize that no pleasure of the external world is free of pain and tribulations. Thus we naturally move from attachment to a sense of detachment that becomes the foundation for the higher world of the positive evolved self.
The call now comes from the higher world to not only be the painter but also the dancer. There is a cosmic dancer in the soul of each one of us. It waits for the right time to manifest and take our life to yet another height of soulful living.
The Dancer
The uniqueness of dance is that a dancer can never be separated from the dance as a painter is separate from the painting. When awareness grows in us, the experience of oneness with the rest of cosmos happens naturally. We become the cosmic dancer. The joy of life flows through us as it is flowing through all that is manifest in this myriad of universes.
Now our life is no longer an attempt to paint something of our choice. It is a spontaneous, flowing dance.
Spirituality is an effortless effort toward a goalless goal. Because of the intrinsic nature of effortlessness it is closest to the art of classical dance. We reach an intuitive expression of life which is a moment-to-moment flow with the rest of the universe, no longer with any struggle for the ego driven life.
The soul too will attract the highest good in its own order of the law of dharma. You all have watched when a dancer moves with joy and grace; the dance and the dancer become one. Dance is never a struggle, it is the most unique kind of human expression of pure grace and joy.
We naturally grow into soulful dancers. When celebration flows from the fountain of our inner source, then we dance without any effort. Pure, divine energy will vibrate with the ecstasy of sacred union. The more consciousness and awareness penetrates our being, the more we are enlightened and elevated to share the joy with the rest of the universe.
From the center of our being, the universe dances through us. We are born to be the dancer with the dance of universal consciousness. Lord Shiva, the cosmic dancer, is no longer separated from us, and our life is a continual flow of divine ecstasy, a dance of joy. The purpose of human birth is to begin with the quagmire of sense-bound materialistic life and eventually evolve into the state of being a painter consciously painting the life of our own liking.
Life, taking us through bouts of happiness and pain of failure, allows us to emerge in the highest state of being a dancer of divine ecstasy, beyond polar duality. This is a life of moment-to-moment awakening in the fullness of divine expression. This life always brings inexpressible joy on an individual plane as well as immense peace and harmony to the collective life on this unique planet, Mother Earth.
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About the Author
Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari (Kolkata, India), is a globally acclaimed motivational and spiritual teacher, author, social advocate and peace maker. Founder of Stress Management Academy, his Simple Art of Managing Stress and Course in Mindfulness are known worldwide, inspiring corporate leadership, students and all seekers of peace and happiness to be the leaders of tomorrow.
Author of the internationally acclaimed My Mind, My Best Friend Shuddhaanandaa was the recipient of the Man of Peace Award from the World Organization for Peace in Mexico, 2012. He is recognized as a visionary social advocate for his development of groundbreaking programs that serve thousands of poverty-stricken individuals in slums of Calcutta, India and remote villages of West Bengal. He founded Lokenath Divine Life Mission in 1985. Please read his books My Mind, My Best Friend: 30 Mindful Practices for a Peaceful and Happy Life, (Spanish, Mi mente, mi mejor Amistad), Cleaning the Mirror of Mind: Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Life and The Incredible Life of a Himalayan Yogi, all available on Amazon Kindle.
For more information visit http://www.courseinmindfulness.com/
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