Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Path Through a Pathless Land

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices."
-- Jiddu Krishnamurti --
August 2, 1929      

In the following clip, spiritual pundit/philosopher, Ken Wilber, explains the truth of ages: that opting to walk a truly spiritual path - the path through a "pathless land" - towards higher consciousness and experiential knowledge of the Absolute is necessarily a lonely endeavour.




"If you want to find spirituality," wrote philosopher, Paul Brunton, "you must find it while living in the world, yet not being of it. In other words being inwardly detached and renounced, but outwardly living and enjoying as other people do, not held in your heart by material things, not mentally imprisoned by them, but able to renounce them at a moment's notice. If you can do this, you are free; you are no longer a slave."
[Paul Brunton, "Discover Yourself," p. 68.]

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