Chapter 95: The Journey Back to Silence: Reclaiming Our Spiritual Heritage
When we stop trusting the thoughts that create walls, judgements, religions, and false bridges back to our SELF, our humbled minds will finally find a measure of peace. And, a sense of humor may be accessed, after we have finally seen the collective nonsense passing for knowledge for what it really is.
This peace is not a distant shore we must strain to reach. It resides within us, waiting beneath the noise of our conditioning and the clamor of societal expectation. Yet we must cultivate it deliberately, extending it outward through intentional practices that quiet the mind and open the heart.
Focus on that peace. Extend it out as far as possible through meditation, contemplation, prayer, walks through nature, yoga, Pilates, tuned breathing exercises, communing with other spiritually minded souls, and watching a sunset by oneself. These are not mere activities but sacred rituals that reconnect us with the wellspring of wisdom within.
Listen intently to the whispers within our soul. There will be a time when the Universe, God, Love, Truth, Peace will speak to us. We are not quite home yet, as a division still exists. If our wounded self is not sufficiently healed, confusion and delusion will still be our companions. We feel acutely our insignificance and the unreality of the self that we have created.
We remain susceptible to creating false gods and deluded prophecies as protective mechanisms against this ego-threatening truth. However, if we have been truly humbled, and if our suffering has been healed, we are ready to take the next step of our spiritual journey. This readiness is not something we can force or fabricate; it emerges naturally from genuine self-inquiry and the courage to face our shadows.
When we finally learn to entrain ourselves with this silence, it will speak through us, and then we are home again—healed and whole, abiding in our own unique spiritual garden. This is our spiritual heritage. This is our starting point, and this is our destination.
The truth is both simple and profound: Jesus or the Buddha will not work out our salvation for us, unless our name is also Jesus or the Buddha. Our salvation is dependent upon our intentions, personal work and understanding, and our own movements back to our silence. If we live in the pseudo-Christian fantasy world of the rapture or playing a harp in heaven with Jesus, we might want to get a little more grounded in reality for this work to have any positive impact upon us. But it is up to each of us as to what to believe.
Never forget, even creating and nurturing the idea of “God” creates yet another subject/object relationship, and objects, no matter how revered, get exiled within our infinitely fragmented mind. The ancient Jewish tradition was correct in admonishing its spiritual adherents to never speak the name of God, or Yahweh, for that very reason. To name something is to limit it, to contain infinity within the boundaries of language and thought.
The truth has never left us. We just let our minds, our past, our traumas and wounding, our hubris, and our social dependencies upon others’ points of view overrun its eternal music, and replace it with our perception-driven noise. This noise becomes so familiar that we mistake it for reality itself, forgetting that beneath it lies a deeper, truer song.
When we let go of the controls of our parents, our culture, and our wounded history, we can stop thinking damaged thoughts and travel upon the enlightened new paths of a healing, spiritualized consciousness. We can practice gratitude for who we are and settle into the mystery of our unique identity as well. This letting go is not a rejection but a transcendence—an acknowledgment that while these influences shaped us, they need not define us.
There will be moments when only awe, wonder, and gratitude fills our minds and our hearts. Love will become the stream that carries us into eternity. These moments are not accidents but glimpses of our true nature, breaking through the constructed self like sunlight through clouds.
There can be a new Conspiracy of Silence within our humanity, where the silence conspires with our memories, knowledge, and insight to create a new reality and a wider sense of wholeness within our self and within our world. When our civilization allows the evolution of its Common Knowledge Game to fully embrace collective dignity, love, and freedom for all, our world will be a safer place, and humanity will finally reach its potential for greatness.
Remember, because of the way our brains are wired and programmed, we find what we look for—whether it is good, bad, or a complicated mixture of both assessments. This is not merely a psychological observation but a fundamental truth about consciousness itself. Our attention shapes our reality, and our beliefs filter our experience.
We are the very emanation of that God for which we so vainly seek through our misunderstanding. Are we looking for freedom, for liberation, and for infinity? The search itself can become the obstacle, for in seeking we reinforce the illusion that we are separate from what we seek.
We all have to see the entire matrix of the illusion that we have become imprisoned within to find our own unique clue for exiting it. Our narcissism and self-absorbed reality can finally be replaced by a more collaborative, Earth and humanity-saving reality. This shift from separation to connection, from ego to essence, represents the great evolutionary leap available to us.
Cease this fruitless search through knowledge and religion, and settle into the truth of our true self. Our infinitely patient Self awaits. It has never gone anywhere; we have simply forgotten how to recognize it beneath the accumulated layers of identity and belief.
In our true essence, we are spiritual empaths and mystics. When I look at my world, if I am viewing through just verbal imagery, all that I see, or will ever see, is consciousness and its evolutionary journey, as it creates and also attempts to more accurately represent what is.
There is another possibility, however. If the “what is” that is our essence is what looks out, and it only witnesses “what is,” then once again all that is seen is seeing itself through an infinite variation of itself. I am that seeing, in whatever measure that my mind will quiet itself enough to allow for an enhanced apperception of reality.
That, my friend, is a mystical state. It is not reserved for saints or sages but available to anyone willing to surrender the illusion of separation and rest in the spacious awareness that precedes thought.
We will find all of the support we will ever need once we have returned home. “My kingdom is not of this world,” as the scripture reminds us. This kingdom is not a place but a state of being, not a future destination but a present reality obscured by our mistaken identity.
Words, and our misapplication of them in defining ourselves and each other, have created the mess that we now live in. We are this very Universe that we live in, experiencing itself in human form. We have the innate capacity to elevate our vision and our understanding.
May we all find our real Kingdom. Silence is golden. In honor of all of the innocent oppressed, bullied, victimized, traumatized, gassed, misogynized, persecuted, marginalized, neglected, abused, murdered, alienated, and institutionalized human beings, and all of the animals that are being driven into extinction, as we are all overrun by the principles of toxic masculinity in its almost infinite varieties of forms. Toxic masculinity, toxic fatherhood, and toxic religion are cultural and historical impediments to achieving and maintaining happiness and good health.
“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” – Psalm 46:10
Set out, pilgrim. Set out into the freedom and the wandering. Find your people. God is much bigger, wilder, more generous, and more wonderful than you imagined. – Sarah Bessey
I AM
I am the brightest of mornings, I am the cloudiest of days,
I am the silent night altar upon which mankind prays and preys.
I am the Olmec and Mayan of times old, recent, and new,
I am all civilization’s ruins, and I am the ever-evolving life that regrew.
I am the bird’s call, I am its flight, and the wind beneath its wings,
I am the music and its spirit that joyously lifts all hearts up to sing.
I am the water, I am the lagoon and the bay,
I am the infinite ocean where my children are birthed, live, love and play.
I am the blue sky, I am the weather changes, and the gathering of clouds,
I am the lightning storms that are now appearing so dangerous and loud.
I am the wind and the sun, I am the warm soothing breeze,
I am even our cold’s most raucous cleansing sneeze.
I am the dolphin and manatee, I am the mangrove lined shores,
I am waves crashing against rocks, that photographers adore.
I am the mind, and I am the end to its lonely thoughts,
I am the heart’s loving web in which we are miraculously caught.
I am the boisterous protests, and I am the crowd made quiet,
I can be even be found witnessing the white supremacists’ riot.
I am the wealthy, and I am the hurt, oppressed and poor,
I am your heritage, history, and future until we all are no more.
I am the Sanders and Pelosis, I am the Putins and Trumps,
I am love’s warriors, and I am also hate’s chumps.
I am the Christian, and the Hindu, I am the Muslim and the Jew
I am the Atheist and Buddhist who you never thought that you knew.
I am the cancer and its treatment, I am the movement towards health,
I am the healing balm that works mysteriously in stealth.
I am the grief, and I am the pain and the sorrow,
I am the deepest well of hope from which we eternally borrow.
I am your lifetime, I am your body and its breath,
I am the blessed last moment before each of our deaths.
I am the death of the false self that leads to the only true heaven,
Our denial of this truth brings the hellish news on channel two at eleven.
I am the sacred, and I am even the profane,
I am the source of all that we treasure, resisting me only adds to life’s pain.
I am not the movement of our thoughts, while we cling to concepts of time,
I am the emergence from all shadows, we all must reach for the sublime
What is my name, and where is my place?
Being ONE is seeing Me on every smiling and suffering sentient beings’ face.
(poem written in 2019 while traveling through Belize)
