Finding the Light

Spiritual Identity

“...Our true nature could be compared to the sky, and the confusion of the ordinary mind to clouds. Some days the sky is completely obscured by clouds. When we are on the ground, looking up, it is very difficult to believe there is anything up there but clouds. Yet we have only to fly in a plane to discover up above a limitless expanse of clear blue sky...” Sogyal Rinpoche (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)

Most of us have read the book, Eat, Pray, Love, and know that the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, went to India to experience the living of life in a prayerful way. It made for interesting reading, and I have no doubt that India is the birthplace of spirituality. However, we don't have to go to India to find true spirituality. As Sogyal Rinpoche wrote, we are only confused by the layers of clouds that obscure our true nature.

Somehow, we've come to believe that if we lead a spiritual life, a religious life, we will have unending peace and prosperity. Nothing could be further from the truth. In every life there are clouds; there are times of difficulty and trial, times of temptation and doubt, and we are tested just as Job was tested. Life is not a placid event. But life is all we have. It's the school for learning spiritual identity. And, lucky us, the light we seek is not in far off Tibet. It is right here inside us. We carry it with us at all times, even when the clouds of life obscure it.

Spiritual identity is found in the way we live on the Earth, in the way we care for ourselves and others, in the breaking of bread and the preparation of food, in the million small things we do everyday. If we do not find it there, we will not find it at all—not in India, not in Tibet. Only within; and by extending the light within, we will find it without, wherever we are.

                                                In the Spirit,

                                                    Jane