Essay for
March 2004

Spiritual Lethargy

In this transitory world of constant change every individual is ceaselessly doing and becoming something. Relationships, work and family occupy the majority of ones time, closely followed by participatory and spectator recreation: sport, art, music, dance, new age activities etc. The daily struggle to survive and feel secure in all your chosen relationship, work and recreational pathways encumbers you with a burden that is not even recognized as one. Momentary delight and security provided by a chosen activity is supportive and highly beneficial, but it can equally be an avenue of escape from the necessary investigative effort into the reality of your existence.

Investigative effort into your existence is essential because your transitory physical statues is similar to holding a temporary visitors visa upon this planet. And that temporary visa has a non-extendable expiry date. When that expiry date is reached the burden materializes, created by not recognizing the need to investigate your existence. At that moment you may feel, see or think everything you have done and accomplished is of little significance as the reality of your short-term existence upon this planet is now in your face and can no longer be ignored.

The temporary visa is about to expire and you may have no personal experiential knowledge of how the visitors visa came to be. The visitor never investigated the visa, just used it up. The 'using it up' creates the unseen burden that manifests when the visa is about to expire. Those that have delved into that investigative process and where ignored during the 'using up' period, suddenly become paramount to support an attempted validation of the visa. This last minute validation may ease, transfer, transform or even transcend the burden, but the spent years cannot be undone or redone. And it is the spent years that create the burden. Spent is spent and gone is gone. Every moment you have before your temporary visitors visa expires is important. Using that time wisely, no matter in what investigative existence direction, validates the visa and your existence. That positive validation equally manifests when your visitors visa is up. This you may not appreciate or believe until your visitors visa is about to expire, then you will know.

It is like running to catch a bus, but the bus just keeps moving further away until you finally realize the futility of the chase, and stop. The bus is gone and you have missed it. No amount of yelling or anger will bring it back. Gone is gone. The knowing aspect of consciousness that feels the futility of the chase, and the anger at missing your ride, now manifests the spent years when your visitors visa is about to expire.

Visa expiry date is not visible upon the visa. It is not visibly dated creating the appearance of being open-ended until the date suddenly appears. Although everyone knows it will appear, just the fact that it is invisible perpetuates the illusion that it is not momentarily important, or at least can be ignored until a later date. But appear it will. When the date finally appears on the visitors visa, priorities take a sudden about face, as what was once immensely important is now unimportant. Whilst what was unimportant is now intensely important.

Getting to the essence of your existence in your last visa moments can be an arduous affair, as it is attempting to cram years of investigation into the last lingering moments of time upon this planet. Not impossible just unbelievably difficult. Time restraint normally prevents an experientially personal connection that is satisfactory and one tends to simply grab hold of the nearest raft in an impending ocean of despair. That raft is normally a belief-faith based upon constructs, doctrine and dogma, which is fine. This in no manner discounts the enormous power of a belief-faith, but there is more. And 'the more' is open and accessible, simply by effort.

The gliz, gloss and glamour of things so captivate and entrap one's attention during our short temporary visa time that the expiry date is forgotten, as the entrapment is nearly total. The entrapment is due to the natural functioning of consciousness, as it is self-referential. Discovering that consciousness is self-referential, as a personal experience, takes effort, and that is 'the more'. Simply reading or being told about it will not give you that experience. It can be learnt, but never experienced without effort. The effort will lead you directly to it. The effort not only validates your visa, it also reveals how and why it exists. The 'how and why' is free of dogma, doctrine and belief. When your visa expiry date appears you will have a knowing-faith that requires no validation, as you experientially know it is validated. And that knowing is different from a belief. A knowing-faith is not better than a belief-faith, just different. That difference you will never know unless you have the courage and tenacity to try and discover the difference. As it takes effort and not just belief. A belief-faith and a knowing-faith will both validate your visa. The use of one or other is simply a personal choice. What suits one does not necessarily suit another.

A belief-faith, if applied honestly and consistently, takes courage and tenacity to accept and maintain. A knowing-faith takes courage and tenacity as it begins by accepting nothing that cannot be personally experientially revealed. A belief-faith simply flies to the top of the mountain. A knowing-faith claws up every inch of that same mountain to reach the top. At the top both are astonished that the other is there. If they had to do it again a belief-faith individual would still fly to the top of the mountain (why climb if you can simply fly there ?). A knowing-faith individual, even though now knowing that one can fly to the top of mountain, would still go the bottom and begin the ascent by knowing and learning every nook cranny and handhold there is. It is simply individual propensities as to which pathway one takes. A belief-faith can be instant. A knowing-faith normally requires intensive work over a long period of time. But the end result of both pathways is identical.

Both an belief-faith and a knowing-faith validate your temporary visa. If neither is even considered, as the gliz, gloss and glamour of things have entrapped you, that spiritual lethargy will come back to plague you when your temporary visa has expired, because consciousness is self-referential. The expiry date references the lethargy and that is what is in your face at that moment in time, which is your final moment upon this planet. It is a waste of a visa. And that visitor visa cannot be extended or renewed.

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