The Path

“You, traveller, there are no roads,

Only wind trails on the sea.”

Antonio Machado

Recently, when I was availing myself of a friends collection of books on the Kabbalah – I had something of an epiphany. Without excavating the profusion of details, the essence of the matter involves two interpretations of the Hebrew word for ‘path’. I have a tendency to siphon lexical interpretations into the experiential and subjective realm, as was the case in this instance.

These experiences are in essence ‘gnostic’ in the sense they involve, evolve and revolve around specific ways of ‘knowing’. It is difficult to transmit these ways of knowing in words. And difficult outside of specific conditions or modalities. Words are very inadequate. I would suggest it is also very connected to the ‘seeing’ of the SEERS! Like the satori of the Zen koan, you either get it or you don’t. Boiled down to basics, what I’m saying is there exists a specific ability to ‘see’ the path that one’s life takes. It is a matter of direction. Of discovering the gestalt. And in clumsy, dualistic terms, of self-actualization. {Without the self!] I also have the unfortunate proclivity of ‘seeing’ how other people have not found their ‘path’ in life. They are floundering around like fish in water. And this applies to most human beings, who only wallpaper over the existential uncertainties. Animals, by contrast, live their path, on an intrinsic, instinctual level.

The hidden core of this emerging essay, depends on an analysis on the two Hebrew terms for ‘path’ - which will be forthcoming in due time . . . for the moment, what I have the audacity to say is that I feel at this moment, more certainly than ever before, that I see the direction of my life’s path more clearly. And it is not even a case of ‘seeing’ . . . . pieces of the puzzle just fall into place, rather in the sense of synchronicity. One feels that there is a Puppet master behind all this. As my mother used to say and live by the saying: “Thy Will Be Done.” The least we can do of this “will’ on earth, seeing that we have no opportunities, as yet, of doing this “will” in Heaven . . . or perhaps merely in the sense of “storing treasures” for some future eventuality.

So again, the attention is moved away from the ego, to the idea of some great one Universal Macrocosmic Plan, of which we are microcosmic parts. And this is the true Path of all sentient beings . . . whether they are conscious of it or not. In fact, being conscious of your place in the Great-Scheme-of-Things-Without-a-Schemer . . . makes perfect sense. To me.

And to be honest, the epiphany, the revelation has not been revealed. I am keeping that core, the heart of the matter, under wraps for the time being. As we said, words cannot express these inner observations - but perhaps actions can. Hence:

By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them.

And perhaps our revelations, which are far and few between, are not gifted to us to be shouted from the highest rooftops. They remain esoteric, because they are the very energy from which future action is gestated.

Samten de Wet

Tuesday, October 30, 2007