Weathering the Storm
by Jeffrey Pierce
As many of you know, our lessons tend to spiral, returning to the same theme over and over again so that we can dig deeper, pushing our self-imposed limitations, and expand our self-imposed boundaries. One of the biggest challenges for me is that, being a spiritual teacher, where most people get the cosmic squirt gun of lessons spraying them in the face, the Universe tends to point the riot control water cannon at me. There's three hundred things to do, two classes to teach that were somehow scheduled back-to-back on completely different topics, and the phone rings with a long ago student calling from out of the blue to tell me they're thinking of killing themselves and I'm the last hope they have to find a way out of their crisis.
And that, is actually a pretty typical day in my world.
Because our lessons tend to move in spirals rather than straight lines, we'll often find ourselves learning to apply concepts in areas of our lives we never thought were connected to that concept. I've mentioned my work with Acarya on more than one occasion here in the pages of Old Ways, but here, once more, is one of the core lessons Acarya imparted to me along the way.
Acarya walked next to his student, the older man setting a carefully measured pace, easing through the closely cropped meadow grass that bordered the blossoming orchard. His student had come to this place, between the worlds, seeking advice and insight into the events of his life.
The older man stopped, gracefully turning toward his student, his motions so precise that they barely disturbed the robes that were draped over his lean, athletic frame. Acarya could have been from any of a half-dozen Asian countries. Even his student was unsure of his origins.
“Each of us begins our spiritual journey as such,” the teacher began, the lines around his eyes deepening as he squinted his vision against the sun. He gestured casually to one side and a gleaming suit of armor appeared next to him, suspended just above the grassy meadow. “Many teach that the journey is to remove the armor. It is said that the defenses that protect us also keep us insulated from love.”
As if in response to his words, the armor disappeared, leaving a vague, naked human form hovering in the spring air. Light radiated from the center of its chest, shrouding anatomy with illumination. The details of the body were indistinct. Even in the sunlight of a perfect spring day it was impossible to tell if the form was male or female.
“When the armor is removed, love can be felt, but the sword can pierce the flesh.” A polished, silver sword appeared, suspended in the air. As Acarya continued, the blade suddenly thrust toward the defenseless person and sunk itself bloodlessly into the androgynous being’s chest. “Others teach that to truly experience love, we must accept the blade. That love only flows when it is still fully experienced when the flesh is pierced.”
Acarya paused, letting his student roll the concept around in his mind. “But this would be love in spite of pain. Pain is a product of fear. Fear is the absence of love. Release the fear, you release the pain. Without fear, without pain, there can only be love.”
As often as he had come to this meadow, Acarya’s student knew better than to ask a clarification. The teacher was wise beyond all measure. Questions went unanswered, met only with a silent pause. The message would be completely presented, but it would be framed according to the teacher’s understanding of the student’s own learning process.
The message was rich with subtext. In lessons long since committed to knowing, Acarya had taught that there was only one force in all of existence – love. It was like being submerged in the sea, an experience where the water of the ocean that surrounded us and filled us was love, not a marriage of hydrogen and oxygen. At times, mankind experienced fear, but fear was only the ripples one created when trying to push at love and move it away. All of the negative things in physical incarnation – hatred, greed, pain, even fear itself – were born out of our own efforts to push love away from us and the manner in which we interpreted the ripples we created.
Acarya turned to look into his student’s eyes, holding his gaze to indicate the importance of the coming message. “If the journey is a process of removing what keeps us from experiencing love,” he began, “Then removing the armor is only the first step.” He gestured at the human form beside him and the light within it began to grow, the physical body fading away as it did so, leaving an indistinct brightness where once a person had stood. “The sword cannot pierce what is not present. You need to let go of what you seek to protect. If there is nothing to protect, you cannot be harmed. If you cannot be harmed, there is no place for fear.” He paused, offering a knowing smile to his student. “If there is no fear, there can be only love.”
Shaman's believe that all of reality is "alive," composed of Spirit and therefore sacred. After all, from a shaman's perspective, physical reality was created from spiritual matter so, by default, everything in all of existence has to be what it was created from - Spirit.
Where it gets interesting is when we take the concepts we generally apply to interpersonal relationships (such as Acarya's lesson above) and apply them to the Universe and the flow of our lives.
For awhile now, I've been working on releasing triggers and attachments and simply learning to be present in the middle of chaos. I tend to describe those periods as learning to find peace in the midst of a sandstorm.
But what if we apply the concepts of Acarya's lesson to the daily challenges we face?
"You need to let go of what you seek to protect. If there is nothing to protect, you cannot be harmed. If you cannot be harmed, there is no place for fear. If there is no fear, there can be only love."
I'm learning to completely let go, to stand on the rock of my own Spirit. It's not just letting go of my own fears but of the need to define the chaos of my world as chaos. What if, instead of calling it "chaos" I simply accepted the moment as sacred? No definition, no classification, no good or bad, no peaceful or stressful - the moment is sacred simply because it exists.
Letting go of our fear is but the first step in the journey, not the destination. By learning to let go of our need to classify, define, and categorize and simply accept each moment as sacred, we discover that it's not a matter of weathering the storm or even finding peace in the sandstorm. The secret is in learning that there is no storm.
Thoughts? Comments? You can contact us at connect@oldways.com or interact with Jeffrey, Briana, and the Old Ways community on our Facebook page.
Originally published in Old Ways on May 29, 2010
