Awakening—On Going all the Way

If you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like that.

You will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with fire.

Do it, do it, do it, do it.
All the way, all the way.
(Charles Bukowski, Roll the Dice)

Can we go ‘all the way’ in spirituality? Should we even bother to try going all the way? Adyashanti says, ‘This life is not about winning the spiritual game, it is about waking up from the game.’ When you ‘go all the way’, you will surely fall victim to the spiritual ego to be special once again. The hunt for enlightenment is Catch 22 as it turns out. Yet, for everyone who has once become one of the best of any field, or mastered an activity or an art like few others, knows what it entails to ‘go all the way’. It is the pressure and the heat of trying to be the best that transforms the coal into the diamond, and in the process you realize what is really slumbering beneath the hood.

Try to go all the way to reach enlightenment and see what happens. Try to be kind and serene all the time. Try to meditate over long stretches of time. Try to do whatever you think gets you all the way on the road towards enlightenment. Spiritual ego will surely find you, but so will be your ability to Awaken to the game ego plays with itself. Awakening you will, and no matter what your starting point and your methodology, the Way will guide you. Along the Way, ‘going all the way’ becomes an instinctive process. All the spiritual awakening process need from you is the cooperation to continue. Polish the spiritual diamond in the rough. It is a more fun than being pressured into shape.

What does ‘enlightenment’ really mean? It means to be in touch with the heart, with Oneness; it means to see and experience love wherever we are. Being a spiritual gem is simply being stripped of every desire to be special whatsoever. It probably takes the hunger and commitment to ‘go all the way’ at one stage in the Awakening process but once the Way takes over we soon realize that we don’t have to. I started this note with a quote that told us about the benefit of the drive to ‘go all the way’, I want to end it with a quote that describes how somewhere along the journey we stop bothering to try accomplishing anything and simply enjoy the ride.

Do you live your life
struggling to be
a certain way
because your ideal,
perhaps a special teacher,
or holy person,
tells you you should?
Or are you so close
to God’s heart in you
that your deepest  desire
is to love?
(Carolyn Wind)