The Voice

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be.
(Luke 12:34)

A colleague showed me the other day a photo in a local newspaper that displayed someone who made it into the Guinness Book of Records with the biggest biceps in the world. When I looked at the arms I didn't really know what to think. I find body building attractive myself, but he looked a little like Popeye on steroids. They also had an interview with his wife who said, 'Well, it took me some time getting used to this size, but I now consider it normal and when I look at the arms of all other men I think to myself, are they sick or something?'

A spiritual path starts when you realize that there is a voice in your head which has little to do with you. The voice telling you that you are not loved, or that you will never make it. Or the voice that tells you that you need to be CEO, or that you need to have the biggest arms in the world. The good news is that once you have experienced only for a single moment that you are not this voice, you have reached the beginning of the end of an ancient journey. Reading others who tell you about your supposedly evil ego doesn't do it; you have to experiment this disconnect for yourself, at least once. But then you will learn to disengage more and more, and as you do, you experience joy, happiness and peace along the way.

You may ask how does one reach this magical moment of disconnecting with the voice in your head? Observe your feelings and see how they are sometimes at odds with what is going on in your head. Realizes how this voice is driving you into a wall over and over again. Experience the inconsistencies in your life - the disconnects of what you want from what the world reflects back to you. A spiritual path is very simple really: figure out who you truly are and what you truly want independent of what the voice babbles.

One thing is important though, never let anyone tell you what you supposedly have to do in the name of spirituality. Our spiritual community is very confused on this point. Who knows, perhaps the man with the biggest arms in the world follows his destiny to show others what we can accomplish with our bodies. Perhaps Steve Jobs followed his spiritual mission to start Apple to let the world experience the wonders of technology. Only you know what is your destiny and what the ramblings of 'the voice' are. Separating the two is really not that hard: 'the voice' tells you where your treasure is supposedly  hiding while your heart knows where your treasure is. All you really have to do is to listen to your heart; that's all.