Try, Try, Try

Where there is desire
There is gonna be a flame
Where there is a flame
Someone's bound to get burned
But just because it burns
Doesn't mean you're gonna die
You've gotta get up and try, and try, and try
Gotta get up and try, and try, and try
You gotta get up and try, and try, and try
(Pink, Try)

I read in Quantum Change by William Miller the spiritual transformation of dozens of people who described their personal "wake-up call". It was striking how miserable most of them were before the transformative event happened. Alcoholism, childhood abuse, broken marriages, you name it.  It was clear that many opened up to their inner voice in a way few others ever would. And their voice spoke loud and clear, which was the beginning of a remarkable turn-around in their lives.

I know that we tend to warn people about self-improvement courses and such because we argue that the desire to be "there" is also an ego motive. Yet, if you feel that something is missing you have to try, try, try, don't you? You are not supposed to be miserable. There is an answer out there for you, so please keep on looking and knocking on doors. One will open for you.

Perhaps instead of thinking of self-improvement, we can instead try to be better aware of our inner conflicts. These conflicts always existed, but since you are stirring something else up inside with your attempts to find answers, they suddenly come to the fore in a way they never had before. Perhaps you always brushed them over in the past.The fear of being inadequate is plastered over by workaholism and money, the inability to get in touch with your emotions is compensated with aggression and alcohol, the fear of not being loved is drowned by questionable love relationships. Stop these band-aides and accept the inner conflicts the way they are. Yes it will hurt, but if you become still and wait for Her voice, without fail She will deliver. Please don't take it from me, find this out for yourself. You just have to try, try, try.

Try

Where there is desire
There is gonna be a flame
Where there is a flame
Someone's bound to get burned
But just because it burns
Doesn't mean you're gonna die
You've gotta get up and try try try.
Pink, Try

Pink's song sums up our spiritual journey pretty well. The desire is our mission statement, the reason why we were born in the first place. We have to face our desires just as we have to face life and do something with it. Our journey is about transmuting our passions, about healing our split mind. As our physicists remind us, energy can never be destroyed but it can be changed. As we translate our raw passions into creativity and love, we reduce the blazing fire into an eternally burning flame. A complicated mix of ego fantasies and authentic needs are being translated into love for what you are doing, love for the people in your life and an ongoing feeling of peace and fulfillment. What was passion before has become serenity instead.

We also have to allow life to make our subconscious drives plain to us so that we can stop living our lives simply as marionettes. As we step on our spiritual path, choices become available that we never had access to before. Soon we realize that all these flames and burns are nothing but virtual reality. Choices certainly imply that we make mistakes from time to time, but always we gonna get up and try.  A spiritual path is really about experimenting with the so-called reality that we were born into and that everyone else seems to be perceiving. It doesn't exist. We can step outside of it completely and as we do all we suddenly perceive is love and peace. A spiritual path is an intersection of "reality" and virtual reality. You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. So please don't negate your desires, let life show you how to make them holy. And until you reach that state,  don't forget to get up and try, try, try!