The Mountain of Expectation
by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff
Introduction
Preparing to listen to the Master, the travelers gathered around their campfires and watched their hand held telecommunication screens; suddenly, the night sky burst aglow with a meteor shower of multi-color light. Momentarily all eyes turned upward, watching a dazzling display of colors and their changing intensity. Like dozens of flickering lightning bugs, caught in a jar; meteors flamed, and danced yellow and orange, wildly across the evening sky; and in a moment they were gone. This sudden grand display of beauty and Light left everyone in the crowd speechless.
Smiling at the synchronicity of this celestial celebration, the Master took a long deep breath; exhaling slowly he whispered the Name of God. Then very softly began to speak.
“For a moment, each is a dazzling flicker of light dancing in the darkness; in this there is great beauty and a divine lesson. In the timeless eternity, each traveler comes into the earth phase for a brief moment and travels on. Similarly like our heavenly visitors: flashes of spiritual intuition and insight come and go; they are bursts of understanding like darting meteors; momentarily setting the consciousness aglow with the spark of divine understanding; from which one is ordinarily cut off - living in the every day world.”
“Within each heart there is both question and answer; in time, both seeking and finding merge and fade in comparison to the larger greater reality of the Light.”
The Mountain
Traveler: Speak to us of that which stands in the traveler’s way of reaching the goal. Some term these obstacles the mountain; please speak to this point so it might be made clear and more fully understood.
Master: If you wish to travel to the Beloved’s court, first you must learn to conquer the mountain of your personal desires and what you expect as a personal outcome from your journey. There are many trails on Desire and only the Beloved knows the way. The successful traveler is one who has faith, in their higher self and the Beloved’s Mercy; this lights the long dark road. In the darkness of the traveler’s soul, the traveler’s need for specific outcomes, fame and power- is waiting to lead the traveler astray. What you expect to happen based upon personal effort; blocks you like a landslide of rocks fallen on a high mountain pass.
Traveler: Can you teach us to scale this mountain?
Master: Only those God selects, successfully overcome the mountain of their desire and the asking must be done by you. The first task is to exchange the cloak of expectancy for the garment of the Holy Name. Then as you are selected, the Light will take your hand and lead you across the treacherous mountain peak.
What Blocks Our Way
At the beginning of the journey, when the traveler first realizes the object of the search; there is a burst of spiritual energy and eagerness to get started. Yet, the journey is an inner one; the traveler has already started and the destination, while distant, lies covered beneath layers of consciousness.
In order to operate in daily life, we are filled with physical, mental and emotional stimuli, thoughts, awareness, and a host of self-care and maintenance needs. This level of consciousness, that which is necessary to operate in the world, blocks the higher spiritual awareness from coming forward. Usually this inner spiritual knowing operates at a level below ordinary awareness; it is the very energy which gives us life and thought, but is hidden, buried beneath the layers of ordinary living. A major goal of the journey is to bring this spirituality or consciousness into full daily awareness; for most travelers this dual awareness requires a period of preparation and training. Using both levels of awareness in daily life, we become fuller, conscious, participants in our own destiny.
For the most part, it is our thoughts, wants, and desires which prevent the higher knowledge from coming forward. Ordinarily, this level of deep awareness can not be heard, until other levels of awareness/consciousness become relatively still or quiet. The capacity to quiet ordinary thoughts and desires is not a static condition; it comes and goes depending upon life circumstance, training, and requirements of the situation.
Strong emotions, desires, wants, likes, dislikes, while all necessary for full living, most often block the higher impulse from being perceived. Pain, joy, laughter, exhilaration all necessary dimensions for life must be pushed aside, for a time, while the spiritual traveler focuses inward to listen to the hidden voice.
In the spiritual traveler, levels of consciousness may be compared to a television set; ordinarily, the average set gets a small number of channels; when a cable or satellite receiver is added a wider range of options become available. Generally, you can only watch one program at a time; the other channels must be still or quiet so you can watch your preferred show. In this analogy, the cable receiver is spiritual training or specific exercises to develop inner cognition and knowing.
One of the most familiar exercises being meditation; here the traveler is taught how to focus and concentrate using a short word or visual device. This aspect of the exercise, the directed concentration, helps to still every day thoughts. Generally, what must be added to this inward journey is an awareness of what the traveler is trying to release. While one aspect of consciousness is quieting ordinary thoughts, another part of consciousness must be assisted to awaken and come forward. This coming forward of the inner capacity, most often, is displayed to the traveler initially by the Master’s spiritual caress. In some schools, this is when the Master ‘awakens’ the student by shinning the Light upon the traveler’s heart; and the traveler realizes for the first time: inner spiritual knowledge and where/how it may be reached.
In this process, the Master takes the Light, which is every where and shines it upon the traveler’s heart. When this happens, the traveler is One With All of Creation (mystical state) and perceives through the intensity of the Light, their own spiritual individuality- which is already within. By higher design, each is connected with and part of this Light; and it is this Light which the traveler wishes to embrace and use in ordinary life. During meditation, while one part of the consciousness is being stilled, another aspect of consciousness is being awakened and must come forward.
When the spiritual traveler desires or expects something to occur, which is an ordinary and necessary function in daily life, the energy attached to this desire serves as a channel blocker. So if you are watching the channel - what I expect to happen from spiritual development; I cannot switch from this channel, unless I first still this mental picture/desire; this stilling of desire enables the switch to another channel and releases higher consciousness. Two stations (ordinary and higher consciousness), when one is very noisy or strong, cannot operate simultaneously. This is simply the way our receiver works.
Thoughts to Ponder
- Expectation: Along the Path, expectation based upon what you think or want to happen, blocks your progress like a 10 foot high concrete wall. Slowly, you must learn to still/remove these thoughts through peaceful surrender to your higher self and the Higher Impulse.
- The Onion Riddle: Within each of us there is a very ancient knowledge and understanding of whom we are and the purpose of our long journey through the many worlds. This knowledge exists as part of the spiritual energy which is our basic core; for at our center we are of spirit and through this energy/substance we are connected to all things. It is this energy and Being which gives birth to our day to day to consciousness; personality and our physical body and other attributes.
When we search within our personality to find the source/center, we must go deeper and deeper into ourselves. Like miners we are looking for the hidden gold. This process has been termed an unveiling of the many layers. Like an onion in which we peel away the many layers only to find -at its center- seemingly ‘nothing.’
Unlike the onion, this ‘nothing’ is our primal energy/spirit and awareness: which is the spring from which we come forward; it is an abundant source of Light, energy, and renewal. Prayer and meditation help teach us to sip of this inner spring of awareness daily, and come forward a more awakened version of self.
And when we leave this world of physical forms, it will be this energy/substance –our soul- with its spiritual fabric that will lead us to the next phase. For we are spiritual travelers and there are many worlds to experience and serve the Higher Design.
We are on a long adventure, to work and experience; to love and serve, returning Home more complete, more able to share in Kingship with our Source.
What? All of this sounds like a riddle which is far to complex to solve.
Remember. You have been given enough for the Journey.
* *
‘A man has seen the mountain;
He has not seen the mine within it.’
Rumi
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Also by Dr. Bitkoff, A Commuter’s Guide to Enlightenment, (Llewellyn, 2008) and Journey of Light: Trilogy, (Authorhouse, 2004); these books are available on Amazon.com or from publisher. To contact author go to www.drbitkoff@yahoo.com.
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