Going Where Youve Never Gone Before

One of the first issues people on the spiritual path have to address is a doctrinal one: Is it wrong to ask questions that I've never asked before? Is asking questions about the truth we've been taught "sinful?" Your answer can have a dramatic effect on your ability to explore who you are and what you believe in without guilt!

If anyone has ever told you that the path to spiritual self-awareness (defined in it's simplest terms as "knowing who you are and what you believe in, and letting those beliefs be the driving force in your life") is an easy one, they were being less than honest!

Finding your own truth in these times of confusion and change is no small undertaking, and it isn't surprising that many people begin the journey full of hope and enthusiasm, but - as each step becomes even more difficult because it requires even more honestly with yourself and with others - they begin to lose courage. They find a comfortable plateau - a point in their lives where things are better than they used to be - and they decide that staying where they are might not be such a bad option. Why seek the infinite potential within yourself if you've found a self you're comfortable with already?

Unfortunately, the first stumbling block most of us run into is a "biggie." We run into a catch-22 situation: we can't question our personal truth without questioning the doctrine of the religious environment we grew up in, and there's a part of us that feels that the very act of questioning is, in some way, "sinful."

Whether our conviction is for or against our basic religious beliefs, we hesitate to rock our spiritual boat by entering the world of adverbs: who is God, what is my relationship with Him, where does He fit into my life, when will I know for sure what is truth and what is not, and how do I get to a point in my life where it all makes sense to me, and I'm no longer caught up in the never-ending cycle of trying to understand why this is happening to me?

Between the guilt of not accepting at face value the religious doctrine we were taught as children and the confusion of trying to find something solid to replace it with, we move into the Scarlett O'Hara mode: who can forget the dramatic moment in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett says, in the face of adversity, "I shan't think about this today. If I think about this today, I shall go absolutely crazy." We put the whole issue of "spiritual truth" on the back burner, and go on with our lives. For a while.

Sooner or later, we find ourselves right back where we started: some situation in our lives points out to us - again - that we really don't have much of a spiritual foundation at all. If we did, we'd understand ourselves, and other people, and see the order of the universe reflected in the order of our lives. Instead, we see the same old, same old emotional chaos driving the same old, same old lives, and we feel the need - again - to question who we are and what we believe in and why our life is the way it is.

It is this sense of dissatisfaction (discontent, unHappiness, frustration, confusion) that makes us want to question again, and we find ourselves - once again - in a learning cycle that encourages us to confirm our personal beliefs and begin expressing them in our day to day relationships with others.

If our life is working for us - if we aren't in the Scarlett O'Hara mode and we feel good about who we are and what we're doing - we don't feel any need to question our spiritual truth, because it's - obviously - working for us. It's not human nature to seek answers for what IS working in our lives; it's when the situations and relationships that make up our "lifestyle" create circumstances that are NOT comfortable that we question.

If the present-moment pieces of our personal puzzle fit together, life works for us, and we are happy and contented with what's happening on a day to day basis; when the situations and relationships create pain, conflict, and/or disharmony, and we wake up each morning feeling less than enthusiastic about what the new day wil