When the path calls.
Time: 1:15 PM
Date: Friday 2nd May
In my mid twenties I had a terrifying dream. In this dream, I felt so lonely and sheer dread for my life. I took out a loaded pistol and placed it into my mouth.
I felt the metal gun barrel against my teeth. I began pulling the trigger. Instantly, I became aware I was dreaming.
Still in the dream, but now half awake, I pulled the trigger. The back of my skull blew away and I lay in bed, wide awake, knowing this dream was trying to tell me something.
I was determined to find out the message. I decided that I was not going to allow myself to get to sleep until I understood this dream.
Never having interpreted a dream before, after thirty minutes of questioning, “What is the message?”, I became desperate for an answer. I had a hunch: This dream had something to do with my dilemma at this stage in my life.
Life circumstances seemed to be pushing me towards the one place I didn’t want to go: Making my spiritual life a bigger priority.
“What is the message?” I chanted in my mind. My girlfriend, completely oblivious to all of this, fast asleep, began to rustle around next to me in the bed. We had been together for years and I had never seen her behave like this.
She turned towards me, still deep asleep and spoke to me in a voice deeper and more authoritative than her natural speaking voice.
“It is well paved”, said the voice.
She turned away from me as if that was my complete answer. To me, the sentence was meaningless.
So I asked, “What is?”
Mechanically, her body turned back towards me. The voice spoke again.
“The path.” replied the voice.
Her body turned away from me and then flopped on the bed. I was stunned by what had just happened. I had heard of people ‘channeling’ messages from some other entity but I had never seen it in the flesh. Neither my girlfriend nor I were interested in psychic phenomena. Surprisingly, I was still determined to understand my dream of committing suicide earlier.
After a moment's reflection, I knew that “the path” being referred to was the spiritual path. That was the path I was so afraid to walk.
I didn’t know where this path would take me. I felt I had a lot to lose. Afterall, I had worked so hard to create my success.
Looking back now, I realise that at the time I wasn’t really living. A flashy convertible BMW, impressive multi million dollar property portfolio and inner city lifestyle: None of this could distract me much longer from what I had become: Someone terrified of being assessed by others, just as I was, without all my stuff around me.
Without all my external stuff, I was frightened that people wouldn’t like what they saw. After all, I didn’t really like me, deep down, so why should they?
The well paved path led me in a different direction. My dream of suicide was a potent symbol of what needed to transpire within me: Death and rebirth. I had to pull the trigger on the life that I had created. I had to walk away and almost start all over again.
The following morning, after this incident, I told my girlfriend what had happened. She laughed at my reenactment in our bedroom. My Dad shook his head in disbelief and said “You haven’t been smoking that funny stuff have you?” He knew I wasn’t into drugs. He knew that I had not been drinking. When we are baffled by strange events we look for a rational explanation.
After my curiosity subsided about what or who was speaking to me, it was down to the business of changing. A friend of mine, Yossi Ghinsberg, author of “Jungle” pointed out that how the calling happens is not important. “What we do with the calling: That’s what is important,” Yossi told me, one night over dinner.
As I slowly placed one foot in front of the other, I discovered that the Path beneath me was solid — just like the voice said it would be.
Prior to this event, I had organised any spiritual activity around my life. Afterwards, I tried to organise my life around my spiritual activity.
Back then, my spiritual activity involved a simple focussing technique. I had learned this technique in training for the world championships as a ski racer. I would pick any object, focus my attention on it and try and let go of everything else. Doing this daily for thirty minutes stilled my mind. It calmed me down. My life and my emotions became more manageable.
But the spiritual path has many facets and various levels. Step by step, we let go of all the stuff that suppresses our experience of being alive. Excessive thinking, defences, an over investment in what is happening outside of us, fearful and rigid attitudes, shallow intentions: The Path knows exactly how to deal with all of our defects.
One important aspect of the path that I am growing to love is that it is not a game. There are no winners and losers. You moving forward can never cost me or anybody else.
How do we know if someone is on the path? Otto Scharmer, author of “Theory U” points to this question using the analogy of art observation.
As an observer of art, there are three possibilities.
We can: 1) Observe the outcome, that is, a completed painting, 2) Observe the process: The artist doing her job, or 3) Observe the artist standing in front of a blank canvas.
Scharmer tells us that it is only within this third option that we can learn about “the “source” the artist is “operating from.” This is the most critical variable determining success.
The “operating source” is determined before the painting commences. He suggests that this is a blind spot within our society.
Scharmer often quotes Bill O’Brian, the former CEO of Hanover Insurance. “He told me that his greatest insight after years of conducting organizational learning projects and facilitating corporate change was that ‘the success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener” wrote Scharmer about O’Brian.
Interior condition. The path includes attending to our interior condition above all else.
If it is the time for us to individually make some major adjustments, the universe will give us a hammering until this happens.
The blows will be subtle at first and progressively get worse leading all the way to whatever is needed to get our attention.
A major crisis is not out of the question. Heart attacks, major relationship break downs — just to name a couple of possibilities — have many years in the making.
The warning always begins with something mild: A restless feeling, a few sleepness nights or perhaps an unpleasant dream. Within the world of dream interpretation, a nightmare is often viewed as a previous dream that went unanswered. This is just another reference, pointing to the progressive nature of the calling.
In our positive psychology culture, we often try to respond to the calling with more optimistic thinking. We convince ourselves that we will make our life work and maintain the status quo. We tell ourselves that our life is pretty good — just as it is. Convincing our mind is not that difficult.
The universe, however, will not be manipulated so easily. It may take years before we realise that our shallow optimism was masking our authenticity and our power. Joe Campbell, author of “A hero with a thousand faces” suggests that even the most heroic quest includes a period of “resisting the call.”
Another block is clutching onto lifelong ambitions. This is the “what I’ve always wanted” syndrome. Hanging onto the life that you had always imagined may be the biggest block to you discovering the life that is beyond your wildest imagination.
Lastly, the path can not be led by the intellect or logical thinking. As Gerald Jampolksy once wrote, “I have learned that nothing is impossible when we follow our inner guidance, even when it’s direction may threaten us by reversing our usual logic.”
When we do respond, we need to be careful that we don’t swing from complacency over in the direction of forcing progress. The path lies between these destructive parameters:
Complacency >> THE PATH << Forcing progress
As anybody who knows me would testify: I am sharing this with you as someone who is passionate about walking the path today. What I have done yesterday or what I am about to do tomorrow is not that important. What is important, is this moment.
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Michael Dayes
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Postal: PO Box 788 Darlinghurst
NSW 1300 Australia
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