Now the search begins in earnest. It would be wonderful if finding your higher consciousness were as simple as getting on a freeway and staying on the road until the destination is reached. While “road, path, freeway,” are excellent ways of describing the quest for fulfillment, we must now go beyond this analogy. It’s fair to compare the quest for consciousness to a freeway but, of course, the matter is not that simple.
When you are moved, for one reason or another, to seek higher consciousness, an exciting part of your life begins. New delights are brought before you, vistas you never dreamed of come into your view. One young man found such excitement at this stage of his life that he read into the wee hours of the night. Early each morning he awakened refreshed and with a sense of wonder. His work life became exciting and enchanting. His enthusiasm was charming to his employers. During lunch hour and after work, he rushed to be with teachers and fellow participants in the realms of higher consciousness. He strived to be in tune with everyone and with nature herself. He reported that, despite living in a rather damp climate, he never got rained on during the first six months of his quest! He said he somehow sensed the activity of nature and was able to so attune with it that the rain always occurred while he was indoors or inside his car. Even during a rainy day when he made a short jaunt from his apartment to the store, he would find that for one reason or another the raindrops seemed to await his convenience. Then, after six months, he was rained on in a regular manner — like an ordinary mortal. However, he still enjoys reflecting on the extreme delight and excitement of those beginning days.
Enthusiasm
When you start to sense the higher consciousness and the vast potentiality available to you — furthermore, when you sense you can definitely experience and know the higher consciousness for yourself — you get a tremendous rush of enthusiasm and a feeling of gratitude for life. Life becomes more like a dance. Beauty, unseen before, now reaches out to your appreciative eyes most everywhere you go. The heart and mind glow with eagerness. Aspiration comes easily and dwells for long periods. Inspiring experiences abound.
One day, as a beginner on the path, you will see your first aura, the electromagnetic field of energy surrounding some particularly fine person. At other times your dreams may seem extraordinarily fascinating and profoundly symbolic. Your vitality level seems to double. Well being comes easily.
“Now your heart pounds with respect in the presence of those true teachers who seem to know everything! There’s always something new to talk about, something engrossing to think about, some new state of love or concern to dwell in your heart. You feel you’re coming up out of the grave, coming into life. You sense a rebirth will definitely occur. Who knows when? Perhaps today. You find it ever so tempting to get gushy and romantic, or to laugh too long and happily at an inane joke. At times you feel a strong desire to close your mouth and savor the sweetness which seems to radiate from roses within.
A Two-Fold Effect
The early delight in the quest can have a two-fold effect:
Seek Earnestly
You must earnestly seek the best means, the best way, to go from where you are this very moment toward realization of your higher consciousness. Just as choosing a career involves a lot of pressure because a bad choice can saddle you with years of misery or frustration, so too the correct selection of your particular path is crucial not only to your success but to your happiness along the way.
Curiously, however, as many ministers have observed, most people take more care investing one hundred dollars than they do investing their lives. People look more deeply into the security and investment of a small sum than in examining the crucial issues of personal security and fulfillment.
“The world is full of long-term seekers who are always beginning over again as they drift from one teacher to another. They drift from guru to master, from mystic center to ashram to pagoda, from one sect which claims it alone knows the truth to another sect which makes similar claims. These drifters never succeed. They’re always starting. They never finish. They’re called “tramps,” and are a sad sight on the path. They’re so numerous that you will meet many of them. You may probably wonder why they don’t persist, why they don’t go forward and succeed. Simply, they’re refugees from their own private civil war. They have somehow been inwardly restrained from succeeding or fulfilling their quest.
Tramp Seekers
“Tramp seekers” often know more techniques and are personally familiar with more important people than you know, but tramps are very dangerous to follow. If you give these unfortunate people much of your time and attention, they will likely confuse you. They make it difficult for you to choose your particular way and succeed. These tramps often want to pull you away to another teacher, to another school of thought. They continually create a conflict of choice within your mind. To follow them is to become a tramp at an early stage. You will be doing something else next year, feeling that having higher consciousness is not that important. Perhaps next year you will feel it doesn’t even exist. Or worse, you may advocate from within the large tramp chorus that your fantasies are “true reality,” and imagination is higher consciousness!
However, with this precaution — “beware of tramps” — clearly in your mind, the time has come for you to actively search for the best means of realizing your higher consciousness. Hardly ever can you achieve it by sitting in your room reading books or meditating in an untutored way. Even these lessons can at best be only a guide, only a friendly help, along the stages of your quest. Hopefully, this website will enable you to find the means — the right teacher, the right form of study, the right form of discipline — such that you can make rapid progress and fulfill your earnest desire to know your higher consciousness.
“When You Are Ready, Your Master Will Appear”
A friend of the author’s from India related that as a young man he searched throughout his country in the hope he would find a true Guru who would initiate him and help him realize higher consciousness. Unfortunately, all he found were fakes interested only in his money and, after a few years, he abandoned the search. Later, when he was doing engineering work and other activities in the San Francisco area, he found his Guru, who quickly helped him realize higher consciousness. His Guru was from India and had been living only fifty miles from my friend’s home in Bombay!
You will often hear the phrase that “When you are ready, the master will appear.” If, as you begin your quest, you do not find a capable and worthy teacher who lives what he teaches and practices what he preaches, then look to your readiness. You are probably not ready. It is a law: When you are ready, your master will appear.
What’s My Path?
If you 1) prepare yourself and 2) are wary of tramps, you are now ready to ask the basic question: “What is the best way or path for my discovery of higher consciousness?”
At this stage in your life a lavish banquet is spread before you. Numerous ways to higher consciousness look delightfully appealing. But you must sample the various offerings with a view to selecting one soon. If you go about the early days of your sublime banqueting with an attitude that you are truly seeking to find the best means for your discovery of the higher consciousness, you will be guided safely through an amazing array of possibilities. You will find some possibilities are genuine and profound but they don’t suit your nature; you will also find other possibilities are definitely wacky and not worth much of your time.
Also keep in mind that you are daily seeking to become more conscious. You will find it a safe rule of thumb that during this sampling and tasting phase of your exciting new life you can easily determine whether a particular path or school of thought or teacher is good for you if you truly become a more conscious, better person as a consequence of your contact.
“You will likely find a number of fake teachers who want to convince you to follow them. Usually they treat you in a manner that satisfies or exalts your ego — your desire to be important. Fake teachers often feel that if they convince you how great you are, you will then — feeling great and important — be willing to do whatever they say or imply. Flattery on this path, as in any other area, is poison. There is a distinct difference between flattery and praise. Flattery will tend to puff up your ego; praise will make you humble and appreciative. Beware of flatterers — especially on the quest of higher consciousness which has so much latitude for fluffy nothings.
A great deal of emperor’s clothing is being sold by the yard in little booths alongside the various paths today. But don’t be discouraged — be forewarned. Be aware of your joy; resonate with the thrill of your aspirations. Just don’t be a naive, unconscious person. Don’t be childish at a time like this. You are seeking the greater values of life. The places you look, the people you meet, should reflect your higher values.
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