Life is the road to an endless ocean

One teacher (Professor Ravi Ravindra) claimed that a man has first to become rich if he wants to become poor in a right, spiritual way. In this case becoming rich includes psychological wealth like knowledge, authority and honor.

Another teacher (Master Eckhart) said that all possible things are always ready in the innermost being of every man. The purpose of life is to activate these potentialities in the limits of time and space. We call this process learning. One of its problems is the tendency of the human mind to become conditioned to its own ideas, so as it does not take in anything that seems threatening to it. Luckily, eventually the human mind gets bored with its present richness and begins to search for something different.

At some stage, all the worldly things lose their power and there is nothing left for a person but a change of direction into his inner world. The prodigal son is about to turn back home!

We could talk about identifying with the outer world, things and events (as becoming rich). The detaching of oneself from temporary things (as becoming spiritually poor) will begin after that.

The road in the first photo descends gradually into a valley called life. At some faraway stage, the road starts to rise back towards “the highlands of spirit” and disappears soon beyond our “worldly eyes”.

The third teacher (Friedrich Nietzsche) described the state of consciousness, which might come ahead as soon as all the mental bonds and images of mind lose their grip. Then a man finds himself as being a question mark between two empty states.

The fourth teacher (Juan de la Cruz) stated that a man, rising high enough, cannot any more lean to such things to which he in his life was conditioned. Now it is time for the kind of faith, hope and love that has no phenomenal targets.

The second photo might symbolize an endless ocean with a freely floating, empty boat where a man cannot take anything but his mind - cleared of all temporary things.


Photos:

1. Death Valley, California
2. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia