Every day the choice is presented to us, to live up to the spirit that is in us, or deny it” ~ Henry Miller
I started on my own quest in my twenties. As a child I'd attended Sunday School at a small Wesleyan Methodist church, which was also attached to my primary school. My Dad was a local lay preacher sometimes giving the sermon at services. I remember visiting preachers from other churches coming to our house for meals before conducting evening service. In my teens I was part of a youth group. I didn't question any of it until I was about 18 when I became completely disenchanted.
I'm not sure what triggered this disenchantment but I stopped going to church. I moved near London to study and never stepped foot in a church again apart from weddings and funerals.
I started reading about alternative philosophies and discovered the Mind Body Spirit section in Waterstone's. The internet, as we know it now, was still a few years away so all my learning came from my books. I started to amass quite a collection.
At some point I came across this story.
There is a Hindu legend about a time when all humans were gods, but they abused their divinity. Brahma, the chief god, decided to take it away from them and hide it where they would never find it again.
Brahma called a council of the gods to help him decide where to hide the divinity. “Let’s bury it deep in the earth.” But Brahma said, “No, that will not do; one day they will dig deep down into the earth and find it.”
Then the gods said, “Let’s sink it in the deepest ocean.” Again Brahma replied, “No, not there, for they will learn to dive into the deepest waters, and search the ocean bed and find it.”
Then they said, “Let’s take it to the top of the highest mountain and hide it there.” But again Brahma replied, “No, for eventually humans will climb every high mountain on earth; someday they will find it again.”
The gods gave up and said, “We do not know where to hide it, for it seems there is no place on the earth or in the sea that humans will not eventually reach.”
Brahma thought for a long time and said, “Here is what we will do with humanity’s divinity. We will hide it deep down inside humans themselves. The humans will search the whole world, but they won’t look for it inside their true selves.”
Ever since then, the legend concludes, humans have been going to and fro throughout the earth, climbing, digging, diving, exploring, and searching for something that is already within themselves.
It made complete sense to me although I still didn't know how I was going to find the divine within.
