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Once a young man flew across the ocean to meet a great Spiritual Master. Upon meeting the Master, the aspirate asked, “May I be your follower?” “Why do you want me to be your Teacher?” “So, I can come to know God better?” “What is the question that brought you here?” “I have no question, sir, I only want to know God better.” “Then,” the Master said, “without a question that has led you here, one neither I nor you can answer, I cannot be your Teacher.”
“There are all kinds of searches,” observes Zen Abbot, John Daido Loori (Riding the Ox Home). Loori refers to three searches: psychological well-being, physical well-being, spiritual well-being. Psychological and physical well-being are better addressed in other ways than a spiritual search, if what a person wants is to be more contented psychologically or better in shape physically.
Another search could be called a search for religious well-being. Here, one is more concerned with relationship to an institution of religion, with its practices and beliefs. A person seeks to be a better Christian, a more dedicated Buddhist, a more enlightened follower of Vedanta, a more consecrated Muslim, …
Precisely, we could speak of a search for spiritual well-being, or Spirit. Here, for example, I am not, principally, seeking to be a better Christian; I am seeking Something prior to being a Christian. What is the Path prior to paths? What is the Word before words? What is the Christ before the situating of “Christ” within the context of Christianity? What is the Church before the church? What is God before all images of God, prior to all God-language? A Sufi could ask, “What is the Friend before I dance to the Friend?” A Buddhist could inquire, “What is the Buddha before there was ever a Siddhartha?” Or, “What is enlightenment before the bodhi tree?”
A person does not enter the spiritual search until she is ready to do so. Most persons are content in other searches. Most in religion are content with institutional religion, keeping “Christ,” “God,” or however she refers to Ultimate Reality, defined by the institution, which appeals to tradition and consensus. Some persons are just too lazy to question, that is sure. Others, well, they are not willing to pay the potential cost of questioning the tradition or, at least, seeking to understand and live it in a deeper, inclusive way. Many, in other words, seek to be consoled within the majority, rather than stand out with a minority or stand alone by oneself.
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Therefore, to enter this spiritual search, relatively speaking, generally, one must either be a natural inquisitive or something must happen to get the person to question, deeply. She might ask, “What is that which is missing in what I am experiencing?” Or, she may say, “There’s got to be more.” A person does not have to be an adult to ask such questions. I started as a mid-teenager. Therefore, this search can begin earlier or later in life.
On an absolute level, possibly, no one would enter the spiritual search without a Higher Calling to do so. Likewise, possibly, no one can enter the spiritual search without initiation by Spirit to that path. Jesus, referring to this Ultimate Dimension, or Spirit, as “Father,” spoke:
Jesus answered them, … “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. … It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—“(St. John 6.43-45, ESV)
Jesus, in the St. John passage, represents the spiritual search in time, while “Father” refers to the Ultimate Reality. Jesus assumes those prepared by God will enter the spiritual search. To imply this Divine Inspiration, Jesus refers to persons who hear and learn directly from the Father. So, he clarifies the spiritual causation.
Readers of OneLife are persons who feel a call to this spiritual search. Why? For these persons are seeking the Ground of Being, rather than just the other grounds of psychological, physical, or religious well-being. Recall, the Ground embraces all, but all other grounds are only partial manifestations of the Ground. This is why all others searches leave us knowing there is Something More.
Loori writes, “The search can’t start until the question arises.” What question led you to seek spiritually? What questions have arisen along the Way, that keep you open to a fuller appreciation and living of the Mystery?
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