Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads or accommodations. –Oliver Goldsmith
This morning Gentle Reader I will tell you a story that has appeared in many different Cultures. This is one version of many [by the by, I always find this to be one of life’s wonderful mysteries – the diversity of Cultures and the similarity of teaching stories].
Once upon a time there was a man who began to have a recurring dream. The dream told the man that there was in a distant land a treasure waiting for him. Day after day, week after week, month after month (he was a slow learner you see) he had this same dream. Finally, partly out of exasperation and partly out of a growing desire to actually find the treasure, the man sold all he had (for some reason this selling of all one has is a requirement for many such teaching stories) and set out upon his journey.
The journey took years – we all knew this would be required didn’t we – and the man had many adventures and some scaries along the way. As he traveled the man was encouraged by the recurring dream; he needed this encouragement for there were many times he wanted to turn back. Finally, the man comes to the place where the treasure is supposed to reside. He enters a cave and there sits a wise woman (makes sense to me). She says she has been waiting for the man for years.
The man inquires as to where the treasure is hidden. The wise woman smiles kindly and knowingly and tells the man that she has been having a dream for years that HIS treasure is behind a door in his house. YIKES…. The man turns around, hurries back to where his journey began, goes to where he used to live begs the owner to let him into a certain room and there, indeed, was a door that he had never seen before. He opens the door and there was his treasure.
Life’s journey must be made if one is to find one’s treasure. Although the journey – is this irony or what – takes us full circle, it is necessary if one is to find one’s treasure. There are experiences and teachings and learnings that one must be open to and embrace if one is to find the treasure that was there all along (bummer…no magic!).
Each step offers us an opportunity to grow and develop our P.I.E.S. [our Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual dimensions). Each step actually opens pathways that lead us deeper into ourselves – the way leads in rather than out. The treasure lies hidden behind a door that we do not know we possess and won’t learn about unless we take the journey (another bummer). The ancient sage, Silvanus (150AD) encouraged this type of journey: Knock upon yourself an open door, and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on that path, you cannot go astray; and when you knock on that door, what you open for yourself shall open.
Each of us is a traveler of the heart. As we walk the road of our life we come to unknown and unsought doors revealing further truth about our ‘authentic’ self. We know these doors and yet they are unfamiliar to us – these are the doors that lead us to certain teachings about ourselves; doors that guide us toward wisdom. Behind these doors information waits for us; information that will help us with our own transformation (our own maturing process if you will).
Our life experiences often divert us and so we begin to question the validity of our search (our call or our life’s purpose, if you will). The very doors that we deem to be ‘false doors’ are actually necessary for us for they are a source (potential?) of growth for us.
Our life itself is a living parable (a parable is a teaching story). If we live the parable we will have an opportunity to come upon the doors that contain our treasures (they may, however, not be the treasures we desire – they will be the treasures we need, however). As I travel today, what are the doors that I will encounter? Which ones will I open? Which ones will I walk by? Which ones will I turn away from? Excuse me, I just bumped into a door – now what?
Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming; maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that really isn’t you, so you can be who you were meant to be. –Anonymous
Searcher-Seeker 