An Ordinary Weirdo

For around a decade now I have been on a very very ordinary spiritual journey.

When we speak of spirituality, we might imagine incense burning, chanting, communicating with deceased relatives or other worldly beings, casting aside all possessions and going on a quest to India.  Well, while I have nothing against any of those things, it’s been nothing like that.  Although I have been to India, but that was more about beaches, surfing and curry, than it was trying to find oneself.  Don’t get me wrong, there have been a couple of times when sitting in the mountains and not engaging in human life has looked quite appealing.  (I’m sure we can all relate to that.)  But this spiritual journey has been much more ordinary than one might imagine. You don’t need to go anywhere, have a guru, dress a certain way or do anything in particular.  You could get there from a bedsit in Skegness, dressed head to toe in adidas if that’s your thing.

It can be boiled down to being at peace with what is (not resisting), understanding that happiness does not come from external things, and seeing the spiritual nature of everything.  If you’re wondering what the latter part of that statement means, I would simply use this question to get you to consider what I’m pointing to here:  “Is it possible that the only thing we can know for sure is Awareness, and that everything else is just as it appears, arising within it?” 

Sit with that one sometime, when the mood strikes you.

Mountain top/jungle meditation not required

So while the uncovering of our shared spiritual nature and what that means for us is very ordinary, the journey has not been a straight forward one.  Often I would still get bogged down by my ego’s ideas of how things should be, and that would stall my progress, because Living-in-a-big-house, married-with-2-kids would seem more important than being peaceful and content with what is.

“Yeah, this is all very well and good, but I actually WANT these things. I don’t want to be so happy that I forget to want them”. (Yes, I really thought that)

Well at some point along the line, something changed and I was prepared to be so peaceful and content day to day that I could forget to pursue the things I thought I needed. Don’t get me wrong, there are still things I would like to explore and enjoy but I don’t need them anymore.

And that’s the switch.

This spiritual journey is nothing wild or ‘out-there’. It’s a simple freedom from the suffering that comes with wanting things to be different than they are. With pursuing happiness in outer objects or experiences.  With considering ourselves to be separate and isolated.

Counter cultural? For sure. Counter common sense? Absolutely not.

I am a perfectly ordinary weirdo.

In recent years I have been really pleased to find that there are loads of other ordinary weirdos. This year I am very privileged to be on a mentorship programme on which everyone sees what I see and is “normal”. Professional, regular people. With regular haircuts and standard clothes. People who would look perfectly innocuous walking down the street. Apart from the possibility that if you were to look at them you might feel a bit warm. Because, if they were to catch your eye, they might radiate a knowing to you. A knowing that you are perfect as you are. That you and they are the same.  Arising in awareness as perfect expressions of creation.

If you are on a similar journey, I want you to know that you are not alone. There are thousands and thousands of us. Normal, everyday people. Business owners, parents, athletes, school kids, government workers etc. People who are becoming conscious of the understanding that we don’t have to experience reality as this fixed, separate, material thing to change or suffer. Becoming conscious of the realisation that it doesn’t always feel like we are isolated individuals.  Understanding that maybe we aren’t just this mind-body that we appear to be. Maybe we don’t need to suffer if things aren’t ‘perfect’, because we are already perfect.

Making this discovery can feel pretty rocky at first, as we start to see through our conditioned beliefs, and wonder what life will be like without them.  There is nothing to fear. You can be an ordinary weirdo, living a standard life.  Nothing needs to change, yet it may all look different.