A man is climbing to the top of a mountain and when he arrives at the summit, he pauses and has a complete satisfaction of accomplishment as he stands and looks out over the landscape in all directions. He has arrived at the peak of this mountain and is filled with satisfaction and accomplishment. There is an inner recognition that all his hard work, planning, effort, and focus culminated to this moment of completion. He is proud of himself and his ability. He overcame many challenging obstacles to arrive at this point.
He feels good. He feels a satisfaction he has never before felt. He feels something almost pure - something like joy. He has never had this experience before. He likes it! He wants to feel this all the time. He decides to sit and try to soak in all these thoughts and feelings before they disappear. Eventually the sensation fades and it is time to climb down the mountain, which he does in silence.
He returns home and now has no goal. He feels no purpose. He is rudderless.
He wants to repeat the sensations he experienced from that mountain climb and reaching the peak but doesn’t know how to replicate those feelings. He slowly sinks into despair. Eventually he decides to climb a different mountain and starts the process of planning, focusing, and overcoming those obstacles designed to prevent most people from engaging in something like this. He once again feels engaged and even a rush of satisfaction. He once climbs to the top of a mountain and once again feels that rush of satisfaction and accomplishment as he takes in a deep breath, feeling the vastness of what he achieved. He once again receives accolades and atta-boys along with a type of emotional high.
Soon the exuberance starts to gently fade and the accolades from admirers fade. His life has become rather ordinary and mundane and he longs for that feeling of adventure and challenge. He wants to feel those sensations that now elude him. He wants to feel his soul lift and expand like he felt when he reached the summit. He wants validation from his soul that he has accomplished and achieved something unique. He longs for that natural high - a feeling of being really alive.
What he does next is very unusual. He used to try and touch the sky, but now he wants to do just the opposite - to know the earth. He embarks on a journey of discovery that is like the yin to the yang he has so often embraced. Instead of climbing up a mountain top, he decides to go deep down into the earth and explore the hidden inner depths inside the earth. He gets no encouragement from anyone and most think he is odd. But decides to do this anyway. In this journey he finds a totally different experience from being on top of a mountain. It is also still filled with danger, difficulty, and challenge but the feelings that surface are something he did not expect. His soul is fed in a totally different manner and rather than an expansion, like he felt on top of the mountain, he now senses a deepness within him he never knew was there. He feels balanced and whole.
He is now sitting on his deck in the early hours of morning and sipping a cup of tea. He ponders the sensations and experiences that seem to expand his soul during his life journey. He sips some tea and realizes he is complete and whole. There is no need to go anywhere or do anything. He feels complete. He is ‘Being’. He is ‘now’. He is whole.
