Footprints in the Sand

Any true spiritual insight or realisation leaves no trace in the memory. This is because the quality of the spirit is timeless and can only be realised in the immediacy of the present. What happens is that when people try to hold onto their inner revelations, the purity of spirit is degraded and creates a track of past within the psyche like footprints in the sand.

People love to talk about what happened yesterday, on their holidays, and even what they had for dinner last night. This creates a psychological dependency on the past to provide security for their personality to function in the world. The personality is the face of the self in the world. When someone becomes serious in living their truth, the hold of the personality weakens in the light of diminishing ignorance.

The man or woman begins to emanate a new authenticity through being more conscious and present in their body. Activities once eagerly pursued fail to give the same satisfaction as before. Friends tend to fall away because the personality of the individual is no longer prevalent, which can be both challenging and bewildering to others still attached to the past and the need for emotional stimulation.

Every setback and difficulty encountered which causes emotional pain and suffering is a preparation for a deeper realisation of truth and a step closer to reality. This reality is God which, to our sensory perception of the objective universe, is nothing. When a lover leaves unexpectedly or when hearing the news of the sudden death of someone, the reaction to the discontinuity of life is a state of shock. The spiritual process is the preparation to consciously enter this void, which without right catharsis would instantly obliterate the person and bring about a state of madness.

The motivation of the world is the acquisition of material possessions and the pleasure of sensual experience. We’re taught to revere success and praised for being ambitious and hard-working citizens. There’s a place for such aspirations; but underneath the scramble for worldly recognition is the attachment to achievements and the fear of loss of what’s been gained. To realise God an individual cannot be engaged in gathering experience by driving into the world as before. He or she continues to participate in the activities of ordinary living, but without the attachment to any expectations of the world to affirm their sense of existence.

The footprints in the sand are eroded through the waves of consciousness. One by one the indents of past experience are retraced and purified in each living sequence of the life’s journey. These lead all the way back to the womb and beyond to the moment of eternity. This is the moment of God when all is lost and there in the reflection of inner space ‘I am’.

What happens next? There is nothing to perceive, not even the footprints in the sand. And yet something extraordinary remains. This is freedom, the pure knowledge of reality or God, but without knowing or need for reference to the past. The footprints were the path on the journey back through life to the beginning which has no end.