The Secrets of the Deep

We are like waves rising up from the same great sea, you and I.  We gaze across the surface at one another and we see separate beings, but if we looked just a little bit deeper, we’d see that we’re intertwined – flowing with, merging into, and playing with one another.  We would see that, although we rise up in different forms, in spirit we are all the same.

So easily do we forget these secrets of the deep.  We forget that we are connected, that we are a part of the same, endless ocean.  We forget that we’re pulled by the same underlying tides.  We forget that what we judge in one person’s depths also lurks in our own, and that the beauty of distant crests is our beauty as well.

But the sea is always calling us back, calling us to remember.  It pulls us back into ourselves, beckoning us to dive once more into the sacred knowledge of the deep.

And so we transition between remembering and forgetting, ebbing and flowing, pulling in and rolling back out again.  This waxing and waning is what allows us to keep growing, to keep finding deeper understandings and reaching greater levels of awareness.  Really, it’s what we’re here for.  We’re here to re-learn and remember time after time until we arrive at that point where we understand on every level – in every cubic centimeter of our shared space.  Until we have all awakened together.

The spiritual path isn’t a line, or a circle, or even a spiral.  It’s a sphere.  We don’t approach ultimate truth only once, but neither do we just circle around it over and over.  We are that truth.  Our spirit plays with itself like a poet plays with her words.  Sometimes we look from within, other times we peer back from the outer surface, sometimes we circle around it and come at it from different angles and levels – but through it all we are the very truth we’re exploring.

So forgetting is just a playful part of what we do.  How often we sail along the surface and how often we dive down into the depths matters less than what we do with the time we spend there and how we react to what we find.  When we remember who we really are and what we’re really made of, do we fear the implications and promptly return for air?  Or do we dare to keep diving a little bit deeper?

The idea that we are separate, disconnected beings weaves itself into the fabric of our identities.  It works its way into our subconscious thoughts and our automatic responses; it colors our feelings.  Understanding what it truly means to be interconnected doesn’t happen in one moment of enlightenment.  True understanding takes time.  It reveals itself one wax and wane at a time, each carrying with it different implications, trials, and lessons.

Only by coming back, time and time again, do we begin to learn, not only what it means to be one in spirit, but to live that way.

In those moments of remembering – remembering that we share the same beauty and the same dangers, that we flow with one another, that we are inseparable from each other and from our creator – we have to stay with that truth.  We have to dive down below the surface of separation, and we have to keep going deeper even as the pressure mounts.  We have to allow that rising pressure to challenge our protective gear over and over again before we finally come to terms with the realization that we are those depths we’re exploring, we are that truth we are seeking, we are that god we are calling.

And this can be frightening.  As frightening as the depths of the ocean is to a land-dwelling creature.  It challenges every idea that we cling to about who we are, what we’re capable of, and what we’re made of.  But if we face that challenge, if we stay with it and give it permission to lay with us and whisper secrets to our hearts, it will change us.  It will help us see the world in a different way, think about things in different ways, and feel and create in different ways.  It will help us transition from fear to love, from judgment to compassion, from seeking to being.

The natural ebb and flow of remembering and forgetting isn’t the enemy – it’s a learning tool.  And the spiritual journey is about making the very most of that tool.  It’s about being open enough to understand ourselves in a new way as many times as it’s necessary, and sometimes that means forgetting.  Sometimes, the best way to appreciate the depths is to float up to the shallows for a while.

So don’t be dismayed when you find yourself feeling disconnected from what you thought you knew, don’t doubt yourself when you catch yourself in a moment of judgment or fear, and don’t be afraid of looking at things in a new way, because no matter many times you rise to the surface, the truth of your nature will always call you back into yourself, into the Divine, into ultimate truth once again.  And each time that you find yourself rising again, trust that you’re bringing a little more of that understanding, a little more of the sacred knowledge of the deep, back with you.

©2016 Cristen Rodgers

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