While Trying to Engage the Spiritual Answer (I forgot what the question was)

Thirty-two years ago it was "suggested" that if I wanted to save my life - I might well consider seeking a "spiritual answer" to my dilemma. The time frame no longer is referenced to in any way, shape or form, imply that I have accumulated some sort of seniority since embarking on this quest. If anything it might more accurately demarcate the measure of my progress along with the movement of glaciers (though of course those are now disappearing at such a pace that metaphor may be rendered mute) or the return to our solar system various comets. planetary alignments etc.

I was duly afflicted by addiction. A mighty convincing motivator - though there are sadly vast numbers of those that will effectively evade this motivation and thereby secure their right of passage to the "great beyond..." So what, you might quip - we're all going there sometime anyway." True enough, however, though an addicts exit might be seen at its dramatic and cataclysmic conclusion, b more often than not; that (by then) perhaps merciful passage, has been decades of suffering in the making.

So what of this foray into "spirituality?" Some that find their way upon one of its myriad pathways become so over-zealous with their enthusiasm they believe they now have the answer for everyone else - that clearly need this!! Others believe that only the weak, naive & pitiful need consider such measures.

Well I've been weak, naive and pitiful. If I think about it, probably as recently as a handful of hours ago. So I guess I qualify on that front. I've also thought I now had the answer for everyone else; one doesn't have to look far to see humanity seems to be clambering for answers. I have gained much hope - but alas it's quite likely, I'm not "the hope." Maybe the embracing of my "high horse," was necessary to orchestrate "Pride cometh before the fall...." it has offered me that in various forms over the years - I don't know about anyone else's journey, but mine has involved a great many falls (some of them quite spectacular) - you see the nature of my wounds are such, that I needed a multi-layered suite of armour...... cover story after cover story... I suppose still only the one "persona" but the trauma of those early years & the subsequent shit-kicking I kept giving myself trying to numb the pain from that trauma - and then the need to keep that pain at bay - once I had given up "my better living through chemistry approach to life.........

Seriously I've been peeling that fucking onion for all of that 32+ years and so far all I've found is more fucking onion... Is it any wonder I'm in a stew half the time.... I'm onion to the core!!

Are my problems or my pain exceptional? They are of paramount significance to me - but beyond that no they are not. Oh I wanted them to be - surely I've suffered deeply enough to garner a "get out of jail free card..." or better yet life owes me card - ya, hand me one of those on a the biggest silver platter you can muster. Such is fitting and just, for someone of my entitlement!!!

A wrong-o there "Draper, Mason, O'Neill....." will the real Robert John please stand up!!!!!!

Has my journey in quest of inner peace been exceptional. In many ways for sure it has!! But does that make me special ... I'm afraid not. Wanted it too.... felt shitty enough about myself that I hoped it would get me a brownie point or a couple dozen. But there are those that are infinitely more enlightened than me & they have never left their village. Not that this is a competition, nor is there anything wrong with travel.

But while I'm on the topic of travel.... isn't there a lot of Ado made, of visiting "Sacred sites?" I sure tried to get my share of accolades for having done it... Ya know.... if you got a gastro-intestinal bug .... a sacred site is the nearest toilet!!!!

I mean no disrespect to any group and what they hold sacred ... I tried to raise the point in my book that the realizing of the sacred is such an individual and personally significant connection, which I believe could involve most anything...

I have been blessed to travel to many such places.... Having said that, having not known my ancestral origins most of my life and then learning of my Irish heritage - the whole damn island was sacred to me, including all of its inhabitants, the roads, the pedestrian walk signals, the sights, the sounds, the music the garbage in the street - I was there!! Seeing it, living it, bedazzled and befuddled by it ALL!! (not just the places that are deemed "sacred")

A great deal of what was significant about travel for me was for a good portion of my life I was too afraid and insecure to "travel the world..." over time I was "out there..." catching planes, trains, buses ... walking for miles - getting lost and getting found, having mind-blowing experiences and at times making some dodgy choices and subjecting myself to some harrowing and expensive cause & effects.

I even had some unexplainable "other-worldly" kinds of experience ...... I now realize that: a) these don't make me special; b) that they were "road-signs" - not the territory, nor the destination; c) the greatness of it all, had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the Creator; d) that it doesn't matter how many "sacred sites" I visit, if after I've left, I still don't realize the sacred temple of my body, heart and soul; and direct due reverence there, and to that which created it, by doing so.

Lest we forget, for some of what are considered "sacred sites," there is conjecture that human sacrifice took place there.... now that might well have been a sacred rite to the "sacrificer," but how did the "sacrificee" feel about it. There are those that believe it honourable to die for what they "believe" in - while for others, life itself is of irrefutable value.

Maybe my spiritual awakening was - "I don't want to die before my time," (certainly not through self-abuse). Anything I've come to know along the way since that turning point - is meaningless, if all I do with it is create more exclusion/divisiveness, pain and suffering in the world.

I was on the fast-track to hell at one time in my life... through Grace I was given another lease on life; where I access, I'm on the slow boat, to enlightenment. Nothing much to get all haughty about - thought God knows I have.. I'm willing to trust, in the infinite patience and compassion of Great Spirit: it must be, given the breadth & depth of putting it to the test, which occur from the likes of me. I've not been a quick study nor always a willing student. I don't know what I know .. what's more, I don't know, what I don't know.

I have no idea how any of it works - all I know is that I was ready to throw it all away those three some decades ago - so everything I've experienced since then must be a gift - how could it be otherwise?

R. O'Neill (August 20, 2019)