Speaking from Stillness is a fun series transcribing unscripted thoughts while on morning dog walks in my jungle valley. I walk in stillness, then allow whatever arises to get recorded and transcribed. I try to keep them short. The transcript is lightly edited for clarity.
This Path-walking leads you to a place where you do not identify with your identity. Where a gap, a space, is created between how you have lived your entire life…thinking that you, I, have this identity that you build up and build up over time.
And all is controlled by the brain between your ears, behind your eyes…and you walk through the world acting, acquiring, improving, hoping not to fail too often…searching for your individual, unique purpose. That’s powerful. And the Ego, the Jiva in Vedic terms, creates this identity that we cling to, that we hold on to.
Now, Path-walking to Truth requires a cleaving, a separation, between what is Experiencing…and the identity.
Now, you don’t just wake up one morning and that happens. Well, not always, not often. You don’t just read a book and make it happen. Even understanding the concept does not make it true, because there’s a difference between ‘believing’ that you are not your identity, and ‘Knowing’ you are not your identity.
And you might not fully Know that you are not your identity, but something needs to happen that shakes things up. That makes you think…and this is normal…what happens is you think, ‘Oh my God, maybe I’m not just the my-self, the ‘I’ that I always consider myself to be…perhaps there’s something More’.
I call that moment, that cleaving, that separation, that direct-experience, a Glimpse, and there’s so many different ways a Glimpse can occur.
It could be from reading a certain passage in the perfect book at the perfect time. It could be a piece of art which stops you dead and creates awe. Or architecture. A walk in nature, in the beautiful sunset, where all of a sudden things glimmer. It could be a plant medicine trip.
There could also be a deep darkness and grief which rattles and shakes your foundations to the absolute core. Usually that happens, and then a Glimpse happens after that.
For every person, every path and every experience is different. But what’s important about the Glimpse is, it’s not just a beautiful sunset that you look at and in that moment you go, ‘That was beautiful, I feel one with everything, that’s awesome’...and then it’s dark and you go on with your night.
A Glimpse has imbued in it something profound, something that is different, something that takes you out of the status quo, something that shakes you, and it’s kind of like…if you think about it a month or a year or a decade later, you’re back in that spot. It was that important and that real, and it taught you something. It’s like a great Eureka realization. Even if you don’t know what it’s teaching you, even if you don’t know what it’s pointing to…that’s not important.
The Glimpse lets you know that there’s something More going on than you thought. There’s some other connection. And when that happens, when you do read a text, or you do meditate, or you do get teachings, or you do watch an online video, or listen to someone speak of non-duality.
The Glimpse, where you Know that something is different, even if you don’t Know what it is…that is tilling the soil, that is potentially dropping a seed…or tilling the soil so that a larger seed can drop in sometime later.
Path-walking to Truth requires getting pointed in the direction of Truth.
And Truth is not what we were brought up to believe. And it is not what most people believe.
It is Something New.
I guess the other thing about a Glimpse is…we can’t initiate it. It comes as and when it will.
But if you’re listening to this, and you’ve likely had a Glimpse…you’ve received an invitation to explore, to further till the soil.
And that is the work of Path-walking.
And it’s why I’m blessed to be a Path-finder.
To share some pointings with those who’ve had Glimpses, and are ready to accept the invitation, and explore more.
If you want to support this creative series, you can donate using the link below. All proceeds go directly to feeding the two essential muses…dog food and cacao!
buymeacoffee.com/jay.macgillivray
I am a Pathfinder, and help guide Truth-seekers on their Awakening Path. If this resonates and you’d like to investigate this approach, my website link is below. I’m happy to book a free introductory conversation to share a bit more!
