The New Explorers

The New Explorers

I’ve read a lot of books, but these days I mostly just cycle through Michael Brown, Eckhart Tolle and Gangaji. The same books, over and over, speaking new words every time - each from his or her perspective.

Other authors get my thinking mind too involved – with these three it is like what they are saying skips over the mind like a rock on a smooth pool of water – and doesn’t stop till it reaches the other shore.

It must be wonderful to put words together like that, in that way that goes right to the reader’s heart. It must be a thrill to be a spiritual explorer who inspires others to follow them into the mysterious paths of life.

It is easy to consider people like these as the equivalent of Lewis and Clark, charting out strange new lands that everyone else reads about in the newspaper with sighs of astonishment, trying to visualize what this or that thing might really look like.

There is a Hindu Fable about six blind men who go to “see” an elephant.

The first approached the elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! But the elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The other four blind men conclude the elephant is like a tree, a fan, a rope and a snake. So each of the six forms an opinion that is both right and wrong, correct but incomplete.

But what about considering something larger than an elephant, such as the universe - or the emerging consciousness of mankind?

I suspect that every person who sets forth on the journey of inner discovery and revelation has something unique and valuable to contribute, by which others can be benefited. They may see part of the picture, but the picture is infinite - so there is plenty of room for an infinite number of descriptions.

No doubt there are as many potential explorers and consequent inspirational messages as human souls. And that is exciting.