To get back to this subject. Although it is true that we can be convinced to acquire a taste for something that we have no natural affinity, nonetheless, it is the circumstances when we discover we have a natural affinity for a taste, but did not know it until we went through some process of acquiring.
I was brought up in the city, with no natural exposure to the wilderness. Through my involvement with the Boy Scouts, I began to discover I liked the wilderness - we used to go on camps. I know of many who didn't like it, although I always have the suspicion that with enough exposure, everyone would learn to like the wilderness. Really, though, I doubt that.
Then it was after my experience in the military, when we camped in the jungles for long periods, that I really developed this taste. I eventually chose to leave the city and live in the country, on the edge of the wilderness - I can walk out the back any time, and there's no one there.
Perhaps the best example I know is of my partner Julie's involvement with India. She only went there because I had discovered I loved it - that was no acquired taste. I loved it the moment I set foot in the country.
But Julie at first discovered she disliked it. She was one of those who had to go through the 'threshold' experience of India. On our first trip, she begged me to take her out of that hell-hole and go on a trip to Tasmania. I refused, and there was no way she could get out herself, so she carried on - ups and downs. But it wasn't till right near the end of that three month trip, that as we were about to leave, she realised she had fallen in love with India.
Since then she has become obsessed with India, to the extent of returning to university after ten years absence, just to study India, with the hope that if she did well she would get a scholarship to do a PhD and then maybe a grant to return. And that's exactly what happened. She still reads and watches everything she can get hold of about India - it was a taste she had to travel through an extremely difficult period to acquire.
The Path of Knowledge is also like that. It is an acquired taste. The initial taste we believe we have when we begin is not about the Path at all. It is a belief we have that we have found something that will salvage our pride by the fantasy of thinking we are magical.
It is only after we have been through the ringer, that we begin to learn about what the path is really about.
There are many things we simply cannot know, cannot appreciate, without having travelled a good deal of the road. So often opportunities pass us by, which we have not acquired the receptivity to recognise. We are surrounded by gifts that we do not see because we haven't learnt to value them.
One of these is the appreciation of where we are going.
Imagine you are walking up a valley road. At the bottom of the valley, you can't possibly see where the road is headed, because the valley twists and turns. It is only after some travelling that you reach a point along the path, where a vista reveals itself of the landscape at the head of the valley.
On the Path of Knowledge, when we begin, our heads are filled with bullshit. Fantasies of who we are and where we are going. Believe me the truth is very different.
I say to people, put aside your beliefs and fantasies. Put aside your attitudes of what you like and what you dislike. Put aside your judgements of what is of value and what is not. Put aside your opinions of what is important and what isn't, of who is worthy and who is not, of who is for you and who against.
Stop all this make-believe. There are some people who believe that from the point at where they stand, right here now, the Truth is available to them. So their emotions, feelings, opinions, insights, valuations, are valid, right now. That belief is wrong.
As with acquiring a taste, you did not know you loved a taste, until you had learned, until you had passed through a journey of discovery - of initiation. So too, you do not know now, you cannot trust your assessments or perceptions now, because you have not acquired the necessary prerequisites to receive truth.
Either you are filled with the false values of others, or you have not developed the receptors in your soul, to perceive reality.
There is only one answer - stop your endless make-believe, and work on your practices.
The practices are there - we all know them. They are in books and are explained by those further along the road. By all means attempt to gain correct alignment in your mind, but don't swagger around believing you know what is what, and what you like and what is of value and what isn't. Adopt the fluid and yielding position of possibilities.
Work on removing the draining attitudes from your mind, and work on the exercises. Work on the aspiration, try to understand the longing, seek to penetrate into things, instead of closing them down, wrapping them up and stating your opinion as fact.
The headwaters of the valley stream reveals itself to us slowly, like a furtive deer, it shies away from know-alls, from arrogance and hubris.
Only after having been on the path for many years can anyone begin to acquire the appreciation of those who have travelled ahead of us, and left their cryptic marks. These are precious gifts, and we should hold them with care till we acquire the taste for them.
Acquiring taste is all about the realisation that we do not know ourselves. We do not know Spirit, nor do we know where this road leads. It is about having the humility to leave possibilities open, like containers in our soul. Admit we do not know.
So when we approach our teacher, if we have one, remember that s/he sees a world which for us lies beyond a veil of mist. Our task is to clear the fog from our eyes, from our heart, and instead of seeing mirages in that fog, and taking them for real, we humbly wait till our eyes have cleared.
m.
