We Can All Be Gurus
It's possible for every single one of us. Let us explain...
As I emerged from the shattered debris around me from my first marriage disintegrating, I began on my spiritual journey inwards. I had always wondered since childhood about why are we here? What are we here for? What is life really about? But Id never really put any effort into really trying to find out. Having the security of my average suburban married 2.2 life world ripped out from underneath me changed all that overnight.
Shortly after, while walking through a department store one day with my daughter, she ran off into a children’s book section and I followed her. As I walked in my eyes met face to face with a book on the shelves which was clearly out of place, and definitely not a children’s book. I was drawn over to it and picked it up and it was titled "Five Stages of the Soul". I read the synopsis on the back and it said the book was about how we have major life crises thrust upon us in middle age for a reason, and how the these crises are sent to awaken us spiritually. Or at least challenge us to awaken. The choice is ours. Some people just don`t hear it and carry on. I had to buy the book. I started reading it and couldn`t put it down. I read it as fast as I could. It explained so much for me, of exactly what was happening to me at that point in time. I t was pure synchronicity. It was a wakeup call. All those things I had been thinking of doing for years and eon nothing about I needed to actually get out there and follow them and see where they lead me. I was open, so I got the message.
During the following years I went to astrologers and had my birth chart done, I had tarot readings, saw mediums and read any books that seemed to jump out at me somewhere and demand my attention. I never chased them down, but when one came to me somehow, maybe through a recommendation from a friend who I would only be in my life for a month or two, or by stumbling across an advert or online, I would see it as a door opening and I would step through it to see where it would lead. One would lead to another and everything seemed to fit together and be happening in a sequence. Each one I would ponder, dissect and digest what they meant, the same as I had done all my life, only I was adding more and more pieces to the giant interwoven tapestry of life we live in. It’s not a science, it’s energy, and we each have to feel what resonates with each of us and follow it.
As time went on, and I read, looked and listened more and more, I started to regularly come across mentions of some of the great mystical teachers, such as Buddha, Gandhi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Dalai Lama, and so on. I would hear or read about Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, monks undertaking vows of silence for years at a time, sexual abstinence, the removal of materialism and personal possessions, of those dedicating their lives 100% to working on their inner self, and so on. I would wonder, do we have to give up our western lifestyles and move to the east, wear robes and meditate on mountain tops to grow spiritually and achieve enlightenment? Is that what it takes to find our real Self? Do we have to reject our lives, family, jobs, commitments and head East in a robe and sandals? That’s what many enlightened spirits or spiritual masters and `gurus` seem to have done, or be doing, to become truly enlightened. I couldn’t see that ever happening for me, or most people in our society around me, so did that mean we were never going to be able to achieve spiritual enlightenment in this life? Why bother at all then? Should I just give up? Or should I get rid of everything I owe and buy a one way ticket to Tibet?
You can`t deny what’s inside you, and if you feel compelled, driven, to follow a certain path, there is reason behind it, and so you really should listen and follow it. So I did. I continued on my own personal spiritual journey, meandering to the left and to the right, as well as going to work (often in a variety of banks - one of the most unspiritual places on earth), being a father, paying bills, going shopping, cleaning the bathrooms, worrying about that squeaking noise on the car, I`m sure most of you know how it goes.
I carried on, another permanent relationship that finished badly, followed by another marriage, that broke up badly, left me feeling like I was heading in totally the opposite direction spiritually. That was three or four long term relationships that had failed, In each one I had given all the love I could, had always put others first, my partner, her children, given what I had to give, time, money, effort, help, kindness, empathy, love and yet when they failed, I was labeled with the most derogatory terminology by supposed loved ones.
It`s very tempting at that point to just become bitter. How can you try so hard, be so empathetic, and yet end up being ruthlessly attacked? I hit absolute rock bottom. I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I was over marriage, relationships and definitely ever living with a woman again. I believed the poisonous attacks on me by my ex’s, and some of their adult children, and thought I shouldn’t ever inflict me on any other women or their families again. So I totally withdrew and just focused on looking after my daughter.
Then Claire came crashing into my life. Our connection was so deep, so instant and so perfect in absolutely every way, it had a life of it`s own and all the caution I had been living with just went straight out the window. Almost immediately we were joking about being so similar, in every way, it was as though we were twins. Then Claire found all this information online about Twin Flames, which I’d never heard of before at all. The more we read the more it matched what we were experiencing. I found it really really hard to accept it could even be possible, given how I had been bashed in previous relationships.
Before Claire appeared I had booked to see a Spiritual Counsellor Medium called Christine. About a week after Claire and I connected my appointment came around and I went to see Christine. I found her through the internet, and didn’t tell her anything about my life, past, or present and so she knew nothing about me or my life at all. After a slow start she suddenly told me I had just met the one. I just looked puzzled. She explained, ‘The One’ I was destined to meet all my life, and I was The One for her. She said this woman was my ‘twin flame’, and I would finally be happy now, as she pointed to pictures on the wall. There was a big picture of a flame on opposite walls of the room, and she said she was with her twin flame, and now I would be too, and was so happy for us both.
Christine had me turn 3 cards over. The first one simply said “Wholeness”. I said what does that mean? She laughed and said it means you’re Whole. We had a little chat and I told Christine a little bit about my previous relationships and how viciously disastrously they had ended. She said “Mark, it wasn’t you. They were the ones with the issues. You’ve been Whole for a long time and don’t realise it”. (I still don’t think I am, not ever will, but that’s what happened)
As I drove home, my head was awash with what had been said. Over the following days and weeks, I reviewed and relived many incidents from the past, incidents that I had been attacked over. Incidents where at the time I was sure at the time I’d done no wrong, but where I’d been attacked so hard by others, I would just give in for the sake of peace. Suddenly I could see with so many of them, I wasn’t the one with the problem, they were their issues and they had projected them onto me to avoid having to look at themselves. It was utterly liberating.
Then I had an epiphany.
I realised you DON’T have to be a Buddhist monk sitting on a mountain meditating to become whole, or spiritually enlightened. It is much much simpler than that, and it is achievable by all of us. All it requires is to choose Love, over Fear. To rid yourself of Ego. To not care about how much money you have in the bank, what car you drive, what the label is on the clothes you wear, or how big your house is. To care about others. To share whatever you have with them. To be empathetic, and consider how you, and your actions, affect their lives. To give to others and do for them, just to help make their lives better, easier, without any expectations back. To care about all nature and all animals and respect that they all have an equal right to life here on this planet, just as much as we do. To be honest and have integrity in our dealings with others, to not lie, cheat, deceive, omit (!) or steal. They are all really basic behaviours available to everyone on the planet. All of us can choose them, at any time we want to. We can choose to live that way right now! To choose Love and respect others, animals and everything on our entire planet. We can choose to Be that way. And when you do, you become Whole. You become spiritually enlightened. You become Love. It is there right now for any of us that choose to do so.
And so we can all to be ‘gurus’, we just have to choose Love all the time. And that is all we are here for.