The Dharma Journey

The spiritual journey is a battle between life and death. Death, in this context, is the daily, ongoing process of being lost in the illusions that the collective of dreaming souls produces. The material world, the matrix, appears solid and real and the non-material world appears non-existent.

Life is the awakening process of the soul as it takes tangible insight into the true nature of its existence and the true fabric of the Universe.

For the soul who has made the decision to awaken, a great existential conflict looms at the sentient core of its existence. This conflict at times becomes the raging battle between the forces of shadow and light that easily sets ablaze the stage upon which the sleeping part of the soul pursued a conventional life, thereby continuing its comatose way of being.

Therefore it must be said that the soul's decision for awakening must be rather a daily process of conscious decision and ongoing choice.  Oblivion and forgetfulness - getting lost in the appearances of things - is truly the great enemy of the soul's desire to fly into the sky of liberation. This forgetfulness challenges us daily.

There is within each of us the shadow part that does not want to awaken. Rather it wants to indulge in the play of appearances as a way of establishing externalized expressions that signal superior value to itself and others, thereby supporting the illusion of separation.

For the soul to step back and correctly perceive and witness the shadow's mechanisms is truly a great challenge. To remain a victim of the shadow's immense spectrum of subtle, illusion-based identifications is a high prossibility. As the soul advances, its illusions become much more subtle and harder to trace.

It is in view of that great difficulty that Buddhists activate the Three Gachchamis, wherein they take refuge and ask for help from  the Buddhas, the Sangha and the Dharma. Tibetans in fact have Five Gachchamis. They ask for additional help from the teacher and a protective deity.

To counter the daily subtle influences of our shadow, it is advisable to take refuge and ask for protection and help from the Forces of Light daily.