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Yes... ....with much compassion for the suffering we cause ourselves by our own resistance. Ahhh, to be human.

Yes. I rather simplistic perspective from someone that chose a different path to growth and personal enlightenment. I am reminded of the movie "The Holy Mountain" written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. A group of spiritual seekers walk a grueling trail up a mountain - a metaphor for spiritual seeking. Part way up a young man meets a woman and they decide to marry; he leaves the path up this mountain for a different path. The spiritual teacher and leader of the group tells the young man that he has chosen the shortest but most difficult path to spiritual attainment. Marriage is, if one lets it be, a spiritual path. A path of growth that continuously reflects the true state of our being back to us, if we are willing to look and to see, to listen and to hear. It is a most challenging and rewarding path if one has the fortitude to follow it to its end. One can develop wisdom, equanimity, and true love of the heart with commitment and dedication to the relationship. It is a partnership that can anchor a life in continued growth, if one chooses.

Meditation may or may not provide us with a clear picture of reality. It is likely that it will leave us with less of the limitations of our evolved and cultural filters. As we do live in a reality of our making, it seems that meditation might be most practically applied to the development of a more adaptive ethics, so that, living among one another in all of our delusive glory, we might better get along and find ways to avoid causing one another more suffering than our embodied realities cause on their own.

I appreciate this perspective. Things, and people, are rarely what they seem and the universe of possibilities increases with imagination and intention. I HOPE people will begin to imagine a better world and begin to intend to see it come to pass by believing in their own goodness and taking a perspective of skepticism toward what the world presents as true.

To be clear. Death is only an illusion to the ego. But death is the end of THIS personal consciousness. So best give it our best shot. Surrendering to the oneness that is all life, that is the goal that eases the delusion of loss. Yet, as humans, we experience loss - the most natural recycling of life and consciousness - as greatly painful. So we should. It is in our nature. Let us develop deep compassion for the beautiful beings that we are.

I think it is not so simple. It is not so much that one must identify with their personal traditions in order to be more connected to the universal. It greatly depends upon what one has learned from one's tradition. If the lessons have been about the universality at the heart of all traditions, then great. If not, the particular becomes a crutch for holding up a weak ego, often in today's world with the expectation that others must validate one's identity. With the intention to learn the deepest lessons that most traditions have at their heart, then maybe one can find the joy in one's own tradition, as well as the joy in others' traditions, for the shared connections through compassion, kindness and generosity.

On walking a forested trail, I felt beauty and suddenly realized my eyes were not just mine, but rather those of a conscious universe desiring to experience this beautiful world.