Exploring Beyond the Rainbow

We spend our days in familiar places, with familiar people, and familiar routines. Actually, we spend our days within the familiarity of our 5 senses, but there are a few of us that may ask and ponder, what lies beyond? Maybe nothing, maybe everything, maybe magic! The spiritually inclined, the journeyer will have their curiosity peaked, but it's more than curiosity, it is a knowing that something quite amazing lies beyond our familiar patterns and we will do anything to explore the world beyond our 5 senses, beyond our familiarity, beyond the rainbow.

This doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with staying indoors, with the familiar routine. The important part is the knowledge that there is something beyond that proverbial rainbow, that knowing will eventually stir them into having to explore beyond that which we know and explore for ourselves if there is truly a “pot of gold” at the end of one of those rainbows!

This inkling to go beyond what is in front of us is what makes all adventurers alike, the same thing is true of the spiritual adventurer, the spiritual adventurer will seek what lies beyond and within consciousness itself! These adventurers may not be so obvious amongst us, but they have been around since the beginning of time and I am sure will continue until the next beginning starts again.

The question is where do they go when they go exploring? What do they find and how do we find our way to them? It is easy with the world explorer, there are pictures and posts and articles and so on reporting back on their explorations around the world, but where are the stories and adventures of the spiritual journeyer as they explore consciousness?

The answer is that they have been here for a very long time, they are in a few great epics of all time. Within the pages of the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada and the Upanishads are some of the oldest stories of these spiritual journeyers and their message of what lies beyond the rainbow, their messages are meant to inform us that there is more to life than the everyday experience of our 5 senses.

The Bhagavad Gita gives us a map and guidebook as to how to be a human being and how to find our way over that rainbow into a land of such immense beauty and perfection we can not even fathom that this glorious place lies deep within ourselves. The Gita gives us a step-by-step overview of how to rise out of our own human demise and offers recommendations as to how to get there, what to bring with us and what to leave behind. It is like our personal guide and will answer all the metaphysical and philosophical questions you may have been pondering about but more importantly, it offers answers to how we should live our lives amongst so many obstacles in this never-ending cycle of life death, and rebirth. Of all of these books, the Gita has been the most life-changing for me and I can not imagine where I would be without it.

The Dharmmapada is a collection of the sayings of the Buddha, which is one of the most famous of these Spiritual Explorers, still here to speak to us from these pages. These sayings are grouped by themes or topics coming together as a sort of field guide. The Dharmmada guides us as we wander through strange lands and supports us on this human journey that is meant to eventually be done alone, it shows us the way but we have to find our way there on our own.

The last of these three epics are The Upanishads. The Upanishads are the oldest. They are a series of stories that seem to be thrown together randomly, giving us glimpses of different states of consciousness at various degrees of development. They will eventually appear to be familiar to the spiritual adventurer when they have reached these peaks and valleys and say, “Oh, yes… I can see now”.

These three books are the messages of those that have gone before us, leaving for us breadcrumbs along the way, with maps and photos and info as to how to reach the same summits that they have reached. Very few have actually made this journey, mostly because no one knew there where maps and directions! Now you do!

These are gifts left to us to show us the way, it is a very long journey but one that is inevitable for us all.

If you have not yet explored any of these books I hope you will be inspired to do so now!

Happy Exploring!

Namaste

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