A man was living close to a mountain and every day he was thinking, “How would it be to climb that mountain, and what would I see on the peak?” Finally, one day he started the journey. Arriving at the foot of the mountain he met the first traveler, so he asked, “How did you get up the mountain, and what did you see from the top?” The traveler shared his path, and also the view that he had. The man thought “The way that this traveler described to me sounds exhausting. I need to find another way to climb.” So, he continued to walk at the foot of the mountain, until he met the next traveler. Once again, he asked “How did you climb up that mountain, and what did you see from the top?” Once again, the traveler shared his story. Still not determined on which direction, which way to go, the man asked 30 more travelers. When he finished talking to all of them, he finally made up his mind. “Now that so many people already shared with me their path, and what they all saw from the top, I don’t need to climb there anymore.” It is very unfortunate that this man never went on the journey.
There are some lessons to be learned from t his story. One, each individual needs to find the most suitable way to climb that mountain. Two, remember that there is also information to be shared with words. But it is impossible to share the experience of clarity you experience when you are standing on that peak by yourself. To invest the right effort in climbing that peak is what any spiritual practice is about. No one else can do it for you. It is your task, your journey, and yours alone. No one else can do it for you.
Clarity means that you see more clearly. Seeing clearly means you can distinguish for yourself which is the proper direction to take, and which decisions you must make to make your goals and aspirations take shape. I cannot tell you which way to go—it’s just that along your personal journey you will encounter challenges. Those challenges will sometimes prevent you from moving on and climbing that mountain.
In this life we have problems to solve, a journey to undertake. As a parent, as a therapist, and as a friend, I might be tempted to share the template of my journey with others and expect them to learn and grow from what I have learned by my own pain and suffering. I might expect their journey to be the same as mine, expecting that they will learn the same lesson that I learned, only in their own way. It requires patience and wisdom to watch others make their own mistakes, go through their own pain and not tell them that they should simply make progress based on what I have learned for myself.
In my case I had to overcome the difficulties imposed upon me through a strict religious upbringing. That has not been my only task, but it has perhaps been the defining task of my life; my pain, my willingness to be ostracized, my endless agonizing as I traversed the path of making sense of the fact that everything I had ever loved and believed had to be done away with. Thrown on the scrap heap. And then I had to find material to begin again.
I must remember that due to the difficulties imposed upon them by the pain of my journey, those around me may have developed problems of their own that require a journey that appears to be much different than mine. I may look upon them and their difficulties, and say to myself that they are suffering needlessly, for I have already made this journey ahead of them so that they don’t need to. Every one of us has to make our own personal journey. It is the defining task of our lives. It is why we are here. If we try to sidestep it and take a path that does not involve suffering, or to ride on the back of someone who has already been there, we will fail to fulfill any potential that we might have. Abraham Maslow called it “self-actualization.” There is the mythological journey of the philosopher’s stone, and the vision quest. In this context the Philosopher’s Stone is understood as a vehicle for self-transformation—the method by which the alchemical practitioner achieves an integrated wholeness.
In any case, it is a spiritual journey. It requires leaving behind that which is seen with the eyes and perceived with the senses and going inward. It requires leaving the well-traveled path and staggering on alone. Enlightenment awaits those who seek it, but their journey, their enlightenment is theirs and theirs alone. The only thing that we all have in common is that we must make this journey, and we must make it alone. We must find our own way up that mountain and the view when we get to the top will belong only to us!