When the journey is as important or valuable as the destination, then we can perhaps say that we have already arrived at the goal, even while still attempting to reach the goal. In spiritual terms it implies that the journey is the destination. On the path of Bhakti Yoga the understanding is that we engage in loving devotional service and the goal or sign of success on the path is to receive more service. So the journey is the goal and vice versa. Therefore I am here now and already always was and will be. There is only here and only now and that is all. Anything else is a hankering or a lamentation about a non-existent reality.
After all, where is the past or the future? They exist only as a memory or a figment of the imagination. They are gone, they do not exist. Trying to attain some goal in the future is great, but it is not as great as the now, or the result of being in the now. If not now then when? This is a popular phrase, often presented as a Zen meditation. Zen and all forms of yoga or meditation is all about being present in the moment, the eternal now.
In fact the brain itself is perfectly content to simply aspire for the goal, even if never reaching it. The brain will release serotonin or dopamine to push us on with attaining the goal. And if we fail to achieve it, then that’s ok because we experienced the meaningful moment of attaining to it. We walked the journey and that in itself was enough to learn from as well as to obtain the brain chemistry rewards. When two sports teams compete, only one wins but both played and relished the attempt at the prize. It was a magnificent journey for both even though only one won, a fun pun.
So although I fail, and lose it all in the attempt, at least I made the attempt, I grappled with the problem and I enjoyed the wrestling with that challenge. I failed to attain anything at the end, in fact I lost it all along the way, but at the end there is only the Way. The goal is part of the way, they are the same. I therefore act without attachment to the results at the end. I am not the doer, simply the modes of nature are doing through me and I observe. If there is some goal to experience, then so be it. If not then the journey is all that there is anyway, along the way, as they say.
Mine is not the goal after all. On the path of transcendence I have no desire, neither for heavenly delights, cessation of suffering, meeting the Architect or Maker. None of that is motivating my journey on the way. It is unmotivated, unconditional, selfless and causeless practice of service and movement along the way toward... Well, toward here. Therefore I stop trying to achieve or aspire or gain a target. There is no need in me or in anyone pushing me. It is all in my mind. I have no controller or boss or hunger. I have no desire. I am simply conscious and I find myself on the way, on the path.
Therefore the wise and realized soul simply puts down any load, drops any pretence, loses any hope of attainment, forgets any expectation of more, or less, and simply ceases to aspire, since there is nothing to aspire toward, or to flee from, or to attain. There is only being here now as an observer. And I am already here, as is every one else. Mind, intelligence and false ego may keep us in the feeling of have and have not, or hunger or pain, but that is fleeting and comes and goes like summer and winter. One simply tolerates without being disturbed. That is the message of Bhagavad Gita, the Sanskrit Vedic guide book for those on the way, for today and all time. It is, after all, timeless. We are the same souls that walked the path in the beginning and who may walk the path at the end. Time is non-existent on this path. To the soul there is neither birth nor death. He or she has not come into being, does not come into being and will not come into being. She is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. She is not slain when the body is slain. Therefore all is already attained, all is present and nothing is lost, ever.
Thanks to Bhagavad Gita I can say this and actually feel it or realize it as I walk the eternal path to nowhere, to here and now. What an ecstatic moment of bliss and celebration as the goal is achieved, for the journey is the goal. The results are not for me to decide and are not important. Only the journey right now is all that matters. Welcome to paradise, welcome to my world, welcome (as Morpheus said to Neo in The Matrix) to the world of the real. Anything other is illusion, theory or speculation.
(image pixabay)