Ram Dass, the Henro

These words from the wonderful being known as Ram Dass. From a recording i have called "Spiritual Journey."

He's talking about the internal journey, but since that's how i see the walk around the henro trail, these words speak directly to Shikoku.

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"… And just as in any journey, some people have dropped along the way; said, well, i think i’ve gone far enough for this round. Others have been waiting for us to catch up.

 

"The journey passes through…degrees of faith. And often we only know that we have been at a certain place when we pass beyond it, because when we’re in it we don’t have the perspective to know because we are only being.

 

"But as the journey progresses, less and less do you need to know, the faith is strong enough so it is sufficient to be.

 

"It’s a journey toward simplicity. It’s a journey toward quietness. It’s a journey toward a kind of joy that is not in time. It’s a journey out of time.

 

"It’s a journey leaving behind every model we’ve had of who we are. It’s a journey that involves the transformation of our being such that our thinking mind becomes our servant rather than our master.

 

"It’s a journey that’s taken us from primary identification with our body, through identification with our psyche, ultimately to an identification with our soul, and finally with an identification with God.

 

…

 

"Often there has been a lot of confusion, thinking the end was reached when it was merely the first mountain peak we were looking toward, which hid all the higher mountains in the distance.

 

"For many of us we got so enamored with the experiences we’ve had along the way, … that we couldn’t imagine anything beyond them. But isn’t it really a good journey that at every stage of the journey you can’t imagine beyond it? So that every point you reach is so much beyond everything you’ve had until then that your perception is full of it. You can’t see anything else but the experience itself.

 

…

 

"At what point in the journey do you begin to suspect that your model of life is just another model?"

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I love these words and have listened to the recording many, many more times than i can count.