Rays to the Sun

Every religion, theology, and philosophy that we want to imagine, are all rays to the sun. They are all rays! Depending on where we were born, who our parents are, what traditions we were raised with, which neighborhood we live in, whom we speak to and where we happen to be, we catch a ray. And it either takes us somewhere or it doesn’t.

But eventually we’ve got to get off the ray.

One of the wisest things that Ram Das ever said about this has to do with traveling. Let’s pretend that we wanted to go from Los Angeles to New York. So, we caught a plane. And the plane served us very well. It took us to New Yorkquickly. But once we’ve arrived in New York and we go to Manhattan what are we going to do with this airplane? We are going to leave it at the airport! We are not going to carry this airplane on our shoulders walking around in Manhattan. We have to thank the airplane for taking us to New York, but once we’ve arrived in New York, the plane stays at the airport.

If we want to follow a particular tradition, we follow it.

And if we arrive some place, we leave it.

We thank it, but we leave it.

But many beings never leave the tradition. One reason they don’t leave the tradition is because they get engulfed by the politics, the fame, and the importance of the tradition. Perhaps they have elevated themselves by being good members of the tradition. Then of course, there are the social aspects of tradition which we don’t have here.

All this stuff goes together. When we have a tradition, we have an institution that has been there forever. We get to see many other people who think and feel the same way that we do and it gives us comfort. To stay with that tradition gives us strength as opposed to standing alone.

It is tough being a loner.

But even though we are loners, it doesn’t mean that we are alone. This is the difference. A lot of these things eventually have to be given up.

So I think of satsang as a place for beings

who not only want to be here

but also are ready to be here.

This is a place that is beyond all traditions,

beyond all definitions, beyond all thoughts,

beyond all concepts, beyond all rights and wrongs.

Eventually we see within our own hearts

that it is fun knowing all these different things

but that true knowledge is in a place

of not knowing anything with such rigidity.