Don't fall for "isms"

When I met my mentor at 17 and began to learn from him, he constantly challenged all my preconceived notions about metaphysics, morality, and genuine spiritual inquiry. He prodded and pressed on my most cherished views of reality and urged me to go further and never stop growing in my understanding, avoiding the "isms and schisms" of traditional religious ideologies which always create confusion, doubt, and seek to solidify truth to a narrow set of ideas.

The genuine seeker must always find the "absolute truth" of life, or risk falling for a limited view disconnected from reality, or worse becoming locked into an ideology which actually takes over one's life and makes choices for you.

In that vein, I'd like to share a few points on navigating the quest for truth that should allow you to genuinely appreciate the challenge of curiously testing your views, in order to find a truth closer to the "Absolute"

• Faith: In order to make any progress towards realizing the "absolute truth", you have to allow yourself to make the "assumption" that such a truth exists and that by certain physical, emotional, thought-based, judgement evaluating, and identity testing exercises, one can actually find a truth which is all-encompassing and absolute. This is essentially faith in its early stages and after successive revelation becomes knowledge. 
• Untying Ego: The next crucial practice is to disassociate your ego from your views, assumptions, and ideas. This is very important for smoothly transitioning from a faulty view to a progressively more accurate one. Learning a new view which counter-acts an opinion or idea that you have attached ego to is a painful process which can destabilize your perceptions of yourself and your reality. This is generally why people are so resistant to changing their opinions, it is downright terrifying. Akin to a little death.
• Self-evident: The last tip I have for you, is to never stop searching until you've found the "self-evident" truth which holds up to every amount of scrutiny and transcends limited expression or language. That truth must tell itself, without the preference or bias of your individual desire and ego. It must transcend labels and symbol but still show itself in an obvious way.

                                  A parabolic illustration

The king Satyavratra(the vow of adherence to truth personified) found the Avatar of Vishnu named Matsya who took the form of a small fish. Matsya in this story represents the absolute truth, and satyavrata is that person who is entirely devoted to that quest to accommodate the truth. The story goes that when he found Matsya, he was only a small fish and fit into a small bowl. The next day, however, Matsya had grown considerably and now was too big for his vessel.  The king then placed him in a small pond. Once again, the next day, the king found that Matsya had outgrown even the pond and needed to be moved to a lake. The next day to an ocean...At this point, the tale goes that Matsya informs Satyavrata that the great inundation of the planet was set to occur and that Satyavrata should build a large boat and fix the boat to the horn on Matsyas forehead with the great serpent Vasuki(the pursuit of happiness personified as a serpent)
Satyavrata, along with the Seven Rsis(The greatest mystics in all vedic mythology, who are responsible for teachings Dharma and knowledge) then ride out the dissolution guided by Matsya. 

This story  is a parable which tells about how any man or woman(Satyavrata) may navigate the quagmire that is life, akin to a dangerous ocean with many disastrous and threatening forces, by riding in the boat crafted by the great seers(Dharma) and fixing ones pursuit of happiness(The serpent vasuki) to the Truth(Matsya).
The thing about the truth is that it is always expanding so one must make effort to continually accommodate it in one's life, lest it actually be lost entirely and you may succumb to various impostor half-truths, dangerous ideologies, and dogmas.

If you end up there, it may take you a long time to recognize, and turn your course towards the only true guide, the "Absolute truth".

I hope this sheds a little light on avoiding the "isms and schisms" of belief and ideology, a dangerous pitfall for any sincere seeker.

That's' all for today, Thanks for stopping by!

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