The Spiral Path

[silent thunder]

Was recently asked the question: what is the goal of your spiritual path?

 

My pat answer is 'enlightenment'. Which is wholly unsatisfying to me these days. It is like a sound byte I've regurgitated from some Saturday morning talk show. What does it mean?

 

When I thought about it a bit more I refined it into more practical terms.

I want to heal the old pains I still hold onto. I want to be more open and loving and aware.

I want to release those things that hinder loving kindness and inhibit greater awareness.

 

Awareness is the most tangible thing I could point to in my pursuit of a spiritual path. I want to expand my awareness and simultaneously pinpoint and anchor it deep within. And then a strong mental image blared in my head. A spiral path along a toroidal sphere.

As above, so below

 

I've always been obsessed with spirals. When viewed from above, or head on, they look like a circle. When viewed from outside, they are ascending or descending, depending on the perspective.

 

In my new understanding, I see my path as this spiral along a toroidal sphere. The sphere represents my awareness and as I transverse it, it expands and contracts in a natural cycle. Oscillating energy outward and upward, then inward and down. Like waves, as they grow when they arrive at the point of highest extension/yang, then duality is expressed and the weight of the wave, the force of its excessive yang tumbles into its opposite/yin and the wave softens and yields to the conditions around it striking balance. A drawn bow settles in balance, this is one expression of the energy of Tao.

 

My own path follows a natural cycle. Periods of growth (learning, seeking), upward and outward and then a natural retreat, into solitude and introspection. Discovery, adaption and synthesis leading to greater awareness, which triggers in me a desire to reach out again with this new awareness to look at all I saw before with new eyes and before I know it, I'm back, expanding outward, reaching out and exploring again.

Although it can appear to be redundant and repetitive, I have not found this to be the case. Each trip around the sphere results in another aspect of awareness. The work is cumulative. One analogy I like is the ball. If I experience a ping pong size awareness and I read a book or have a conversation, I will have a ping pong ball sized understanding. If I experience a planet sized awareness...

 

Much like working through emotional problems, it can feel like we are repeating the same cycles over again and simply reliving the past. But I have found similarly, that this is also cumulative, at least in the context of actual spiritual introspection and work. If you are really pursuing to experience the source of your suffering, you will peel layers of the built up injury over time. Much like an onion is peeled. It will often feel like you've done this so many times before, why am I still here? Am I making no progress? etc...

In my experience I have found that I was not simply spinning in place, but peeling the many layers that built up over time. I have experienced in a couple areas of my life, peeling the onion to its core and finding nothing. The story I was carrying, I realized after peeling enough away, was a story that no longer applied to me. Dropping that emotional baggage was then as easy as dropping a heavy bag at the airport.

My path is beautifully spiraled. Cyclical and cumulative, leading to a more natural, open and loving awareness of life.

 

Think it might be time for me to ask my teacher to introduce me to Bagua.

 

edit: add pics

Edited February 8, 2014 by silent thunder

[zerostao]

[adept]

 

Is that a native symbol zerostao ?

[silent thunder]

Outstanding!

[adept]

Spirals and sacred geometry, especially in nature, are a fascination of mine. Everything about them seems so naturally formed, without the use of any excess force. Only the Dao in action.

[silent thunder]

Spirals and sacred geometry, especially in nature, are a fascination of mine. Everything about them seems so naturally formed, without the use of any excess force. Only the Dao in action.

 

Totally. A natural expression, effortless as water flowing. Nature follows Tao.

[zerostao]

it is a native american symbol, but it looks baguazhang doesnt it?

i have been doing some comparative research between some native american motifs, practices

and baguazhang for close to 5 years. the parallels continue to fascinate me.

the spiral is very primal

[adept]

.

Edited February 5, 2014 by adept

[Wells]

Spirals and sacred geometry, especially in nature, are a fascination of mine. Everything about them seems so naturally formed, without the use of any excess force. Only the Dao in action.

 

[silent thunder]

I freaking love that movie.

[nestentrie]

I freaking love that movie.

 

Same.

[3bob]

I believe there is a tie in with the ancient swastika symbol, which by the way can have either a right or left hand turning depiction just as spirals can have a left or right hand turning depiction.

 

(but I'm very rusty on symbol studies)

[silent thunder]

toroidal shifting field of awareness.

internal expansion merging with external contraction

simultaneous progressive repetition

 

heart field awareness

 

 

 

 

[3bob]

"...Time is the measure of motion. If we represent time by a line, then the only line which will satisfy all the demands of time will be a spiral. A spiral is a " three dimensional line ", so to speak, that is, a line which requires three coordinates for its construction and designation. The three-dimensionality of time is completely analogous to the three dimensionality of space. We do not measure space by cubes; we measure it linearly in different directions, and we do exactly the same with time, although in time we can measure only two coordinates out of three, namely the duration and the velocity; the direction of time for us is not a quantity but an absolute condition. Another difference is that in regard to space we realize that we are dealing with a three-dimensional continuum, whereas in regard to time we do not realize it. But, as has been said already, if we attempt to unite the three coordinates of time into one whole, we shall obtain a spiral.

 

This explains at once why the " fourth coordinate " is insufficient to describe time. Although it is admitted to be a curved line, its curvature remains undefined. Only three coordinates, or the " three-dimensional line ", that is, the spiral, give an adequate description of time. The three-dimensionality of time explains many phenomena which have hitherto remained incomprehensible, and makes unnecessary most of the elaborate hypotheses and suppositions which have been indispensable in the attempts to squeeze the universe into the boundaries of a three or even four-dimensional continuum.

This also explains the failure of relativism to give a comprehensible form to its explanations. Excessive complexity in any construction is always the result of something having been omitted or wrongly taken at the outset. The cause of the complexity in this case lies in the above-mentioned impossibility of squeezing the universe into the boundaries of a three-dimensional or four-dimensional continuum. If we try to regard three-dimensional space as two-dimensional and to explain all physical phenomena as occurring on a surface, several further " principles of relativity " will be required.

The three dimensions of time can be regarded as the continuation of the dimensions of space, i.e. as the " fourth ", the " fifth " and the " sixth" dimensions of space. A " six-dimensional" space is undoubtedly a " Euclidean continuum ", but of properties and forms totally incomprehensible to us. The six-dimensional form of a body is inconceivable for us, and if we were able to apprehend it with our senses we should undoubtedly see and feel it as three-dimensional. Three-dimensionality is a function of our senses. Time is the boundary of our senses. Six-dimensional space is reality, the world as it is. This reality we perceive only through the slit of our senses, touch and vision, and define as three-dimensional space, ascribing to it Euclidean properties. Every six-dimensional body becomes for us a three-dimensional body existing in time, and the properties of the fifth and the sixth dimensions remain for us imperceptible.

 

Six dimensions constitute a " period ", beyond which there can be nothing except the repetition of the same period on a different scale. The period of dimensions is limited at one end by the point, and at the other end by infinity of space multiplied by infinity of time, which in ancient symbolism was represented by two intersecting triangles, or a six-pointed star...."

 

From: "A New Model of the Universe" around page 433 in the pdf form

[silent thunder]

[silent thunder]

My son likes to make up riddles.

 

How can I go to sleep in my room, wake up in my room and not be in the same place?

 

My answer was... The Spiral Path.

[silent thunder]

His answer was...

 

"I'm not in the same place because the earth moves while I sleep."

 

to which I replied...

 

"my answer accounted for that...."

 

him *squint*  well played old man... well played

[silent thunder]

“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards.

The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”

― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

[Limahong]

On 2/6/2014 at 2:11 AM, silent thunder said:

I want to expand my awareness and simultaneously pinpoint and anchor it deep within. And then a strong mental image blared in my head.

 

Hi Creighton,

 

 

Spirals of Consciousness

Personal and collective evolution move along a spiral.

For understanding matters I’ll address it as if it was going up and down even...

if it is definitely not a linear spiral and up and down have no sense out of a space-time continuum.

 

Gillian Grannum

 

 

 

- Anand

 

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Limahong
Enhancement