Beloved Students:

I greet you in the light season now present in the Northern Hemisphere, and the dark season now present in the Southern Hemisphere. Just a few days after your Solstice, I hope each of you is rejoicing in the seasonal gift you are now receiving. May your own Solstice experience be a rich experience conducive to your spiritual deepening. May you hold well the gifts of Earth, and may they secure the sacredness of your personal journey into Truth.

Just as you greet each season with the confidence that it knows how to attend to the elements arising within its own parameters, so you must develop a similar confidence in yourself and your journey. This is not to imply that any form of arrogance is helpful, but you have probably realized by now that your doubting mind (particularly when it doubts your work or your motives) is not really your friend. It is, indeed, a positive choice to engage your discernment, for discernment is surely necessary in the application of mindfulness. However, when discernment becomes overshadowed by self-doubt, or the mind presents blocks to your forward progress through over-application of judgmental energy, you lose confidence in yourself, your path, and the fact that others before you have discovered their enlightenment. This forgetting is (or can be) a huge stumbling block and barrier to spiritual progress.

You might want to ask yourself why it seems, at times, so difficult to have an abiding confidence in your spiritual journey. Some believe it is the fact that they are doing the spiritual journey in the world (i.e., not in a monastery or ashram where they feel sheltered from the pressures of being “in” the world). While some aspects of spiritual discipline may be more difficult (because you must impose them on yourself rather than having them imposed upon you by the spiritual community), there is real spiritual value in rising to the occasion. True, in a community of spiritual companions you would have a certain level of personal confrontation just by the fact that you are in the community. Clearly such has its own benefit. But do not overlook the value of what the world offers you, for such has the capacity to reflect back to you the thoughts, words and deeds you create in myriad situations. In truth, doing a spiritual path while functioning effectively in the world is the more difficult way. Such gives you a level of ongoing feedback you could not otherwise attain. In so living, you will face many more diversionary tactics of mind; you will be confronted by many more and varying kinds of relationships, and you will learn to create a mindfulness that is dependent on no outside factor for its presence and application. Additionally, you can measure your personal progress by the way you respond to what Life puts in your lap from multiple directions — sometimes all at once!

There is much value in learning to have confidence in the path itself. I always suggest that you find powerful spiritual examples who, to you, represent wise and sound proof of spiritual success. One of the reasons spiritual aspirants through-out all ages have sought personal teachers is that having the example before you, always in your mind's eye, is a powerful way to garner the personal support you need along the journey. The teacher (who should be farther along the evolutionary path) is able to point out the signposts marking the route to take on the journey. But further, he or she can, through the example of their own life, become the roadmap, as well. Not only can you know where you are going by following a solid example, you can see how far you have come, as well.

Knowing that the One who goes before you has cut through can give you great confidence in the path you are taking. The loving smile of that One can often provide the boost you need to negotiate bumps along the way, or find an escape up and out of the pit you accidentally discovered. You learn how to focus on that smile and see it everywhere before you. It becomes as a beacon in the dark night leading you to find the harbor of grace for which, it seems, you have so long sought. That One not only provides the necessary light to afford you direction, but also welcomes you home when you arrive. Their presence in your life fills you with the confidence you need to overcome the rigors of the difficult passage through the ever-changing, hallucinogenic sea of mind.

Please join me for the month of July in listening to A Path With Confidence, a lecture given early in June for the Denver group. I hope this teaching will inspire each of you deeply to find new life in your path and your relationship with your personal Spiritual Teacher. Such is the greatest gift I can make available to you. Please continue with the meditation given on last month’s lecture CD. May each of you have the fullest measure of Grace you can accept and realize, and may you share it fully with all sentient beings.

Djwhal Khul