For most journeys, the further we go, the shorter the distance remaining to the destination: the more we eat of our meal, the less there is to be eaten; the more chapters we read of a novel, the fewer pages remain unread; the more years we study, the closer looms our Ph.D.
With meditation and the spiritual life, the further we go, the further we discover there is yet to go…
Imagine growing up in a little village in a valley surrounded by hills. One day you set out to climb to the highest point in your world – a nearby ridge. Upon reaching the crest of the ridge, your view opens up and voilà, there is another, higher range of hills beyond the next valley – hills you never knew existed. And so on it goes: only when you reach each new summit does the next level reveal itself.
In the spiritual realm, everything is constantly transcending. As we soar in silence within, beyond our limited and limiting mental conceptions, not only do our capacities, our world-view and self-understanding continually transcend, so too our goals and aspirations. Whatever goals we set out to reach at the commencement of our journey, are continually replaced by ever higher, vaster and fuller goals, goals we previously could never have imagined.
We would be disheartened to know that an outer goal we have been striving for is actually a false ending; that the novel we are reading has infinite pages, our Ph.D. is an eternity away, or this marathon has no finish line.
Yet in our spiritual journey, the further we go and the more we discover there is yet to go, the better, richer, sweeter and brighter everything perpetually becomes, as we grow ever younger in intensifying thrill of oneness-wonder.