When I was young, I was fascinated by gyroscopes, “a device used to maintain orientation and angular velocity.” I didn’t understand then, but I do now. I’m oriented not just to other men, but to kindness, truthfulness, nature, innocence, gratitude, and to the Spirit/Tao/Higher Power.
Recently, I’ve felt my gyroscope out of balance, both physically and spiritually. The human body maintains its balance through our navigation system, kept in check by the inner ear on both sides. But what is the gyroscope for the soul? What keeps us oriented in the right direction? My friend, Lesley, and I got together for coffee because we were having the same questions.
“What’s going on?” my straight, cisgender, 77-year-old fellow traveler and I asked one another. “Something is going on. What direction are we headed in?”
After 90 minutes, I summarized for us both what I heard us saying.
We want to know who we are. For most of my life, I’ve seen myself through the feedback of others. The same was true for Lesley. But who is Brian?
We both want to end the dramas of judgment that our egos happily encourage.
We know that fame, money, and power are illusory and an unsatisfactory criterion for enlightenment and joy. But what direction is our soul on?
To what degree does our fear of obscurity handcuff us?
Are we afraid of losing the respect of others?
How will we decide if our hunger and thirst for intimacy with our own divinity has been an unnecessary exercise, and that full spiritual awareness will always be beyond our reach?
Neither of us are navel gazers. Our questions don’t create angst; they reflect spiritual hunger. I can tell you an inspired understanding of our shared divinity with Jesus, of our power to do everything God can, but they’re only words until I experience my intimate connection to those powers. I haven’t done that yet, and my gyroscope is telling me that my lack of balance and sense of direction are my hunger for real completion, before I die, with what I know to be true.
It’s comforting to realize that I am one of billions of people throughout human history who have come to the same questions, answers, and efforts to make real what they know to be true about their God Nature. Many stepped away from all the world’s criteria for success – money, power, prestige. We know their names. What did they see? What motivated them to move beyond what their family and friends, holy men, and scholars considered to be the end of the search? Are we complete as is?
Can we walk the path in the midst of turmoil in the world? Yes, that’s how we practice. That and meditation are how we see, understand, and use our powers. The gyroscope of the soul is to have all of one’s life be focused on the present level of awareness and to use one’s life for the common good.
