The Wheel
A circle of stones with special stones defining the four cardinal directions and those stones connected to a center stone with smaller stones like spokes in a wheel. Just another image until we give meaning to the stones and the shape they define. Then it becomes a visual representation of a map that can be used to help us understand and visualize the journey we are on and, specifically, where we are at the present along this continuum. Knowing this, we can consider what the journey ahead will look like and prepare for what we may encounter along the way.
These images can be useful as both reminders and as a means by which we can focus our minds as we contemplate the various places around the wheel. As long as we have a true understanding of what an image embodies relative to the journey we are on, just the sight of it will bring what it represents to mind and thereby aid us in the difficult task of staying mindful in our daily lives. And if we don’t have a true understanding, then all we have is spiritual materialism and some pretty things to look at.
There are many other images that can be useful in this way. The mountain as metaphor, because they are everywhere and we can all understand the concept of being able to see more of what is around you when you attain the level above the one you are. And we all know that the best view is the one from the very top where it is all visible.
This idea of levels is important and can also be found in the image of the chakras as places along the spine as you move from the base to the top of the head. The idea here is that we all begin to experience life based on the courser energies in the first chakra. In order to get to the second chakra, so that we can know life from this higher level, we must be done with the base level so that we can embody the more refined energies of the next higher chakra. And while this does not tell us how to be done with or refine the energy, it does give the thinking mind something to contemplate. With this thinking mind, we can begin to identify these chakras and what it is that defines them.
The only approach we have to any of this is through the use of our thinking minds. But there are no transcendent experiences that can be known by the thinking mind. So, if we remain convinced that we are this thinking mind, then these experiences will forever be beyond us. If I suggest to you that desire is the cause of all suffering, your mind can understand and make sense of these words but no amount of thinking about this idea will ever lead to your not desiring something because it has been suggested that suffering will inevitably be the outcome. After all, getting something you really want has always been your only source of the little piece of the pie you have ever known — a moment of being desireless. But, if you find yourself in a situation where you are experiencing a lot of suffering and have considered the possibility of there being a connection to a desire, then the possibility exists that you will actually be able to identify the desire and see the connection. And If that happens, then the suffering will fall away. It will not be gone because you have figured it out or because you have willed it away. It will be gone because you saw the connection and knew it was real and are changed by this realization. We hang out with the images and think about the ideas because this prepares us for those moments in our lives when the opportunity to connect the dots presents itself.
