The path of transformation is not as easy path to walk. I know, because I have tried. Over and over again, in fact, I have tried.
For me the issue is not that I have failed to try. Quite the reverse. I have tried and failed.
Yet what does that mean…?
I once had a wonderful, if stern, spiritual teacher at a rigorous training say to me, “Try to untie your shoe.” I reached down and undid the laces. “Dunce!” he said. “I did not ask you to do that! Tie your shoe back up!”
I was puzzled and felt hurt in front of my entire class in initiates. I did as I was told. “Now,” my teacher said again, “Go ahead and try to untie your shoe.” I didn’t know what he wanted me to do. The teacher waited. The class waited. I waited. There was not a sound.
Finally my teacher said, “What is the matter with you? Can you not hear? I said: ‘Try to untie your shoe.’ Are you incapable of following simple instructions?” I reached down and, much more tentatively this time, tugged on a shoelace, pulling out the knot.
“Dunce!” he shouted even louder than before. “I did not say, untie your shoe. I said, try to untie your shoe. Now tie your shoe back up again, and then try to untie it.”
I felt both humiliated and stymied. I bent down in my chair and reached for my shoelaces, but I did not know where he wanted me to go with this. I stopped in mid-motion. I was paralyzed. Kind of like, in my whole life…
My teacher just looked at me. It was a very long moment. Then, nodding, he said, “Please do not tell me that you have ‘tried’ to live a conscious life. You either live a conscious life or you don’t. There is no such thing as ‘trying.’ There is either ‘doing’ or ‘not doing.’ Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said meekly.
“Good. Now untie your shoe. And untie the other. And take them off. And your socks with them.”
I did so.
“Now go and walk a different path, in a new way. And do not try to.” His voice softened. “Do it.”
“Yes,” I responded.
He smiled then, at last. “Blessings on your journey.”