We are all, knowingly or not, on a journey.

A journey without beginning or end, a journey that sometimes includes a physical body, sometimes not.

We are all a product of our past, thoughts, actions, words, it cannot be any other way. You did not just appear out of nowhere – as the genie when the lamp was rubbed – but rather the decisions and actions you have taken in the past all contribute to who you believe yourself to be now.

Whether we understand / recognise it or not, we are all headed to an enlightened state. (Eventually!) Whether you understand this or not it has to be a product of where your energy / thoughts have gone in the past. To what have you given your energy, where was your focus?

There are many factors involved of course. To help explain my current understanding I will resort to the stories associated with Gautama Sidharta, who achieved Buddha Consciousness.

IF we believe the stories around his journey, and please remember that this is just a story as you follow my very much simplified ‘story’.

Then Gautama was born into royalty, sheltered from the outside world by a very protective father. Gautama married and had a son before curiosity got the better of him and he wanted to see beyond the palace walls in which he was kept. Why did he have this desire, to see more, to see beyond? His best friend did not share this desire, so why did he feel this way.

Maybe like me, he had an itch, an itch to see beyond, to learn and experience life outside of his upbringing. The question though remains. Why him? Why me? Why not my brother?

To explain my understanding of the why we must continue the story and hope his reasons become clear to you.

According to the story, his not mine, although there are possibly similarities (although I was not born into royalty!). There was a desire for something as yet not known, this desire led him (me) to sneak out of the palace (the family home) to explore the world beyond. Having witnessed a very different world, in Gautama’s case he saw suffering, sickness and disease, old age and death, somethings that had been hidden from him in the palace.(for me a very different world to the one I had grown up in).

This must have triggered something within him, because shortly after this little adventure he set out on a bigger adventure. He left his wife, his child, his family and the safety of the palace to explore a bigger world.

We are told he went in search of the deathless state. I question the accuracy of this statement. I do to believe, that until we actually know, completely, that which we are searching for it remains unknown.when you know, you know, in the meantime we are still lost down a personal rabbit hole.

My comment here, if we can imagine a different state we would be in that different state. We cannot imagine the goal until it manifests before us and we become the goal.

So, the search for something other than the currently known began. According, again, to the stories he was 18 years old when he left the palace and his family.

His life then took many turns as he explored different ways to achieve whatever it was he was looking for.

Eventually he gave up the search, for nothing he had ‘done’ had given him the peace, or whatever, he was looking for. At that moment he gave up the search and the do-ing and simply sat in meditation, thus discovering the ‘middle way’ often referred to in Buddhist teachings. Not this– Not that.

And then, when he was 40 (which, coincidentally, was how old I was when I stopped searching ‘outside’) Mara, the god of illusion sent all sorts of temptations and horrors to the Buddha in his meditation, each designed to lure him, seduce him, frighten him back into the sensory world. No mater what he was confronted by, he remained at peace, not reacting in any way to Mara’s enticements and thus awakened to his true nature, so the story goes.

Now, what took him out of the palace? Why was he on a journey, to find what? Why did he take so long before he just sat under the Bodhi tree. What was the driving force that led him on this journey? (Me too!)

I do believe that what went before is the driving force, a charge that we hold, for whatever reason and a charge that needs to be exhausted. Call this charge karma, or whatever you like really, it is not important.

Now back to me. From an early age I had a strong interest in/ connection to the teachings of the Buddha. Where did that come from? Not my ancestral line that’s for sure.

So, some charge, that must have either carried over from a ‘previous’ existence or, charge aka Karma that existed somewhere that I identified with and brought it into this body, this time. According to Buddhist teachings all is charge, and all charge needs to be expressed, but it can only be released by another body in the physical realm, (this one?)

So, some unknown, unseen charge has been driving me along a path that some might call my ‘destiny;.It appears that for many years ? Up to 40 for me) I was working through charge but as it was not understood as such, I kept adding to the charge by my continual identification with the charge. Very much a sub-conscious process.

Gautama had to work though his remaining charge, up to when he was 40 and realised that the various paths he had been on were not leading to where be thought he needed to go. Then he stopped. BUT, he could only stop when his karmic charge had been fully released, it is the same for each of us, we cannot stop until there is no longer a charge needing to express. All charge must be exhausted.

Recognising that our life unfolds according to whatever charge we still carry (often in the sub-conscious, or as Jung called it ‘our shadow’) we can, again according to whatever went before either continue to identify with the past or begin to consciously release any charge (Clearing!!).

We cannot know what lies before us as we continue to consciously release charge, this is one reason people continue to identify with the past, the future needs to be known for the individual to feel secure. Another reason, of course, is the degree of charge they carry, strong charge means a powerful identification with the story associated with your journey. Less charge equals less attachment or association with your past, always leading into a different future.

When you begin the journey of consciously moving through charge and releasing it instead of adding to it, your reality changes, it must, as, if you are always a-product of what went before, then change this moment (by, for example, developing the ability to accept ,not blame, or judge or take personally, then tomorrow will be a product of today, which is changing.

A very interesting journey, to see how your manifesting reality changes as you let go of the past.