I hear many people tell me that they are on a spiritual path. When I ask them where their spiritual path is taking them, almost all of them have either no clear answer or they waffle on about peace and love which tells me that they have no clue of their destination.
When someone says to you “I’m going to France for my summer holidays,” you may respond by asking them, “Where in France are you going to?”. More often than always, you will get an answer such as “We will be in Nice for 3-days, then in Gordes for a week before finishing up our trip in Paris for 9 days.” That’s having clarity of your destination.
When you waffle on for 5-minutes about peace and love, and being happy as a response to the question “Where is your spiritual path taking you?”, it tells me you have no clarity of your destination.
Unless you are going on an adventurous, undefined road trip, you never get on a freeway and drive endlessly, do you? You want to know your destination so that you can then get on the path that takes you there.
The spiritual path is no different. The spiritual path is not a coddiwomple journey. You need to know your destination. It needs to be crystal clear to you. This is where you need to begin in your spiritual quest - defining your destination.
This then brings me to the group of people that love to say “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”. The people who say this are the people who have no idea where they are going. It’s also the group of people that like to repeat quotes without actually thinking it through because it sounds nice or wise when you say it.
Well, it’s actually about both. The journey and the destination. The destination is equally important. Why? Because if your destination is the dumpster then your journey there is going to be pretty crappy.
Every path takes you somewhere. The question is where is it taking you, and are you going to be happy when you get there and discover where you are? It would really suck if you got to the destination and you utterly despised where you are, and then thought “Well, I suppose I took the wrong path!” Then you would realize it wasn't just about the journey but the destination mattered as well.
The journey becomes enjoyable and something to savor and experience when it is a journey that is taking you down the path to a destination you want to get to.
The destination defines the journey.
It’s best to reverse engineer your spiritual quest. Be clear of the destination or the goal then figure out the path to get there. And if you can’t figure out the path to get there then ask someone who has the same goal as you, who is either further down the path or has already got to the destination and can outline the path for you.
