Geese, Port Meadow, Oxford by Rupert Spira
All spiritual traditions can be distilled into three simple categories: the Progressive Path, the Direct Path and the Pathless Path.
The Progressive Path comprises many paths; there is one Direct Path; and the Pathless Path cannot really be said to be a path.1
The Progressive Path and the Direct Path start with the presumption of separation: the assumption that each of us is a separate self in a world of discrete objects and others. The inevitable consequence of this belief is unhappiness on the inside and conflict on the outside. In response to this belief, the Progressive Path gives the apparent individual something to do, namely, focus on an object: repeat a mantra, pay attention to the breath, practise yoga and so on. These practices gradually purify the body and still the mind as a preparation for its final subsidence in its source.
The second approach, the Direct Path, does not involve focusing on an object. Instead, the apparently separate self is encouraged to investigate the subject of experience, that is, one’s self. This investigation – also known as self-enquiry – is often initiated by a question such as, ‘What is it that knows, or is aware of, my experience?’ The question is not meant to activate the mind but, rather, to encourage it to relax in its source.
Both the Progressive Path and the Direct Path make a compassionate concession to the separate self we seem to be. The Progressive Path says, ‘attend to an object’. The Direct Path says, ‘attend to the subject’. If taken far enough, both approaches culminate with our true nature: awareness, being aware or simply being itself.
The third approach is even less common than the Direct Path. Unlike the first two paths, it does not begin with the presumption of separation. It starts with the understanding of unity and says, ‘simply be’. Beyond that, there is little elaboration, as being needs no spiritual instruction. We simply start with our true nature, and we stay there. Simply being is the origin, the path and the goal. It is for this reason that I refer to this approach as ‘the Pathless Path’.
On the Pathless Path, we don’t make a compassionate concession to the separate self. It is recognised that the separate self is an illusion.2 The underlying attitude is: If the separate self is illusory, why give it something to do? It was in this context that Ramana Maharshi said, ‘Don’t mediate; just be.’
The experience of simply being may not seem like much to the object-knowing mind; however, it is the highest meditation and the ultimate prayer. It is what the Zen masters point to when they say, ‘Show me your original face before you were born.’ It is what Jesus was referring to when he said, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’ It is what the Buddha evoked in his wordless Flower Sermon, in which he simply held up a flower. It is the practice of the presence of God.
Sooner or later, all teachings, pathways and practices dissolve in being. There, there is no teaching, no teacher and no practice. It was this Pathless Path of simply being that Ashtavakra referred to when he said, ‘Happiness belongs to that supremely lazy person for whom even blinking is too much trouble.’
1 By describing these paths, I do not mean to imply that one is better than another. I’m simply drawing a map so you can place your own practice in the context of the great wisdom traditions.
2 To say that the separate self is an illusion does not mean it’s not real; it means that it’s not what it seems to be.
