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Mindful monologues to awaken your consciousness and nourish your soul.
In this introspective podcast, I aim offer you heartfelt rumination to inspire your own growth and self-discovery.
Are you seeking deeper meaning, truth, purpose or peace in your life? Join me as I unfold observations and awareness along the spiritual path - what I have learned, struggled with, found insight into.
Let these moving soliloquies gently prompt self-inquiry as you contemplate the deeper questions we all face: why do you suffer? How can you cultivate more inner calm and wisdom?
There is no dogma here, only my pondering as I illuminate and ponder our shared experiences living.
My hope is that by modeling raw exploration rooted in courageously questioning “why?”, these thoughtful meanderings awaken self-understanding and nourish your soul.
Consider these unconventional audio journal entries as a way to inspire and awaken your own internal wise teacher, taking your hand to guide you in looking within your own mysterious inner landscape in a new way. Feel less alone. Find inspiration to expand your self-awareness and consciousness with me each week.
The Union Path Podcast
"A Life We Believe and Believe In"
Transcript:
John Coleman 0:00:20
I think we all want to live a full life. I think we all want to live a life that feels like ours, that feels like us, that feels comfortable, that feels right, that feels like on some way was made for us. And in the same vein, we continue making it for ourselves. It's like a set of clothes that not only fits our body but fits our sense of style, fits our taste. Feels like who we really are. Feels like an expression of who and what we really are. And it's this idea that I think is worthy of spending some time on this idea of truth, this idea of belief and how they really have to be coordinated. They really have to be cooperative to one another because it's not inherently so that everything we believe is the truth. In fact, we have lots of beliefs and some of them are often being challenged, some of the are often being modified. Some of them are often being let go completely and new ones adopted in their place. But in order to live a full life, in order to live the life I believe all of us are really looking for, that life really needs to be grounded in truth, needs to be based in truth. Because ultimately, why do we endeavor after things like spiritual awareness or spiritual learning in the first place? Why don't we just stop at accepting that the physical world, that material existence, material reality is really all there is? Well, I would say it's because we have an inclination, we have a hunch, we have a suspicion that there's more going on than merely the physical more going on than merely atoms randomly crashing into each other, more going on than just the growth and decay of physical experience as we witness it. There has to be more to it.
John Coleman 0:02:33
There has to be more of a reason. There has to be more meaning. There has to be something else above and beyond merely the physical, material layer of life. So I think we ask these questions or I think these questions are presented to us because there's a part of us that wants the truth. There's a part of us that craves the truth. Perhaps there's part of us that already knows the truth and is trying to get the rest of us to catch up. The rest of us to get wise to what it already knows. To what perhaps we already knew before we came here, before we inhabited these physical bodies, before we embarked on this life journey that we're currently on. At the very least, we start down the spiritual path because we just want more. We're somehow dissatisfied. We're somehow still hungry for something, still thirsty for something. There's still an unmet need, unmet desire. We're not really whole. And oftentimes we get to this place because we've tried everything we can think of in our physical, material existence to fill this hole. And nothing really ever gets there nothing really ever really scratches.
John Coleman 0:03:52
That itch. We're never really satiated. The rumblings of hunger endure. They endure and the lead us forward, the call us on. They beckon us to endeavor after a life of more. A life of more knowing, a life of more richness, a life of deeper experience, a life of deeper connection, a life of wholeness. And when we seek a life of wholeness I think we automatically are led to seeking truth. Because just like truth can only exist in its whole form, wholeness can only exist in truth as well. What I mean by that is that if we think about something being a half truth, about something being almost right these are logical ideas but I don't think they're actually real. In my opinion, in my experience anyway, truth only exists as the whole truth. Now there are truths that definitely expand. We can latch onto something, we can latch onto some truth, we can sit with it, we can explore it, we can live with it and watch it expand and grow. Witness how it's much bigger, it's much deeper, it's much more meaningful than we thought it was. But if we're perceiving something as a partial truth, as a half truth, then we're also perceiving something as partially untrue, half not true. Into my experience, to my way of thinking, that's not truth, that's a milestone.
John Coleman 0:05:45
That's a wayfinder on our way to truth. That's an awareness that's continuing us on, knowing that incompleteness isn't good enough. That what we want is the whole thing that will never be satisfied with partials. Or at the very least, when something is partial, it is partially negated as well. It's being canceled out by its opposite. And for truth its opposite is anything that is untrue, anything that is not true. And so we can see the conflict right there. We can see how truth either is or isn't. And anything that isn't true, it's canceling out what is or at the very least is not working with what is. And so when we set out to craft and to live a full life, a life that is fully ours, a life that feels good, a life that fits, it's important to live a life we actually believe that is, we engage in the self awareness to look at all the areas where deception or untruth might be present. This can be a very difficult task, it can be a very grueling task. Especially if we've lived a life trying to be something, trying to appear a certain way, trying to ingratiate with groups, trying to engender certain feelings about ourselves. That if we've lived a life time to craft and create and maintain a certain identity, a certain idea about ourselves, we can find falsehoods, we can find illusion, we can find delusion all over the place. And it's not so much that we are deluding others a lot of times it can run a lot more deeply than that. Where we're actually diluting ourselves when we're actually pretending that we're different than we really are, we're actually believing things about ourselves that aren't actually true.
John Coleman 0:07:57
And when we start to shine the light of awareness, of self awareness on ourselves and our lives, on what we do and how we do it, what we don't do and why we don't do what we don't do, we can really start to learn something. We can really start to bear witness to the truth because no matter how hard that truth is to take that is the most valuable information we could possibly gain. The funny thing is, a lot of this spiritual learning is first developing the willingness and the resilience to take the swift blowback of initial truth of learning something that we didn't know or we were desperately trying to not know, to not pay attention to, to not acknowledge and just sit with that information, to take that hit, to take that blowback that can sometimes feel. Jarring. It can sometimes feel violent. That those can be some of the most gutting times of our life. When we finally realize the truth about someone or something, when we finally realize the truth about ourselves it's not always instantly enlivening and enriching and freeing. Sometimes it can be a real punch in the gut. Sometimes it can feel like a massive setback. But the thing is, the truth is always the truth, whether we know it or not. And a lot of times when we acknowledge these difficult truths the only thing that's changed is our awareness. Truth was always true long before we got there, long before we started having opinions about it, long before we started crafting beliefs about it. The true was already true before we showed up. And so walking down this spiritual path, it really is a mix of external and internal, of learning as much as we can from the outside and the inside, learning as much as we can about our world, about the people around us, about the relationships we have, about the activities that we engage in, about what our life is really like from an experiential perspective, but then also plumbing the depths of ourselves at the same time really getting to know ourselves, really applying as much interest and curiosity with who and what we really are as we apply externally, using as much energy as we apply as trying to learn all the things around and about us and applying that and directing that internally to learn as much about ourselves as we possibly can. To learn as much about who and what we really are as we possibly can.
John Coleman 0:11:00
And along that way and along that journey we will spot falsehood. We will spot things in ourselves that maybe we become aware of for the first time that aren't actually true. We'll witness ourselves doing something that isn't actually us. We'll spot deception, we'll spot illusion, we'll spot manipulation, we'll spot all sorts of ways that we're acting as if we're one way yet we're learning, perhaps slowly learning that what we actually are is another that we've been being someone else. And maybe this has been largely unconscious, maybe this has been something we haven't actually really noticed or really thought that hard about. These are the kind of truths that can be very difficult to take. These are the very truths that can feel like massive setback especially if we've lived life for a while and we've established a certain identity for ourselves, a certain path, a certain set of expectations, a certain momentum. It can be really difficult to entertain the idea of something different to entertain the idea that we ourselves might be someone or something different than the way we've been presenting ourselves and even the way we've thought ourselves to be. Because the thing about beliefs is that these beliefs get stronger, these beliefs get more useful, these beliefs get more durable. The more we spend time with them, the more we actually bring our awareness to our own beliefs the more we challenge them, the more we hold them up to new information the stronger they get. Brittle beliefs are the ones who are unchallenged fragile. Beliefs are the ones that can't stand up to any sort of scrutiny, any sort of broader awareness that can't take the challenge of full awareness of reality that buckle under the weight or the pressure of more information that have to exist in a very limited space of what we're not really trying to learn anymore. We're not really trying to be aware of more. We have to confine ourselves to a small box of knowing as to not agitate or frustrate these fragile beliefs. But of course I don't think anyone would argue and advocate that this is in any way ideal.
John Coleman 0:13:42
That we not only seek the truth but we seek deep truth. We seek durable truth. We seek truth that's sustaining that's resilient, that doesn't crumble the first time it's challenged, that feels more elemental, feels more like a grounding, a bedrock foundation that we can build a life off of. And in my opinion when we're looking at living a full life this is precisely the way that we need to think about it. Living a life built on truth, living a life built on real, fundamental truth. Truth that's actually been tested. Truth that's actually durable, truth that's actually real and it's real because we've actually experienced it. And that one of the surest paths to fullness, to completeness is the path of truth is the path of whole. Truth is the path to complete. Truth is the work and the effort to identify untruths, to identify falsity, to identify anything in our lives either within us or outside of us and do our best to bring those things into alignment with the truth. Do our best to have those things be true, to seek truth at every opportunity, to dispel illusion and delusion whenever we spot it, whenever we find it. To be tending the garden of our lives, growing truth and removing untruth. Because ultimately, the life that we want, the life that is ours, the life that is us, is the life that is true to us. That feels true completely. Not partially, not some here and there is the whole truth is the complete truth is the life we actually believe.
John Coleman 0:15:49
We don't have to deceive ourselves, we don't have to deceive anyone else to try to make it feel true. None of that is necessary, none of that coercion, none of that cajoling, none of that influence is necessary to apply because our life is already true. We're not trying to convince anyone of anything. We're not trying to convince ourselves of anything because it's already true. There's no convincing required. We already believe it. And that in order to live a full life we have to live our full truth. It doesn't mean that there aren't manners involved. It doesn't mean there's not timing involved. It doesn't mean we just blurt out every thought we think because we think it's true or real. Of course manners intact come in. But none of this is really so much about expression. It's far more about our own awareness. Expression follows awareness. Expression is fed out of belief.
John Coleman 0:17:00
And when we align our awareness and our beliefs with the truth our expression will automatically follow and we can find, we can unearth what's not true in our life by looking for dysfunction, by considering our feelings, by considering how our life actually feels to us. Does this feel calm? Does this feel peaceful? Does this feel joyful? Do we sense harmony? Or the opposite of these feelings present? Does our life feel somehow discordant to us? Do we feel conflict? And if so, where do we feel it? What's the source of that? What's at the root of that? How is that being perpetuated and maintained? How are we living that discordance? How are we maintaining and perpetuating that conflict? What parts of ourselves and our lives aren't fully aligned with the truth yet?
John Coleman 0:18:04
Because ultimately when full alignment with the truth is attained then all conflict is reconciled. And of course living complicated human lives, perfection, although it might be an ideal, is never really fully possible. It's never really fully sustainable. But it doesn't mean we can't work towards it. It doesn't mean there isn't value in finding a more perfect, more ideal way to live our lives a more perfect, more ideal way to construct our life. A more perfect, more ideal way to think about our lives. Because ultimately by aligning ourselves with truth we align ourselves with our whole selves, with our whole being. We resolve these conflicts not only within ourselves but also within the external part of our life to make our lives easier, to make our lives more enjoyable, to make our lives feel better. This isn't just a theoretical exercise. This isn't just moralizing, this isn't just being good for the sake of being good or getting some kind of reward later. No, we want the reward now. We want the reward of living a full, happy, peaceful, enjoyable life now. And in my opinion, the most reliable way, the most sustainable and durable way we can find that and continue living that is to live that in truth is to live a life we actually believe is to live a life that is actually the truth. And on top of that, in addition to that, it's also important to live a life we actually believe in. Live a life that not only feels good to us, but has a sense of hope, has a sense of integrity to it.
John Coleman 0:19:57
We feel like it's actually going somewhere. We feel like it's actually leading somewhere. That when we look at our life and look at where it's going, look at what we're driving towards, look at where we're aimed, look at the vision we have for our lives and feel good about where things are going, feel good about where we're trying to go, feel good about the intent and the vision that we have for our life. Because in order for beliefs to be useful, they first must have to be true. And when we've found the truth, it's really important that we actually integrate it, we actually acknowledge it, we actually honor it, we actually use it because that's what it's here for. That's why that awareness, that experience, that epiphany is so powerful that we've just been given a gift, we've just grown a little, we've just expanded a little. And now we have the opportunity to utilize that growth and expansion to further grow and expand our life, to be more, to do more, to experience more, to have a life that is a little richer, a little more full because we've grown and expanded. And it probably goes without saying this isn't necessarily an easy thing to do. Isn't necessarily a quick thing to do either. These are in a lot of ways projects we'll spend our entire lives on. Because no matter how much truth we discover, there's always more out there. No matter how much we know there's more to know. No matter how dialed in and advanced and developed we think our beliefs are, there's always more we can know. There's always more refinement possible. It never ends.
John Coleman 0:21:51
And that's what's so compelling about this journey. It's infinite. We follow it as long as we wish not to ever reach some sort of ultimate end, but continuing to follow it because growth and expansion and evolution feels good, feels like what we're here to do. To become more ideal versions of ourselves, connect with the more ideal facets of life. Not strive towards some sort of completion, but really unite and find oneness with a perfect completion that it's expressing itself right now in every given moment, connecting with the perfection that is creation. Looking at everything that's created as a beautiful completion, that is a cycle playing itself out into infinity. Applying this in as useful ways as we can to our own lives, looking at our own lives, looking at the lives we actually want to live as lives, being ones that we not only believe in, but also believe that we connect with the truth as fully and deeply and completely as we can and endeavor to continue. Because that, as we can part is always growing. That as we grow, there's more opportunity to grow further. It never ends. And that's the best part. We can find the fit, we can find the comfort, we can find the person we really want to be by finding the person we already are. We find the person we already are through pursuing the truth, pursuing it as deeply as we possibly can and letting those truths find their way to our expression, letting those truths inform us about what would be the ideal life for us. What would be the life that is us actually, really truthfully deep down on the inside, as deep as we can go, what's really true? And how do we integrate that in order to live a true life, in order to live a life that we believe and that we actually believe in?
John Coleman 0:24:22
And again, this never ends. We will pursue this to the depths and the extents of infinity. And that's our opportunity. That's what we get to do. We're not born into this life as this fixed creature where all outcomes, all potentials, all possibilities are already fixed. We're creating our outcomes and our possibilities along the way. And when we unite with truth, when we strive and endeavor after living a life as grounded and rooted in truth as we possibly can, as we learn to grow and express truth, when we find it in a way that just leads to more and more and more, and that's where we'll find our full life. That's when we'll really inhabit the life that's ours. And we'll keep expanding it and growing it day by day for as long as we're here.