The Mountain

There is a mountain inside of you that needs to be conquered.

The mountain we all need to scale is the mountain of self control and discipline.

It is an arduous climb. . . you are up against it every hour of every day and there are countless obstacles and setbacks.

But at the top of that mountain is a beautiful view.

If you can conquer that peak, you are guaranteed success in this life. Because at the peak is the ideal version of yourself and the ideal version of yourself is totally free and successful in all the right ways. When you embody that perfect version of you, you emanate success and confidence.

The fully actualized version of yourself doesn’t need piles of money or designer clothes or all the finest toys money can buy to feel confident, secure and happy. That person is so physically, emotionally and spiritually capable that they can handle literally any situation like a boss. Money is easy to come by for such a person, so are friendships and opportunities. Abundance flows like a current to such a person because they radiate confidence and they are a magnet for success.

That is the mountain you are climbing.

It is the greatest challenge of your life and it will also reap the greatest rewards when you reach the peak. Although, to be fair, no one ever reaches the peak, it is in fact, an infinite game. But that is the beauty of it, the Sisyphean struggle towards an unachievable perfection is a glorious thing.

But one can reach many crests on the journey that ‘feel’ like a peak.

You will have little moments, times of grace and gratitude where you are fully comfortable and happy in your own skin - those are all ‘little’ peaks - moments where you stop to observe with gratitude and take in the beauty of how far you have come.

Then you turn your eye back to the summit and continue to move one step at a time towards it.

Some days the summit will be completely obscured because you have reached a very difficult obstacle and you feel stalled in progress. Other days you will move like a mountain goat steadily and surely through the rocky terrain.

The way you get to the top is to never stop climbing, regardless of the level of progress from day to day.

The biggest enemy of the mountain climber is gravity

In spiritual traditions there is a symbolic connection between gravity and the spirit.

Low vibration forms of consciousness like anger, hate, fear, sadness, resentment, etc,. are associated with a heaviness - the more one is dragged down by these energies, the heavier they become, there is a weight, a gravity to such feelings and emotions. That is why people tell you to ‘lighten up’ when you’re being a downer.

High vibration forms like love, gratitude, hope, kindness, joy, etc., are associated with a feeling of lightness or weightlessness - the more one is elevated by these emotions the lighter one becomes. This is why there are so many tales of levitations by spiritual adepts, saints and sages; it is also why happy, good natured events are considered ‘uplifting’.

The point I am making here in regards to the mountain is that if you want to accelerate your pace up the mountain, you would do well to form habits and practices that make you lighter, more weightless, in order to make the ascent less taxing, time consuming and hazardous.

Hence the reason so many spiritual practices recommend things like fasting and other types of asceticism - these practices make you lighter, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. Engaging in acts of kindness, charity, expressing feelings of gratitude, spending quality time with good people, prayer and meditation, walks in nature - these are all excellent ways to lighten your load and lessen gravity’s pull as you climb.

Get light enough and you may feel like you are floating up the mountain.

Here’s another thought - what if you had springtime in your soul all the time?

In the spring there is a rising.

People begin to escape from their winter doldrums, they are more alive, happier, friendlier, more hopeful.

Spirits are rising up, vibrating at higher levels of consciousness.

This springtime rising is what you want to have inside of you all the time, not just in the spring. You want a vitality, a flowering, exuberance, intensity, verve and vigour always lifting you up, making you light, weightless, so you almost feel as though you are levitating at times.

This rising will move you up the mountain by leaps and bounds if you can sustain it for long periods.

These are not just metaphors, they are ways to reframe your journey and put your daily challenges in a new light.

Very often, just framing things in a different way can add a spark of inspiration and enthusiasm to your efforts, it can make the difficult things feel a little more like a game and games are a lot more fun than chores.