Cathedrals - all the commitment you can muster..

The other night I was reading Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, by Joseph Jaworski, my girlfriend loaned it to me.

I came across this passage, after he talked about his marriage breaking up and seeking something more.. real.. out of life, taking his first spontaneous trip ever;

As I was travelling in France, I found myself drawn to the cathedrals there, most particularly the great cathedral at Chartres, the small medieval town lying just southwest of Paris. This cathedral was built in the mid-thirteenth century when high gothic architecture was at its purest, and it possesses a unique symmetry and unity. Being near and in it, I felt unity with all that was around me, a complete openness to the entire world. I intended to visit the cathedral for an hour or so, but ended up spending the entire day there, first sitting quietly and then later reflectively walking all around the vast cathedral, both inside and out.

He goes on to talk about how he felt a ringing, and like he was in a different energy field, and how he'd only ever felt that feeling outdoors before, in the wilderness.

It brought him to the realization that he was developing a new notion of 'freedom', and he says it so well:

...the freedom to follow my life's purpose with all the commitment I could muster, while at the same time, allowing life's creative forces to move through me without my control, without 'making it happen.'

I sighed and looked off into space.

Then I picked up the other book I was nibbling, The Eye of the I. This was the passage I read, from where I left off last night;

If the essential dynamic of one's spiritual seeking is not spiritual ambition (to get somewhere) but the progressive surrender of the obstacles to Love, then that which is called 'spiritual ego' does not arise as an obstacle. A given calibrated level of consciousness is not better than another but merely represents the level that is being worked on. It is the basic building blocks which enable a structure to ascend, and it is the dedication which ensures the completion of a cathedral.

The freedom to make a cathedral of your life - we all have it. It is our birthright. The cathedral already exists.

It was funny to me, the common themes in both of these short passages - the 'cathedral' and... dedication/commitment.

These giants in Cathedral Grove, on Vancouver Island - how did they get this way? Certainly not by choosing to live small - but by giving everything they had to reaching for the sky.

Each time you remove an obstacle to Love, or let go of a notion of who you are or where you are going, or commit to your highest expression - you let another block come into being, another new shoot unfold and reach higher.