The Bank in the Sky

I am joking of course!

How long has it been that I have thought that there is some imaginary vault that each and every person had access to? 

In this vault were all the wise teachings that a person could possibly want to hear and all the nuggets of success and clues to great learning’s. I also thought that there was a journey that I had to take to get there and that once I reached that vault, I had found Eldorado or the Kingdom of Heaven!

I imagined that the journey would be fraught with danger and that I had to overcome great trials that would test the very fabric of my being. I had pictured that only a few successful ones were ever allowed to enter the great vault and even if I reached its mighty doors, there was no guarantee that I would be allowed to enter. 

I did not know what the password was nor did I know what the requirements were for me to meet . . . and I did wonder if I was worthy of its secrets.

I worked hard and rose to each occasion and plunged through the layers of self-imposed tests that were supposed to harden me and make me robust, for the vault permitted only those considered worthy. I knew that there was no solace in regret nor was there an allowance for surrender and I was never to give up – god forbid! 

I had to slog through thick and thin, the cold ice of detachment and the hazards of the ego’s many vices, until I could feel the clean air of mastery.

This never came of course . . . each trial and battering that I survived, brought with it more and more layers to plough through. Sometimes it felt like my onion was piled so thick, with chapters of a story that had no end, that I would not in one lifetime find the end. 

And yet I focused on the vault and the riches that it held and I kept going. 

My soul felt tortured and my body felt crucified, so many times along the way that I asked of death to take me. I knew that death was not a failure . . . it was way out.

But death did not comply and the thousand times I experienced its icy kiss, were followed with new bursts of energy and change. 

Energy to keep going towards that vault in the sky!

The more I sought the vault as a place, as a focal point or position that I could reach, the more I fell behind and laboured. And the more arduous the journey became . . .

If only a kind soul had told me that there was no vault of eternal happiness in the sky.

If only a compassionate soul had told me that I did not have to strip my own self down to the barest of needs and wants.

If only a wise soul had told me that, although the vault itself did not exist, what I imagined was contained within it, was only an arm’s length away . . . a thought.

If only any soul had told me that my own state of mind and attitude, my own consciousness and vibration, could invite it all in and that it would gravitate towards me instead.

If only . . . I had known that I created all the trials and tests along the way because I did not believe that I deserved the contents of the vault in the sky. Each and every trial and obstacle was my own creation of proof that I was not ready nor was I worthy to receive what was mine from birth.