“Give a man a match and he’ll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.” — Jed McKenna
The spiritual journey can be compared to creating a bonfire — a huge epic bonfire.
You gather a lot of wood, preferably all the wood you can find — your beliefs and ideas about yourself and the world — and stack it up neatly. Next, you get some small twigs and hay (the most obvious surface beliefs) for starting the fire, which you then ignite with the help of a lighter or match — a fire-starting question, such as “What am I?”, “What is true?”, or “What the fuck?”
In the beginning, the fire might take a while to get going. You have to put in quite some effort. You need to blow on it, fan it, and oversee it, in case it needs more attention. After all, it’s a counterintuitive act — digging your own grave, sharpening your executioner’s axe, or to stay with the analogy, adding firewood to your own stake.
But then, when the fire has gathered momentum and started roaring, there’s not much left for you to do. Then you can sit back and watch the flames go about their business — incineration.
As you observe the flames, you see they have developed a life of their own. They might show you visions and bring up emotions and memories, which might catch your attention for a while. But in the end, it’s all just part of the show.
When the fire starts dying down you know that the time for fire is not yet over; your job is not done because there’s more wood lying around beckoning to be fed to the flames. So you do that and the fire gets going once more.
But adding wood is no longer the task it once was because as soon as the fire has really started, it’s easy to keep alive.
Although you recognize that the fire is destroying everything indiscriminately, you have developed a taste for this particular kind of destruction, a taste for feeding wood to fire. The taste for it is so strong that it feels out of your control. You don’t have a choice but to keep the fire going and the effort needed to start it has been enveloped by said fire as well. Seems like you’re a fan of arsonism now.
At some point, you realize the fire has significantly increased in size. Where before it was a comforting glow in the darkness confined to its pit, it has now left those confines, licking at nearby trees and searing the grassland, and oh-oh! your leg is getting uncomfortably hot.
This is when it dawns upon you: The fire is out to consume everything, including you, which might make you panic for a little while. You thought you’d have a nice little campfire with your homies but you’ve unknowingly signed up for a scorched earth tactic.
Your instincts scream to regain control, to shield yourself from the relentless heat. But the wiser part of you hesitates. It knows this fire isn’t a threat but your liberation. You realize that every resistance you can offer at this point is futile and unnecessary. So, instead of resisting, you take a deep hot breath that hurts your lungs and allow the flames to move where they will, even as you feel your skin crackling from the heat.
But then, almost surprisingly, you look around and see no more wood left. You look at yourself and see there’s nothing there. You burned alongside all the wood. Whoops.
All has been consumed; only a dying ember and a heap of ashes remain. One gentle breeze and even the ember and the ashes are gone.
Then something is apparent — not with the force of revelation but with the quiet undeniability of waking from a dream. You see it clearly: the fire, the wood, the one tending the flames — it was all imagined, an intricate dance of illusion. The fire might’ve burned the illusion of separation but it was never different from the wood — their play was part of the illusion.
No ounce of wood was fed to any flame, nothing resisted, nothing burned. There never was a personal journey — no fire, no wood, no ashes. And yet, it was all perfect — every flicker, every struggle — whole and complete.
And what remains when all has cooled off is the self-evident presence that has always been.
A phoenix that doesn’t rise.
Luka
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