35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

Prologue
My initial experience of the spiritual life was bewildering. There
were times when I wished I had never heard of Sathya Sai Baba,
wished I had never taken LSD that summer’s night by King Arthur’s
castle so long ago. The Path is not easy. But as William James said in
his Paradox of Volition, when faced with a series of choices, always
choose the one that seems most difficult, because it is the one that
can teach you something.
As the years passed and I became more entrenched in the material
world of credit cards, mortgages and families, it became harder and
harder and then all but impossible to consider returning to life in
an ashram. But I did return to India, always, however, avoiding
Bangalore. After nearly twenty years, the impression that Sathya
Sai Baba had made upon my heart remained, occasionally bursting
out in vivid dreams or subtly turning around my inner self at the
most unexpected moments.
I always saw things in black or white terms, like the old rhyme:
The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.
But I’m learning to see things in shades of grey . . . or possibly
pastels.
I went back and forth, each time creeping nearer the place I feared.
But who is it we really fear? To me India was and is the Empire of
My Soul, of The Soul. Each time I visit her, I grow a little closer to
the one I yearn to know. It gets a little easier – until it once more
seems unbearably hard, that is. Yet at least I know enough to know
that I am utterly ignorant.
I’ve always liked the metaphor of the empty bowl – yet I wonder
why, just because it is empty, anyone feels it must therefore be filled.
It is, though. Indeed it is.
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