Another kind of Pilgrimage (2)

Lost in the sea of cars

In this trips I almost got lost twice. This happened when we were going in town to get to the hotel / house where we would stay overnight there.

Know where you want to go
otherwise get lost in the sea of cars

The first one when we were in Yogja. We had been informed that to shorten the time to get to the hotel, police patrol car would guided us to the hotel because the traffic was pretty crowded. As we got closer to the hotel, the fourth car got separated from the first three cars. And I was in the fifth, the last car. We got around and around in Gajahmada University area instead of heading to the hotel. The instruction given by the local people through the mobile didn't get us into the right direction. So we asked people on the street. When we saw the signs and matched them with the message received in my mobile, we could get to the hotel safely.

The second one was on the way to Semarang. The same situation, when we got closer to the house where we would stay overnight. Only this time, we didn't use police car to guide us and the first information I received wasn't quite right. This got us in three cars got lost in the way, in which the other two cars were the additional cars of my other colleagues who joined the group from Yogja. And I was in one of the cars together with my female colleague from Yogja. We were far too ahead from the house, so we had to turn around and find the gate where we supposed to make a left turn where we had previously passed it. So we did. As we arrived in the house, people were asking what happened how we could get lost. And the common excuses came up as always.

But the thing is this: didn't we all ever get in the same situation? We were going somewhere and we aren't so sure where the address was. And we went around and around to find the right address we had in hand. Even with someone leading us, we can also get lost because the information was received wrongly or we don't pay attention to the signs and direction given.

And getting lost wasn't just a matter of how far we have made our journey. It could also happen when we were almost there. Just like what happened to us. In normal condition it took about 10 minutes to get to the hotel, but because we took the wrong turn, we ended up getting lost in the city. Luckily we weren't stubborn enough that we didn't want to hear other people opinion and direction. Because we know where we wanted to be. We wanted to be with our great spiritual teacher. He was the leader in this trip and we were following his trip not making ours.

Now, let's project the situation to our real life.

So often people got lost in their journey of life having no exact direction of what they're after. Some decide that their purpose is to live this life to the fullest, regardless how they will fulfill it. Some decide that they don't care about the life they have for they find it too hard to live it. Some decide that their life is too precious to be spend in idle that they practice whatever they practice to bring them closer to what they believe. What ever they decide, they will meet what they will meet.

However, Many people make their journey in life. Some finally realized that they had made a wrong turn / decision and they feel a need to go back. Yet, how often their stubbornness, ego and lower self telling them not to take the step because of shamed, guilt or cowardice in facing what's ahead if they get to the right direction. Of course, this is something really out of mind. Because the feeling shouldn't be there.

It is the wrong kind feeling in such situation. For it will create another problem to the situation. Practically, if we don't want to get tired of going around and around and getting more and more lost in the sea of confusion, we need to return to the original source, get the right information, pay attention to the signs and refocus our sense of purpose will help us get to destination soon. After all, the wrong direction or decision had given us the taste of the other aspect in life, give us the new eyes to see the right one even clearer and brighter than before. And from the wrong we should then know the right and thrive to make the right move.

Anyway, thankfully we knew exactly what we wished. So it didn't take long for us to find our way back and be in his presence.