Action, even the calm activity of sunbeams on rose petals, is at the core of spiritual life in the West.

• Plan and design

• Technique and method

• Reason and purpose

• Movement and splendor

From nothing, something appears.

From dust, humanity.

The rose is associated with beauty and love, yet at the same time, secrecy, life, death, and rebirth in many Western spiritual traditions.

The rose's aromatic beauty is protected by its thorns.
"He was wounded for our transgressions; bruised for our iniquities."

The rose pours forth its splendor as its reproductive duty.
The Rose of Baghdad symbolizes the law and path of knowledge.

In general, the West understands the divine relation to humanity in personal terms. The West places great value on the individual and doesn't deny the ego, but attempts to utilize it on the path. As a result, the teacher is regarded as a guide to the ultimate rather than as personifying it. Although monasticism has found a small niche in Western spirituality, the vast majority of those walking the Western path find meaning in common daily life and no need for seclusion.

The Western path is a forked road. The pilgrim most often takes the more clearly marked route, what might be called "the outer" or exoteric. This journey is the way of rules and rituals. Its codes and teachings are sharply defined. All questions are referred to an external authority, whether a person or a sacred text, which is considered authoritative and, by many, without error and infallible. Because of this, the resulting viewpoints are also often considered as authentic and inerrant as the original texts. There is a tendency to look on all competing viewpoints as in error, at best, or as heresy, at worst. A major activity is analyzing sources -- Torah, Bible, Qur'an -- in the on-going effort to understand revealed Truth. The most revered teachers are those most capable of expounding the written message. 

Click here to read one point of view regarding inspired writings.

Click here to read a different point of view.

Click here to access information about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Click here to access Talmudic texts.

Click here to access various Christian sacred texts.

Click here to access various translations of the Bible or to find a specific text.

Click here for Islamic sacred writings and reference materials.

A narrower path exists, however, somewhat hidden but found by the few who are more concerned with inner landscapes -- the esoteric. They value the treasury of written wisdom as highly, if not more so, as those following the outer path. Yet they hold the texts and teachers under a different light, and are less inclined to denounce those who see things they do not. They understand that an elephant touched by five blind men will be described in five different ways, yet all true. They're the ones who laugh the hardest at the emperor's new clothes.

Click here for mystical insights.

Books and teachers are signposts along the inner path -- sources of help and information, but books and teachers can only go so far. They may direct the pilgrim toward the light, but they are not the light.

The outer path is lined with temples, cathedrals, mosques, synagogues and churches. Man-made structure and organization is designed to invoke an inner response.

Click here for a variety of sacred texts. 

© Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York,  used by permission

The inner path is lined by rose gardens, evergreen forests, flowering meadows and sandy deserts. There are hilly spots and magnificent mountain viewpoints. There are quiet brooks, rippling streams, surging rivers, fresh lakes, and salty oceans. Sun and moon light the way. Stars are the pilgrim's canopy, used to set one's compass.

Which path are you on? Have you been detoured at any point? What are your discoveries? Have you settled down, or are you still a pilgrim? What do you see along your pathway?