by Lloyd Harrison Whitling

Many people wonder how to find their ways to something they refer to as 'truth', 'meaning', a sense of the spirituality they know themselves to possess but cannot define. They sense themselves to be on a search, and worry how they'll find the proper, right path. Do you think it could be true that the path is not what's important?— or maybe the destination is not what's important?— or from where you come to look for the path might be actually meaningless?— but that what is important is how we conduct ourselves while making that search?— and, maybe as important as anything, is that we make that earnest search at all?

In the world we form inside our minds, we arrive in a desert the day of our birth. That desert contains only wild things on its own, and gets buried with what other people dump on it. On its own, it contains little of fear or worry. On its own, it mostly contains a sense of wonder that will either grow and bloom, or else get stifled or plowed under and become smothered. Once that happens, it is hard to get it back again, and it may never form fully whole.

Flowing through this imaginary desert is an imaginary river, and, on its own, the water in the river flows from from True Information. All of our lives we are warned not to drink its water. "It is poisonous; it will change us somehow, make us 'different', make us no longer understand the way things are and the reasons for them being that way." Some people yield to a temptation to taste the water, but they are scared of it. When they realize it tastes plain and nothing at all like the imitation flavored bottled and canned brews on which they were raised, they back away from it and will no longer venture near it.

We all find a path to the River of True Waters. It will run to the river from wherever we live, whatever we have to get through to reach it. People too far away from it will deny it's there, and grow extremely angry with those who insist they have seen it, watched the shimmering light glowing in its rippling surface, and tasted it, and maybe carried some of it home to those they love, only to have it rejected. Some of us went fishing in the river. Of course, we can't all catch the exact same fish, but the fish will be enough alike so we can recognize a species by comparing. Once you have savored the wonderful flavor of the things the river offers, and learned to love the unadulterated purity of its waters, you will stay there for so long as you are able. It matters not what path we each took to get there. What matters is, it is the same river. The True Waters we dip from it will all be the same if we stay careful not to contaminate it in all the ways that we might do that, and to avoid the contaminants that other people have put there.

The River of True Waters, on its own, does not contain beliefs. It contains True Information. True Information needs only to be recognized as useful and beneficial. It does not require belief, but only testing and practice. If you find beliefs in the River of True Waters, it is because someone cast them there to pollute the information. It is common for people to urinate into a river, and dump their garbage and fecal matter into it. Even in The River of True Waters, one must stay wary nowadays.

Cautious, curious people desiring only the uncontaminated waters from the river will learn on their own, over a long period of time, to recognize what he and she are searching for. They will discover the nature of the poisons and detritus others have dumped into the river upstream, and learn where they can drink to avoid them, and to constantly test where they do take their water. They will discover many others who will insist on sharing their favorite place at the river, who will give them canned and bottled preparations and insist they take them, and who will issue warnings about the pure waters from the river. They will learn that those who claim to make us healthy will sicken us with their canned preparations, and then claim we need to be under their care because we too obviously cannot succeed on our own. Those who do so will trick us into thinking we are indebted to them, when they have already taken all we had and made us feeble.

All paths lead sometime to The River of True Waters. People will point in all kinds of directions to keep you from arriving there. The path you will find must be your own to take. It is best to wander alone until you find it, and best to share your joy with others once you do. You will recognize True Information once you're there. True Information is the kind that you can put to use, that you can test and know that it is reliable, and that you need not believe because you can test it. True Information makes no demands of you but that you will apply it. True Information is true no matter what form it may have. True Information all fits together like the pieces of a puzzle, all of it awaiting your discovery and your efforts of trial and error to get it assembled.

When you see people dumping stuff into The River of True Waters, you will discover it all is is the canned and bottled beverages they will insist you must drink instead. The canned and bottled preparations are False Information, put into fancy, gold-imprinted containers to attract us and tempt us into tasting the sweetened and flavored information that does not work, except to make you sick. It will not fit in with Nature, but will insist to you that Nature is your enemy, and that you must believe the prepared information to be safe. You will learn to avoid that place at the river, and to go above it, toward where the waters come from. Pure, True Information that you discover on your own will appeal to you in all its clarity because it works. It will need no one to insist that you must take it. You will know when information works. No one will need to force your sincere understanding.