There is a Map to Living, and it can end in Treasure

An understanding of your inner path towards the treasure in life.

Prominent figures throughout history have insisted that we must follow a certain code of conduct to arrive at the fruit of our realized potential. Not only spiritual and moral leaders, but any kind of successful leader has given their vision on how to arrive at what they call victory. We could then say that it is consonant with the idea of a map, in so far as it leads us through steps and directions towards an objective.

Photo from Active.com

Ethics is the discipline to discern between good and bad, or between what is advantageous or obtrusive. The directions in the map, “now turn east for 2 miles”, are ethical instructions written in our existential map by someone that knows how to get to the destination. The idea is that when instructions are followed, the one following them will arrive at the target. Hopefully if you are following directions, it is because you have a destination in mind.

Consciousness is fickle; you may go through life without a destination. Many in fact do, now they get out of bed, now they want to make love to their spouse, now they are angry at someone that cuts them off in traffic, now they have to work but they don’t want to… like a four-year-old child they go about their life aimlessly being pulled and pushed by circumstances, and they think it is the most natural thing to do.

When you don’t know where you are going, any destination is good. But then again, you will arrive somewhere you may not like.

There are amazing people that have lived extraordinary lives and we have accounts of how they have done it, they left maps we can follow to arrive at our equivalent destination.

Then, a Treasure Map is the archetypical idea of a map.

Point of departure

Make no mistake, the point where you are at is important, knowing how you got there and recognizing you didn´t know what map you were following to get there, is also important. Yes, you were following a map, it just wasn’t your conscious choosing.

Think about it, DNA is a map that guides the reproduction of every cell in your body with the utmost accuracy. When we are conceived, the DNA of our parents comes together to make a new DNA and it guides the growth of every single molecule to assemble your body and continues to do so through your whole life. In our DNA there are all the right and wrong turns of all the ancestors preceding each one of us, all their maps are codified and incorporated. That is why I don’t die from a cold and the Amazon Yanomami did when they first encountered the Spanish conquistadors five centuries ago. They didn’t have that map instruction incorporated to sort out the flu bacteria.

Photo from Penn Medicine News

What makes you think that consciousness does not have the same track record? Jung’s investigation of the unconscious led him to uncover the Collective Unconscious. If there is such a collective dimension in us, how many maps are there? Were the ancestral stories and myths maps of what ancient people were uncovering? What makes you think that when you are not purposely aiming at a target, that it is your unconscious that is guiding you with an old map?

Knowing your point of departure is important, but moving towards the destination is more important. Don’t go round and round figuring out where you are, recognize you mess up and that most likely you have a lot more responsibility for it than anything else around you. Then aim at the highest value you can envision and start moving.

Go 2 miles North.

Churchill’s quotes are gold, if you are going through hell, keep going! If you are weighed down by reality, it is telling you that the map you have been using is not adequate for you at the moment. If you are drowning, you cannot stop and evaluate what options you have and why you got yourself in that situation, the right action is to aim for higher ground. Once you are safe, catch your breath and only then reflect on how you got there.

The maps provided by historical spiritual leaders are great to reflect and realize what they envision as the aim and the process to achieve that destination. How do we know they are worth anything? They all have walked their talk. Also, since their departure, their maps have been a source of inspiration and guide for millions and millions. Most importantly, all of them have told us we can do likewise.

In the words of Jordan Peterson:

You have no idea what might be possible for you if you got things together and pursued what you should pursue. You don't know how much what's impossible to you right now, would become possible under those conditions (…) we don't know the limits of human endeavor.

Do set the destination to the highest ideal you can envision and muster all the responsibility you can to address yourself to that aim. It will sustain you in troubled times, will guide you in uneven territory or tempests, will give you vision when the fog sets in… true meaning is derived from such pursuits.

Destination target

Ethical directions from Buddha, Socrates and Jesus Christ are instructions that can guide us head-on to a destination target. Going deeper into their teachings with a practical perspective makes an invaluable Treasure Map.

All three of these men have had a vision of the Point of Departure. For all of them life was immersed in suffering and ignorance, but the destination and how they chose to walk through it were different; however, they did not contradict each other, much less their teachings do not antagonize each other. All of them, in my appreciation, had one incredible quality that we can learn from: when confronted with adversity they leap forward.

A new turn in our column…

I have been challenged by my personal objective to take a new turn. As you may have figured out, I am Venezuelan, and the pain and sorrow of my people calls to me. I have Venezuela closed in a fist inside my heart.

I have been given the opportunity to write for Analitica.com in Spanish. I have designed a new column EL PUNTO a la i, which I will publish in a new column here in Substack.com.

Due to my current level of commitment, I will not be able to do both weekly, so for CONNECTING THE DOTS I will write one article a month at least and you will keep receiving the new column EL PUNTO a la I also on Wednesdays. If you do not want to receive this Spanish column, feel free to unsubscribe to it. However, remember you can have Chrome translate the article to your language, something a few of my readers have done with our present English articles.

I hope you understand my decision and I ask you to pray for our beautiful Venezuela, we need all the help we can get.

Coming next Wednesday

Leap Forward

Stories have a way to captivate our imagination and maybe even anchor our actions in something deeper and more expanding than thought.

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