The spiritual path has never been a smooth one.
I realized this only after I had traveled too far to turn back. Sitting beneath the mother tree, I had once believed that spiritual practice was about calm breathing and silent meditation. But that very silence became a test. It stared at me, empty and merciless, asking how long I could endure without any reward.
For days... if there were such things as days... nothing happened. No visions. No warmth. No voices. There was only me, the tree, and the endless darkness. My legs ached, my breathing became erratic, my mind craved movement. Yet, I remained seated, forcing myself back to stillness again and again.
"Is this truly leading anywhere?" I muttered once, my voice dissolving into the vastness.
The mother tree did not answer.
The silence tested my resolve more than the pain. Every time doubt arose, there was the urge to abandon the practice. But something within me refused. I had already lost everything once in life. I wouldn't lose myself again by giving up halfway.
Then the resistance came from within.
Sometimes, my thoughts whispered, 'You are special. You are chosen.'
Other times, they laughed cruelly, 'You are wasting endless time chasing nothing.'
I clenched my fists and breathed slowly. "Enough," I told myself. "I am neither chosen nor cursed. I am merely a traveler." Letting go of my ego was like tearing the skin from my bones. Every false identity I had created resisted, dissolving only reluctantly. Yet, with each release, my soul felt lighter, calmer, and more real.
Next, my body suffered.
Sitting motionless for hours ignited a fire in my back and legs. My breath hitched, my shoulders trembled, and sweat poured from my body even in the cool hollow surrounding me. Spirituality demanded precision; a slight misalignment completely shattered my focus.
I wanted to move.
I did not move.
"If you run from discomfort," I whispered through gritted teeth, "you run from growth."
The pain eventually faded. Not because it disappeared, but because I stopped fighting it.
Then emotions erupted.
Anger burst forth without warning, anger at betrayal, anger at weakness, anger at the life stolen from me. It was followed by sorrow, heavy and suffocating. Behind both crept fear, whispering that I was alone and always would be.
I opened my eyes once, gasping. "So this is you?" I asked softly. "I will not run."
The emotions passed—not defeated, but acknowledged.
Afterward, loneliness settled in deeply. No teacher corrected me. No voice praised my effort. The mother tree watched silently, its presence steady but distant. Doubt gnawed at me in the quiet night. "Am I walking towards truth," I asked, looking into the darkness, "or towards madness?"
Only silence answered.
Finally, the hardest lesson came—letting go.
Not of anger.
Not of desire.
But of the desire for enlightenment itself.
The moment I understood this, my chest tightened with fear. If I let go of everything, what would be left of me? Without ambition, without purpose, who would I be?
I slowly exhaled.
"Then let me disappear," I whispered. "If that is the price."
After that, time lost its meaning.
I was beneath the Mother Tree, breathing in the emptiness. Sometimes I meditated. Sometimes I contemplated. Sometimes I simply sat, listening to nothingness. The silence ceased to feel empty. It became vast, full of presence, full of waiting.
Then a moment shattered it.
A ripple spread through the mist.
I instantly opened my eyes.
The dark mist surrounding the tree stirred unnaturally, as if disturbed by something unseen. My heart skipped a beat.
"What… is that?"
The emptiness felt different. Alert. Awake.
Curiosity arose, immediately followed by fear. I stood where I was, watching. For a long time, I did not move. But eternity dulls hesitation. Eventually, my feet carried me towards the edge where the Mother Tree's presence weakened.
There the air felt heavy.
It was there.
A rhythm pulsed within the darkness.
Slowly. Vastly. Alive.
My breath caught. "Is something… breathing?"
I raised my hand.
Every instinct screamed for me to stop.
I did not stop.
My fingers touched the mist.
The darkness surged violently, crashing against my senses. My soul trembled as if struck by lightning. I staggered, but did not retreat. The mist reacted—it coiled, it swirled, it responded.
Alive.
Intelligent.
"What are you?" I whispered.
The mist shifted like a calm sea.
A presence responded—not with sound, but with meaning. "Within that void lies the gateway."
My breath trembled.
"A gateway to what?"
"The cultivation is not about rising."
"It is about descending."
"A downward journey…" I murmured. "Towards where?"
"Towards the primal state."
I swallowed hard. "You… you have the answers, don't you?"
The mist slowed, embracing instead of attacking.
"The mist itself holds them."
I closed my eyes. "Then tell me… who am I?"
"You are the seeker."
"Then who are you?"
For the first time, the mist hesitated.
"I am a memory."
"A guardian of beginnings and endings."
My chest tightened with awe.
"I created galaxies."
"I destroyed worlds."
"And yet I… have forgotten."
Fear transformed into reverence. It was then I understood that the answers were not important.
They were not meant to be given completely. They had to be earned, breath by breath.
As the Mother Tree watched silently, I returned to meditation. I sat beneath its branches, like a child under a guardian's care, surrounded simultaneously by green light and dark mist.
Quietly.
Attentively.
In the present moment.
My practice deepened not through force, but through acceptance. A silent victory approached; one born not of power, but of inner peace.
Then the expanse trembled.
The black mist surged violently, coiling in upon itself. From it emerged a woman; her form woven from darkness and light. The expanse bent around her presence.
She looked at me.
Then she looked at the Mother Tree.
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Let's see," she said softly, her voice echoing everywhere at once,
"what lies at the center, and what returns."
The abyss collapsed.
The Mother Tree.
The darkness.
Me.
Everything was drawn into a swirling tunnel of nothingness.
I did not resist.
I had already moved forward.
I was moving towards the unknown once more.