Part 5.
Let’s Begin
The Sacred Power of Starting Fresh
The Soul Steps In
“It all begins when the soul would have its way with you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before you enter the OCA Movement, there are two foundational truths to hold in your heart.
First: this movement will always be at the beginning.
“I am always at the beginning.”
— Buddha
“We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!”
— Thomas Merton
Second: we must enter with beginner’s mind.
“In Zen Buddhism... the mind should be like an empty rice bowl. If it’s already full, the universe can’t fill it. If it’s empty, it has room to receive.”
— Marianne Williamson
“The usefulness of a pot comes from its emptiness.”
— Lao Tzu
“An expert is a person who has few new ideas; a beginner is a person with many.”
— Albert Einstein
“The expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“You can’t teach the old maestro a new tune.”
— Jack Kerouac
“We have to pray for the grace of beginner’s mind.”
— Richard Rohr
Entering the Unknown
If this movement is about bringing unmanifested consciousness (Heaven) into manifested experience (Earth), we must start at the origin of it all: the unknown.
If we enter from the "known"—our self-created perspectives, egoic patterns, and preloaded beliefs—Spirit gets blocked. And this movement risks becoming yet another voice of "I-know" self-righteousness. Another machine of organized religion.
We don’t want that. Do we?
“You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“The ending is the beginning, and the beginning is the first step, and the first step is the only step.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Every part of the journey is of importance to the whole.”
— Saint Teresa of Avila
“Love is the beginning of the journey, its end, and the journey itself.”
— Deepak Chopra
“The journey is its own reward.”
— Homer
The Journey Is the Destination
This is the paradox and the point: the journey itself is where we’re headed.
“If you see your path laid out in front of you—Step one, Step two, Step three—you only know one thing... it is not your path. Your path is created in the moment of action.”
— Joseph Campbell
Which means every moment in the OCA Movement is the destination.
“I have found that you only have to take one step toward the gods, and they will take ten toward you. That step... is out of your boundaries and often must be taken before you know that you will.”
— Joseph Campbell
“The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.”
— Saint Teresa of Avila
“Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.”
— Drake
“Roads were made for journeys, not destinations.”
— Confucius
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
— Steven Tyler
“Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization that we have already arrived!”
— Michael Beckwith
“Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.”
— Voltaire
Even science agrees:
“The path comes into existence only when we observe it.”
— Werner Heisenberg
Here, Not There
“Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path.”
— Joseph Campbell
“The journey appears interminable... but when you reach the Destination, you find you had never travelled at all. It was a journey from here to Here.”
— Meher Baba
“We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”
— David Bowie
“We have never arrived. We are in a constant state of becoming.”
— Bob Dylan
“Nothing ever is, everything is becoming.”
— Plato
“Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh.”
— Pema Chödrön
The Divine Begins Again and Again
“What we call results are beginnings.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What does God do all day long? He gives birth... God is creating this whole universe full and entire in this present moment.”
— Meister Eckhart
“Always be open to new beginnings. To the universe, every moment is the start of the next big thing in your life.”
— Marianne Williamson
Like this one.
This moment. This movement. This beginning.
So we can all…
“Play the game 'Existence' to the end...
Of the beginning, of the beginning.”
— The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows
Where the Journey Truly Begins
Now, before we begin this journey into the frontier of consciousness—together—I know I’m asking a lot. I’m inviting you into a major paradigm shift. One that asks you to set aside the self-constructed spiritual framework that may have brought you comfort for years. To begin again. At the beginning. In the unknown.
We’ve done it before. As little children.
And I believe we can do it again.
Because for unmanifested consciousness—Heaven—to flow into manifested experience—Earth—we must enter with the mind of a beginner. The open, curious, soft mind of a child.
That’s why Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Because he knew. He knew that Heaven on Earth could only be seen through the fresh eyes of a child.
He also knew that when the ego is tangled in the relativity of doctrine and dogma—when we’re stuck in the self-righteous, judgment-heavy stance of “I know”—our hearts grow quiet. The unknown becomes unreachable. Heaven becomes unmanifestable.
So before we walk this path together, we must enter it with beginner’s minds—willing to be humbled by the mystery, willing to always be beginners in a journey that exists only in this moment.
To encounter the infinite unknown, we must never cling to the illusion that we already understand it.
And yet, paradoxically, it’s our hearts that already remember the truth:
That we are divine, spiritual beings—finding our way back home to the unmanifested, to Heaven.
A home that can only be experienced here, now.
As love.
Flowing through a heart-centered consciousness.
Paired with an egoless mind that simply believes—
It’s already done.