Avoiding self-exhaustion

 

The exhausted pilgrim slows down, then crawls, then dies (i.e. in the desert). She becomes exhausted for two reasons.

 

She runs out of energy

She runs out of building (i.e. path-making) material.

 

In order to avoid exhaustion she must continuously gauge her ‘state’, then make every effort to acquire the means to her goal and regenerate the energy needed to drive her there.

 

The pilgrim gets energy from three sources.

 

She can divert energy and (information regarding the) building materials from her goal. She gets them by focusing on her goal, thereby producing an ‘as if’ ‘goal achieved’ experience, and which is really an internal nano ‘as is’ experience.

She diverts to and completes a pilgrimage to a secondary goal, its consummation (i.e. digestion an assimilation) providing her with both building (i.e. path making) materials and energy.

She takes a rest (i.e. a sleep). During the rest (or lay up) period she as it were digests the just completed step (and which was a secondary goal) on her path, in the process accessing its stored energy and building materials, eliminating waste products and reconfiguring (i.e. realigning) herself.

 

It is vital that the pilgrim forages (i.e. regenerates) en route, paces herself, and, most importantly, never ever loses sight of her goal.

 

She must not arrive exhausted at her goal (an error that is made by many who arrive, for instance, at Santiago de Compostella totally wrecked). If she does, arrival at her goal will not provide the surge of joy and self-truth experience, the latter actually being produced when her stored energy is involuntarily released.

 

To avoid arriving exhausted, the smart pilgrim lays up for a period of R&R (and final self-reconfiguration (i.e. putting on the shining golden clothes of perfection) before entering/achieving the goal of the pilgrimage. With her energy fully restored, and her self dressed in perfection, she can enter in triumph.

 

The even smarter, because more experienced pilgrim avoids entering/achieving the goal altogether. She chooses to look upon it from afar, i.e. as a Promised Land never to be entered.