level 4: foreboding

It's not particularly simple to move from the third to the fourth level of the waterfall. There is no way to clamber up directly next to the waterfalls. One has to find a little hint of an animal track, up some steep grass, behind a tree, and then hop rather boldly across some rocks, in a stream of water.

But the entrance area of level four is quite dramatic. There's a big slab of a boulder projecting at an angle. One can walk easily up it and sit at the top, looking down over the third level: a beautiful viewpoint. And doing so, the third level still looks so inviting, compared to this fourth level. In the fourth level, the valley steepens, the scrambling becomes a little bit more challenging, and one side of the valley has steep rock and grass that rather overshadows the water.

It doesn't feel comfortable in the way the third level does. We've left behind that easy blissfulness. And the question is now what leads us on? What makes us go further on our spiritual journey? It's no longer the simple desire for happiness, for that easy blissfulness and contentment. Really, it's only a profound curiosity, a longing to see what else is here. What else has life to offer?

It's really a big step. It goes beyond the normal motivations of everyday life. But somewhere in us is this urge to go as far as is possible into ourself, into life, into god. But it's not always comfortable, and this fourth level is like this. It's rather uncomfortable, rather dark, as if we're dipping into the shadow aspects of our psychology. And there's this almost intangible sense of foreboding. We're going deeper into the unknown, and it's no longer for pleasure.

I've paused for a moment. Just now, I was distracted by a thought and lost my footing as I was scrambling up a rock. And it just reminded me how we so easily lose presence; and what a mess we make of our life when that happens. One of the beautiful things about scrambling and climbing is that the risk really forces us to be present. And presence is really the key to living a fulfilled life – staying present.

I have clambered up to the top of the fourth level now. It's a little bit more challenging scrambling here. At one point, I was swinging around the end of a fallen tree trunk and hanging from it, with my body at an alarming angle out over the water. Another place, it becomes very three dimensional, with large boulders jumbled on top of one another. One passes underneath one and then scrambles up a steep slab. Here at the top, there's a narrowing – another little gorge like part of the valley, with a pool, deep pool in the bottom; and at the far end, a rather beautiful cascade, water falling down a steep slab.

And this is the transition at the top of the fourth level. Beyond here, there's another world. This is as far as I'm going to go today. Hopefully, I'll continue with the other levels another day.

But this point – the top of the fourth level – this is the last place I've ever seen other human beings in this journey, apart from one time when I took a friend a little bit further up. So this is really the end of the road for anyone who's sane and values their life.

And still, sitting here in the fourth level, even though it has a beauty of its own, it's still with this edgy, dark feeling and foreboding sitting in me: not a pleasant sensation. But we have to be prepared to face such feelings on our spiritual journey, and to sit with them. Even these dark feelings and dark energies have beautiful secrets to reveal, as long as we're not afraid of them, as long as we don't just run from them or hide from them.

So, sitting with this feeling of foreboding, it still puts me in touch with this deeper curiosity: what's underneath it? What lies beyond?