Sometimes meeting with defeat is a quicker way to awaken than experiencing success. Sooner or later, during the journey of spiritual awakening, the project of self improvement comes to a dead end.
From what I gather, reading and listening to those who abide in awakened awareness, enlightenment does not turn out to have anything to do with becoming faster, smarter, sexier, or even healthier. It is not about perfecting the personality or glorifying the body. Several well known spiritual teachers who were thought to be enlightened have died of cancer. A Course in Miracles teaches that whether it's a sick body or a healthy body, it's all a dream, taking place in one mind which has forgotten reality, a mind which has divided into many pieces, all of which are sharing a collective dream of believing they are separate selves.
Trying to perfect one's body, character, personality, and professional abilities, and making efforts to advance educationally, all have their place in this dream world. Some of the actors and actresses in this movie appear to engage in that sort of thing. Within the dream world, the little self can often be improved to some degree. We may dream we are learning to take better care of our bodies, focus on affirming thoughts, and find more mature ways of relating to one another. With our imagination we may envision new possibilities, then work at developing special skills and technical prowess through perseverance and practice. We may then appear, in the dream, to invent things with our intellectual cleverness and express our unique selves creatively. Developing self will and self-discipline are part of the arc of maturity. As an individual, you may be able to go pretty far into heightened self-awareness, service-oriented work, and the having of transcendental experiences.From what I gather, reading and listening to those who abide in awakened awareness, enlightenment does not turn out to have anything to do with becoming faster, smarter, sexier, or even healthier. It is not about perfecting the personality or glorifying the body. Several well known spiritual teachers who were thought to be enlightened have died of cancer. A Course in Miracles teaches that whether it's a sick body or a healthy body, it's all a dream, taking place in one mind which has forgotten reality, a mind which has divided into many pieces, all of which are sharing a collective dream of believing they are separate selves.
Some individuals may appear successful, in worldly terms, for a period of time, perhaps a whole life time. They may be given (and take) personal credit for successfully manifesting health, wealth, material abundance, and fame. Others may appear to be victims of circumstance, unable to move ahead––no matter how hard they appear to try. Paradoxically, they may be making more spiritual progress than those who are deemed "successful".
Sometimes things seem to be going well and you feel as if you have gotten a handle on improving your own life and the world. Then, out of the blue, you are prevented from doing whatever it was that made you high. You can't go out running, you're flat on your back. You can't afford to fly off to the spiritual pilgrimage you've made for years. You can't think clearly because you're feverishly hallucinating and fatigued. Sometimes grace comes in the form of pulling the rug out from under your individual feet. What life brings you is the opportunity to surrender being in control of the project of getting somewhere, of making life "better". Others seem to be allowed to get on the next bus and carry on with their journey of self advancement, but you're apparently not allowed to leave the depot. At some point in life, perhaps the majority of your personal effort to improve your circumstances is stymied. Ever your earnest efforts to become a more wide awake, aware, enlightened individual brings you to a road block. A dead end. A sense of defeat.
It may thoroughly suck at the time, but feeling stuck and out of control can be a high-speed course in awakening. Whether it happens gradually, or suddenly, the incapacity to improve your circumstances and self will give you the opportunity to see life differently. Perhaps from an aerial view.
If we float up above the maze of goal-setting, dream-following, effort-expending, project-doing, future-based behavior, we may see that this maze has no out. There may be a long run of apparent successes, the experience of seeming to get somewhere without being blocked. But eventually, if you play the game long enough, the 50/50 duality of this world becomes uncomfortably apparent. Try manifesting what you want, as hard as you care to try. You'll most likely appear successful––some of the time. The other times you won't. And if you get what you thought you wanted, come talk to me in a year and tell me if it lasted. You may come to the same conclusion I did, again and again, that the little me did not have a broad enough perspective to see what she really needed, or to anticipate the full consequences of getting what she wanted, much less what was in the best interests of everyone else. She could not make anything happen that resulted in lasting peace, joy, contentment, or security. All phenomena change in this dream world.
Life has had the grace to confront me again and again with situations where I felt helpless to alter my outer reality, no matter how hard I tried. Being squeezed and stuck at times helped me surrender into a different view of life, one which could symbolically be described as floating above the maze, recognizing its no-way-out-ness. I stopped trying to manifest abundance or health or a partnership that would last. It's not that I've stopped believing in the importance of self-discipline and taking responsibility, it's that there is a much bigger integration going on. I notice that for every high there was a low, for every success a failure, for ever passion followed an equal degree of pensive frustrated stuckness when I was prevented from following it, for every moment of personal success and pride an equal and opposite wave of chagrin and anxiety. For every "ah ha" of discovery about why things were as they were, an inexplicable exception that landed me back into not understanding.
It may thoroughly suck at the time, but feeling stuck and out of control can be a high-speed course in awakening. Whether it happens gradually, or suddenly, the incapacity to improve your circumstances and self will give you the opportunity to see life differently. Perhaps from an aerial view.
If we float up above the maze of goal-setting, dream-following, effort-expending, project-doing, future-based behavior, we may see that this maze has no out. There may be a long run of apparent successes, the experience of seeming to get somewhere without being blocked. But eventually, if you play the game long enough, the 50/50 duality of this world becomes uncomfortably apparent. Try manifesting what you want, as hard as you care to try. You'll most likely appear successful––some of the time. The other times you won't. And if you get what you thought you wanted, come talk to me in a year and tell me if it lasted. You may come to the same conclusion I did, again and again, that the little me did not have a broad enough perspective to see what she really needed, or to anticipate the full consequences of getting what she wanted, much less what was in the best interests of everyone else. She could not make anything happen that resulted in lasting peace, joy, contentment, or security. All phenomena change in this dream world.
Life has had the grace to confront me again and again with situations where I felt helpless to alter my outer reality, no matter how hard I tried. Being squeezed and stuck at times helped me surrender into a different view of life, one which could symbolically be described as floating above the maze, recognizing its no-way-out-ness. I stopped trying to manifest abundance or health or a partnership that would last. It's not that I've stopped believing in the importance of self-discipline and taking responsibility, it's that there is a much bigger integration going on. I notice that for every high there was a low, for every success a failure, for ever passion followed an equal degree of pensive frustrated stuckness when I was prevented from following it, for every moment of personal success and pride an equal and opposite wave of chagrin and anxiety. For every "ah ha" of discovery about why things were as they were, an inexplicable exception that landed me back into not understanding.
What happens when you come home from visiting some Holy Place? What happens after the retreat? What happens after the chanting and meditation with the group? How much is your inner well-being dependent on a place, a group, a practice? Practices have their place in the grand scheme of things, otherwise they would not appear to exist. There is merit to refining one's willpower and focus. But at some point in, it may become clear that the one doing the practicing is what feels so very cumbersome. The seeker starts to reek. The self-improvement Project Manager feels burned out. After months or years of dedicated efforts to heal the self, old wounded patterns still arise. No matter how far you think you've come, there you are, still in a state of suffering and incompleteness. The yearning for completeness may become stronger and stronger, motivating you to try many new ways to find it. Reading more books, attending more workshops, flying to faraway places to meet famous spiritual teachers. All of this may keep one's hope up for a while, but as long as there is still a distance between the guru and the grocery bagger, the sacred place and the parking lot, there is still a niggling sense of lack somewhere in the background.
If your character has access to the guru and the book and the workshop and the air fare that's fine, that's in your character's script. But if you don't have the free time or the health or the money to travel, don't worry. Be glad. For everything you need in order to awaken is right here in your daily life. Where you live now and what you are going through may be far from fun and easy. But it is just as good a place as any to realize what is really true and what you really are. No one and nothing is preventing your completion.
There is a limit to what can be accomplished by and as a "self". After a while, it is apparent that trying to completely attain perfection as an individual is as impossible as painting an entire floor while remaining in the room. Eventually, the self that thinks it is in charge of the project is what is in the way of completing the project. Evolving consciousness is one thing, enlightenment is another. Evolution––and devolution into chaos––happens over and over within the dream. Enlightenment is more about waking up from the dream.
If your character has access to the guru and the book and the workshop and the air fare that's fine, that's in your character's script. But if you don't have the free time or the health or the money to travel, don't worry. Be glad. For everything you need in order to awaken is right here in your daily life. Where you live now and what you are going through may be far from fun and easy. But it is just as good a place as any to realize what is really true and what you really are. No one and nothing is preventing your completion.
There is a limit to what can be accomplished by and as a "self". After a while, it is apparent that trying to completely attain perfection as an individual is as impossible as painting an entire floor while remaining in the room. Eventually, the self that thinks it is in charge of the project is what is in the way of completing the project. Evolving consciousness is one thing, enlightenment is another. Evolution––and devolution into chaos––happens over and over within the dream. Enlightenment is more about waking up from the dream.
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