1. “I can’t do it”
The ego says to you, “you can’t do this. You don’t understand this. You’ll never get it.” The ego likes the known. It clings to the familiar. It feels uncomfortable in a space where it is faced with ideas and concepts that are strange and new. It may even feel insecure or anxious listening to teachings which contradict the way you have been living all your life. Even though your erroneous beliefs about life are the very reason why your life is difficult or limited. The ego doesn’t grasp it all. This is normal, because the mind actually cannot grasp the higher subtle Truth. Wisdom is a property of awareness, not of mind. And actually it doesn’t matter if your mind doesn’t get it all. When you are open, many seeds of the integral eternal Truth are planted within your awareness, and when you are ready, they will sprout into your own wisdom and understanding. Your consciousness will be elevated just by being exposed to this vibration of Higher Truth. All you have to do is be open. That is how it works. It doesn’t actually matter if it all doesn’t make complete sense at the time. The teachings of Truth become food for contemplation, and provide a higher focal point for the mind to rest on than is normally available in ordinary life.
The key factor at work is the mind-to-mind transmission of the energy, which is the ancient method of teaching, and which does not rely on the student grasping every word or concept. The key that unlocks the door to Grace, is to be sincere, open and humble. We will say this many times, for emphasis. Every person who wants to be Free, is able to cleanse their karma and refashion their nature. This is true because Freedom is about uncovering the Truth already within you, not acquiring something new from outside. The full power of the Light and Truth already exist inside each person, so there is no-one who is unable to uncover it, if they sincerely want to be Free. It has nothing to do with age, background or intellectual facility. Indeed, intellectual development is often a barrier, as it can give the person the illusion of “I know.” As one great Master said, “knowing all about horses doesn’t make you a great rider.” This path is about becoming attuned to the vibration of Truth, and undoing one’s lower nature.
It is a game of unlearning. Engaging the heart is the key. Sincerity, openness, humility, self-honesty, perseverance, eagerness to learn and grow. These are the essentials. Absolute purity of intention – to become an instrument of God’s Love to all – this is the magic ingredient. This is what elicits a response from the subtle realm, which we call Grace, which then transforms your understanding and life.
2. “I know this already, I have already been to a retreat, etc”
The ego likes to hide out in pride. It is an undiscriminating way of making itself feel good, and a distorted attempt to be positive. In some cases, it likes to look down on its ‘less spiritual’ brothers and sisters. Pride is one of the surest ways to block your growth. In other cases, it may not be a prideful position. The mind may genuinely believe it has got all the good from a teaching or a retreat, and sees no point in repeating it. It is like repeating a course. “If you have done the course, then why do it again?”, reasons the mind. The problem is, inner growth is not about acquiring skills or information. It is all about unlearning what you know, and attuning to the subtle energy of Higher Truth and Love. The process of spiritual purification is about moving more and more of your being into the vibration of the Divine. The more you let go of rigid concepts and beliefs, and learn how to surrender to Beingness / God / Truth, the more subtle becomes your vibration. The work is to nurture the Divine qualities within you, and to release the rest. This is an intuitive process of unfoldment and refinement, not an intellectual one. It does not happen overnight. For almost all seekers, the ego needs to be dismantled in layers, and in stages.
That is why when you read a book that speaks of the Eternal Truth, you get certain things from it at one stage, but as you grow, you may reread it, and it is like continually discovering a new book. From such a book, or these teachings, you grasp whatever you can, given your stage of growth. The same is true of a retreat. At any given stage of your Path, exposure to the energy field of Truth allows whatever is most in the way of enlightenment to be let go of. Therefore, as you grow, new things, new layers of resistance present themselves for seeing and releasing. A retreat facilitates releasing whatever most holds you back right now, which may not have been ready to be seen even two months ago, because other patterns and energies were in the way at that time, which needed to be cleared away first. As you remove each layer of illusion within yourself, new layers present themselves for healing and resolution, which could not have been seen or dealt with earlier. More of you becomes attuned to the higher vibration. This cycle continues until there is no more duality, no more illusion to let go of. Teachers are there to radiate the energy field of the unconditioned Self, which, together with specific kinds of probing, facilitates releasing all that is not the Self within you. Everything in you that is not this Divine Love is seen and released. By continual and repeated exposure to the vibration of Truth, your karma is literally burned off. Each time you are exposed to this vibration, some of your ego is dissolved.
3. “I don’t have time right now. I am too busy, too many important things going on.”
This is one of the ego’s favorite tactics to keep you off the Path. If your life is a direct living out of your karma, and you decide you are too busy to explore and release these patterns and beliefs, then you are making the choice for your life to not change. (You may not realize that this is what you are creating for yourself.) Somewhere you need to break the cycle. If you continue to be the same person, with the same beliefs and responses, then you will continue to manifest the exact same patterns and types of conditions in your life. It is certain.
The ego does not want you to be Free from its dominion over you. It can create any number of diversions to avoid growth. Often, this can be a cover for other stories it may have, such as “I can’t do it”, or fear of what you might discover if you were to explore more deeply within yourself. The ego thinks it can only afford to engage in this higher growth when it has taken care of all its pressing demands. Of course, if you are always under pressure or overwhelmed, that IS just your pattern, so it will never actually change by itself. The free time to consider ‘higher questions’ never actually arises. The ego doesn’t see that growth is the only way to profoundly alter your life conditions. The way to overcome this is to expose yourself to the higher vibration of Truth, to give time to observing yourself and releasing lower energies, to allow space for contemplation on higher Truth, no matter how much fear it brings up to take this time out of your demanding schedule. When you make space for this growth, AT WHATEVER COST, Grace will ensure that things actually do NOT fall apart around you, and you will see that the ego’s worst fears are always unfounded. Miraculous things begin to happen to you when you make a firm choice for the Path, in spite of fear. However, if your mind merely adds ‘time for growth’ to your already overwhelming TO DO List, then it will just become another stick to beat yourself with. In this case, when you fail to give yourself the time or focus to attuned to higher energy, you will feel guilty, tell yourself that you are letting yourself and others down, and now you will be stuck in guilt, which will make it even less likely for you to elevate yourself. Self-judgment only obscures the purity of your sincerity and inspiration, and serves no purpose. You learn instead to do the best you can.
Actually, by giving yourself this sacred time, which your ego says you cannot afford, you will raise yourself up. When you are in contact with a higher vibration, you will literally see things differently. What seemed like insurmountable problems will not be so overwhelming, and you will have insights about how to move easily beyond obstacles that previously seemed impossible. As you clear your energy, the circumstances themselves will change. It always works this way. As you align yourself with Truth, you will notice that it is not actually a question of time, but of motivation, intention. When your primary intention is to grow and be Free of your programming, you will be contemplating on it all the time, not just on a Monday evening or Friday morning. You will spontaneously FIND the time to contemplate, etc, no matter how busy your life is. You will learn how to stay attuned to the higher energy throughout each day, no matter what is going on. This is what elevates your consciousness.
4. Spiritual Life versus Practicality.
This is a continuation of (3), above. The ego is conditioned to believe that taking care of the most practical aspects of one’s daily life is one thing, and spirituality is another. This false separation does not exist in Reality, but is merely an invention of the mind. Life works the way it works. The integral Truth is the integral Truth. All beings and all things are subject to the subtle laws of the Universe. Freedom and practicality are not different spheres of life, or different pursuits.
In any life situation, if you are stuck in wanting to control people or the situation, you will feel out of control, and your resistance will influence things around you to move further away from you, and out of control. This is always true, all the time, for all beings, in all situations. Is this spiritual or is it practical? It is both. And of course it is beyond such labels. It is just how things really work. Wisdom is always like this. It is subtle and yet all pervading. Wherever and whenever your life is in harmony with it, all things will work for you. Wherever and whenever your life is out of sync with these eternal Truths, things will not work out for you. Is this spiritual or practical? In a business situation, you may find yourself wanting the approval of your boss, your peers, a customer, etc, and so in that moment, approval will move away from you. If you tell yourself “this is business”, and you don’t notice the energies within you, then you will struggle to find a ‘business solution’ to something which is much simpler. Instead, if you were to simply let go of wanting approval, and come back to the pure intention to serve those around you, things will work out. Are we speaking here about business, or spirituality? Wisdom and higher awareness are the most intensely practical thing there is. For every area of your life. Ignorance and illusion are entirely impractical, as they lead to resistance, suffering and powerlessness. Your level of consciousness pervades every sphere of your existence. Or, put another way, how you do anything, is how you do everything. You cannot separate your spiritual life, from your working life, from your personal life.
It is common for the ego to confuse Truth with religion, or with new age philosophy, which notoriously contain much distortion. By missing the essence of universal wisdom, these traditions give Truth a bad name. The mind likes to classify knowledge into subjects. Truth, on the other hand, cannot be classified. It is the one meta-subject that pervades and supercedes all other subjects. It deals with mastery of life itself, through bringing one’s entire being into harmony with the subtle laws of existence. To know the Truth is to become it. As you become it, you begin to understand all of life in all of its expressions. To not be interested in Truth is, in one sense, to continually miss the essence of Life. Ignorance leads to always taking actions and decisions, hoping for certain results, but always getting what you hadn’t anticipated or didn’t want to create. There are many millions of people in the world who live in hope that the future will be better than the past, but they don’t change themselves, so it rarely is for them. Ignorance of Truth is always impractical. Higher consciousness is the only practical way of mastering your life.
5. “If I take this Path seriously, I will become weird. I’ll be alone.”
This is a common fear. Before exploring how Truth REALLY works, the ego has only superficial reference points to work off. It sees Indian yogis, and enlightened beings dressed in strange clothes, whose lives are often unconventional. Many such Masters are not in conventional relationships. This scares the hell out of the ego, and it secretly fears that spirituality is about giving up having love or security in your life. Surrounded by others who do not understand the Path, and who are afraid of where it might lead, this intensifies fear. Nothing could be further from the Truth. The Path is only about freeing yourself from your limiting beliefs and lower energy. This has nothing at all to do with external appearances and superficial trappings. What you give up is your clinging, emptiness, lacking feeling, and all heavy energy. You give up the ego only. As you release your lacking feelings, your external circumstances correct themselves. Spontaneously. The more you progress along the path, the freer and more centered you will be likely to be. Your vibration will be more refined. To illustrate this, the Indian Saint Kabir was once asked to explain himself for refusing to shave his head, as was the tradition among the order of monks in which he had been initiated. He replied to his questioners, “I don’t need to shave my head, I have shaved my mind.”
Truth and Freedom are an inner business, and have nothing to do with superficial rituals, morality, repetitive dogma or beliefs systems of any kind (which only distort the Truth, and never lead to Freedom). This path has nothing to do with externals. You do not need to change your clothes, your haircut, your friends or your living conditions. You do not need to abandon your children (in fact that would nor serve your growth at all). There are no oaths to be taken or promises to be made. There are no secrets to be sold, nor special language or dress needed. You must raise yourself up to the energy of Love and Truth, and release all lower conditioning and negativity. That is all. You grow to the point where nothing and no-one can push your buttons. Relationships always get better and easier with growth, as you become less dependent on others for love and approval. Dependency is based in fear, and always breeds anxiety and resentment and wanting to control others. Your capacity for love grows as your intention is fixed on the higher Truth. You become less needy and more secure as you discover your own inner power and wisdom, uncovering your untapped potential and gifts. There may be a stage where others around you or close to you still do not understand your Path, and they may even be angry or ridicule you. This is a test, the price of your Freedom. If you are unable to give up needing their approval, or you succumb to the temptation to try and change or convert them, then you become a prisoner of your own fear. If you are able to love them, and still maintain your commitment to your own growth, even if others don’t like it, there will come a time when your example will inspire them. (See (9), below).
6. “The spiritual Path requires giving up fun, worldly enjoyments and all the ‘good things in life’.”
This is another myth that scares the hell out of the ego. It is so convinced that its current strategies of living are leading to having the life it wants, one day in the future. It is counterintuitive that by letting go, all the best things in life will come to you by themselves, with no effort. The ego thinks you have to work hard to get love and approval and respect, so it is addicted to struggle. It strategizes in order to build and safeguard its image and reputation. This by itself absorbs a great deal of available energy. It struggles to amass enough money so it can feel secure, and it has a whole list of life goals, that it is convinced are essential to being happy and fulfilled. From this very limited level of understanding, there is no time to take the eye off the ball. You are like a mouse on a mouse wheel. Then, when you are exhausted, you escape into all kinds of entertainment and addictive habits to distract yourself from the stress of your life of clinging and struggle and resistance. The ego calls these the “good things in life.”!!
The ego fails to see that the times you have felt best in your life, were always when you were most loving, when you felt best about yourself, and were most free from negative thoughts, emotions and conflicts. When you were the least fearful, and not disapproving of yourself. The problem is, most people have not yet learned how to get into that state, because they haven’t learned how to release negative thoughts and emotions, how to work through inner conflict, and how to be attuned to higher energies. So the ego has no choice but to be always repressing its negative feelings and escaping from its fears. The difficulty with this approach is that as soon as the mode of escape is over, the lower energies are still there, the karma is still there, the conflicts remain, and nothing at all has changed about your life.
How many times have you noticed, you go away on holiday, feel relaxed and good for a week or two (or maybe you cannot even fully relax for the first week), and then a couple of weeks after you are back, it is like you have never taken a holiday at all, and you are back in the same old merry-go-round, dealing with the exact same stresses you had before you left? Maybe you cannot even relax fully while on holiday. Why? You take your mind with you, even on holiday. You can be surrounded by some of nature’s most breathtaking scenery, and if you are wanting approval, worrying about the future, or trying to control some situation back home, you will be suffering.
Growth is the only way to permanently free yourself from the stresses and difficulties of life. Without growth and higher consciousness, you cannot discover life’s magic. The greatest thing in life is LOVE. Divine Love. Realization of who you are. (These are one and the same). This comes from discovering the untapped power within you, and bringing your entire being into harmony with the Universe. You cannot find this ‘out there.’
7. “To be truly spiritual, I will have to be poor and renounce the world.”
Then the ego thinks spirituality is about renouncing the world. So it fears giving up its home, its clothes, etc… all the things it clings to for security and approval. The ego thinks that it will have to be poor in order to be spiritual. Again, influenced by the beliefs of the new age marketplace, and the image of Indian yogis and wandering hermits meditating on the mountaintop, it worries that “spirituality has nothing to do with me or my life, with my own business, a wife, a network of friends and 3 kids, etc.” Of course, none of this is true. Again, as Kabir says, renunciation is only in the mind. As you let go of wanting and clinging, the Universe takes care of you, far far better than you could possibly do when you are trying to control and manipulate and struggle to make things happen. You don’t give up anything, except your ignorance, your clinging, your ego. You give up the whole struggle that goes with believing you are an individual separate from the Totality, and you discover something greater and more marvelous than you could have imagined. As you attune more and more to the subtle realm of Beingness, you discover that Beingness responds and begins to guide your life, and that the less you struggle and resist, the easier things are, and the more they work out by themselves.
Aversion to money is just as much a block to Freedom as the clinging to money. When you go beyond both, you see that life provides everything you could possibly need, all the time. All by itself. There is a saying in India that wherever Narayan goes, Lakshmi will always follow. This means that wherever God is, there too is always abundance. (Narayan is a name for God, and Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth). All the greatest masters have spoken this same realization. That when you seek God /Truth/ Freedom first, God Himself (or Beingness) takes care of all your other needs, just like that, and all worries are eliminated from your being. Realization is the real jewel. In this state, one cannot possibly feel unloved or unsafe. Realization is the ultimate state of abundance, because it is the end of all fear, forever. Your life becomes unlimited. As one great Master once said, “Maya (the veil of illusion that shrouds the Truth) keeps all egos prisoner, but to the enlightened one, she becomes a servant.”
8. “Everything in moderation”
The ego has the tendency to mistakenly apply this seemingly wise adage to the Path. This often happens when loved ones see you immersing yourself in higher teachings, and they may become frustrated, not understanding why you have thrown yourself into the Path with such enthusiasm or passion. “Everything in moderation !”, they say, anxiously. “Not ANOTHER retreat !!! … You just DID one!!”
What does that mean, “everything in moderation” ? That may work when you are eating ice cream, or watching TV, but how about when you are growing and discovering how life really works? When you start a new business, do you work one day on, one day off, just to keep the spirit of moderation going? Of course not, that would be utterly foolish. If you want to become a great tennis player, or a great musician, do you practice every now and again, to achieve moderation? So then, how about when you are heal all negativity, refining your energy and removing all darkness and ignorance from your life? What is the value of moderation here? Moderation just means lack of understanding. Lack of clear intention. Not wanting anything with your whole being. (Your power to grow depends on your degree of focus. The Universe responds directly to the nature and concentration of your intention).
Let us imagine you are working on ridding yourself of the poison of anger once and for all in your life (which only keeps you stuck), should you take a break, and only allow yourself to get angry half the time? Should you apply your growing wisdom only some of the time, and only to some things? Is it practicing moderation to be emotionally reactive and unconsciously enslaved by your mind only half of the time? Would it help you to be more balanced if you were loving and giving only occasionally? Our lower energies, negative beliefs and tendencies die hard, so to free yourself from your conditioning takes great and sustained effort, not half-hearted ‘moderation’.
Indeed, how rapidly you go Free depends on the intensity of your efforts to live in the vibration of Truth, and to let go of your ego, to transcend your lower nature.
9. Pressure from friends, loved ones, partner and others.
One of the most common reasons why people resist the path, and avoid doing the work to clear their karma with more sustained effort, is peer pressure. When a person begins the Path, it is inevitable that they will be surrounded by loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, and others, who do not understand this journey of Self-discovery and Freedom. The ego is easily frightened by what it doesn’t understand. It worries that if you are sincere and committed to your growth, that maybe you have joined a cult, a sect, or a movement in which you could be brainwashed !! The ego of others has many reasons to fear you going Free. Even though your growth is the best thing that could happen for all those in your life that you have relationships with. First off, the ego fears what it doesn’t understand.
Another reason for their subconscious fear is that, as you grow, you begin to be less dependent on your partners, friends, family, etc, for their love. This of course makes you much more able to LOVE THEM. Because when you feel dependent, there will be fear and resentment. But other egos do not understand that. So they try to control you, talk you out of pursuing your growth, and put pressures of all kinds on you. It is very common for your partner to organize something terribly important, a once in a lifetime family gathering, “a special weekend away just for us, after all this time”. Urgent obligations, sudden crises arise out of the blue, in order to take you away from pursuing your Path (including attending retreats). Much of this may even by unconscious. I.e., it may not be consciously manipulative, but nevertheless it is the expression of others’ fears. They may tell you that you are selfish, that you don’t care about them, don’t love them, or else they will be cold towards you, withdraw love from you, whatever will most arouse your fear and need for approval. If your mind tells you that you need that person’s approval more than anything else, you will be trapped, and you will not pursue whatever it is that supports your growth (a gathering, a retreat, time alone, etc). For you, this is almost always a test - a time-honored test that all must go through along the Path. It is like a ‘rite of passage’. If you are able to make growth more important than having the approval of your child, parent, lover, spouse, friends, etc, then you are taking a giant step towards being Free. You must remind yourself that to pursue your Path is the least selfish thing you can do, and that all around you will benefit from your growth and greater capacity for love. To begin with, they may become angry with you, or even ridicule your sincere intent for growth. Later on, they may become inspired by your example. If you cave in at this earlier stage, then you are only being controlled by your own fear, guilt and ignorance.
You can see it this way. The people you have around you who are resistant to your growth, are nothing other than the reflections of your own consciousness, the parts of your own mind that are still resisting your growth and Freedom, even if consciously you are committed to this more than ever. As you begin to make these hard choices, and opt for your own growth and Freedom, then you find that you actually acquire the inner resources and strength to deal much better with peer pressure, and to let go of wanting approval. Whenever you choose growth, Grace will make it possible for you, and will help you through all the obstacles, including the financial ones. Many of you have already experienced these ‘little miracles’. Even if you don’t know how you manage to get through a situation, Grace will provide a Way where there was none. You will see. You will reach a point where you really see that your growth is the greatest gift you can give all your fellow beings, especially those closest to you, and no part of you will be divided about the overriding importance of walking your Path. When you get to this place within yourself, you will notice that you will have no-one around you opposing your choice for growth and Freedom.
10. “Spirituality is about becoming a better person.”
Many of us have been exposed to mainstream religion, or at least to a culture that is steeped in religion. Even if you didn’t go to mass every week, or your parents didn’t force you to go to confession, you may still notice that you grew up in a culture that thinks in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. This is the world of morality. From the point of view of morality, higher teachings are confused with the aim of ‘being a better person.’ The problem with the goal of being a better person, is it already implies a judgment of oneself as needing improvement, by some outside external standard of goodness. This is far from the realm of inspiration, the inner longing for growth, devotion to the ideal of God-Realization and Freedom. It has to be the heart’s free choice. To live as the Light and dedicate one’s life to the upliftment of others. It cannot be imposed from outside.
You become inspired to reach your potential, rather than telling yourself you really should do this or that, to be a better person. The energy of ‘SHOULD’ and trying to be a better person, has a heaviness to it. The free spirit in you will naturally need to rebel against any imposed authority, whether imposed from within or without. It will try to free itself from any SHOULD’s, HAVE TO’s, etc. If you tell yourself this path is about being a better person, you will never have the passion for growth. You will never become inspired. You will never fall in love with the Dharma and you will miss the joy of this magnificent journey. Growth will be relegated to being just another item on your TO DO list, as per (3), above.
In Truth, as many of you already are experiencing, real growth is a thrilling adventure. It is the most exciting thing there is. It is all about activating your own higher intuitive intelligence. It is an amazing discovery when you awaken capabilities that you didn’t know you had. The higher energies lie dormant within each of you, holding Infinite intelligence and capacities, waiting to be activated. You get inspired to become an expression of the highest Truth, for the benefit of all. The battle is only with your own lower nature and energies. So, the goal of this journey is not to become morally acceptable to other egos, but to refine your energy and awareness, to purify your vibration so that the highest Love can raidate through you, uplifting and healing you and everyone you come into contact with. As your energy becomes more refined, and your awareness grows, your presence will become more and more beneficial, healing and transformative for others. Your life becomes an offering, as you lift yourself up into the realm of inspiration and Grace.
Absolute purity of intention includes sincerity, humility, courage, self-honesty, and the deep motivation to serve the Divine manifestation and the highest good of all beings. The more pure your intention, the higher will be your vibration. With the cultivation of this inner purity, Grace guides your life and looks after everything for you. Inner purity of intention makes the Path rapid, and filled with joy. Great Blessings and seeming miracles rain upon you when the heart is totally sincere.
11. Hiding out in a spiritual identity.
Perhaps you have grown beyond your earlier life programming, having been exposed to the Path and these very powerful teachings. Maybe you have let go of some karma, and you are now more centered than you have ever been before. People around you notice this, and start to see you as spiritual, as evolved, as special, etc… And your ego loves this and clings to it. It gets all this approval, admiration and attention, (which it may never have had before) and it is SO tempting to just hang out here, rather than continue to let go, remaining humble, and using your life as an offering of Love and service to all. The person acquires a spiritual identity. A ‘healer’, a ‘teacher’, a ‘spiritual person’, etc… and it gets secret juice from this position. You start to get the love you always craved, and you mistake its source as being the approval of others (rather than your own approval of self). The problem with any identity, is that it requires effort to keep it going, creating constant anxiety. This is exhausting and draining, and stifles further growth. Being ‘special’, or ‘spiritual’, are just more ways in which the mind separates itself from the One, and always leads to feeling isolated and separate from Grace.
12. “I already understand and agree with all this, why do I need a retreat / more exposure to Truth?”
The ego hears the eternal Truth, and it is difficult to argue with, difficult to refute. You may have heard the teachings, and your mind may have decided it all makes sense, and it agrees with it all. So it says, “I already agree with all this, I have heard this before, I understand it now, why do I need a retreat, or more exposure to Truth?” Again, this is all about the refining of your energy, and coming to a place of embodying the Truth within you, living it fully, becoming it utterly in your whole being. This is very very different from merely hearing about IT and the intellect agreeing that these teachings are valid. To understand the Truth is to live it fully. Merely being able to mentally repeat words and concepts of higher Truth is useless to you. To what degree has it come alive inside of you? To a starving man, reading a menu and knowing all the ingredients is not the same as having the meal itself. The Truth will nourish you and set you Free to the degree that you have been able to implement it in your life. Otherwise, it remains philosophical and dry, and then it is no longer Truth. The menu is not the food, and has no power to nourish or sustain you. The key to this path is momentum. To use another analogy, if you want to become a world class athlete, it is not enough to know everything about training techniques, have top quality facilities, a brilliant trainer, etc.. You actually have to train. Similarly, with the Path, you must purify your energy, and release the lower illusion and negativity, or else there is no progress. You may immerse yourself in the Path intensely to begin with, and so you will begin to awaken many new insights and capacities. It is joyful and exciting. You discover a world you never knew existed, a way of being you had never imagined. But if you get complacent, or lazy, or for whatever reason you stop, or think you understand it now, then the gains soon get swamped by all the unresolved patterns and conditioning that still remain, and which you are no longer releasing on a daily basis. And then you will forget that you even made such rapid progress at the beginning when you were training intensely.
Many people go through this. When you forget momentum, it is easy to slip back into old habits, and your vibration drops. This brings great suffering, because at least now you know there is another way. In this state, it is easy to forget all about growth, and return to the old life of clinging and resistance. When you DO keep the momentum on your Path, the same difficult tests may come, but you start to feel that Grace is carrying you through all difficulties and obstacles. When your intent for growth and the Path is constant, unbroken, then when the challenges do arise, you somehow discover the strength and the courage and the inspiration within you to let go of what you need to release, and you always find your way through, growing all along the way. That is when it becomes a wondrous adventure.
13. “Life is good, I don’t have any major problems, I am happy, so why do I need to do a retreat?”
This kind of complacency affects people who have not been exposed to the Path, as well as those who have. It is the most common position amongst those who are at least moderately successful in conventional life terms. The difficulty lies with the conventional social view of success. The conditioned mind growing up in society is bombarded by constant media images of the rich and famous. The unquestioned model of success in modern culture is to be wealthy and to reach a high position in society. Some cultures emphasize this social dimension more than others, which means to be admired, respected and loved by one’s peers. To be considered part of the ‘elite’, or popular among the ‘important’ people. Or to have power and influence. For women, the training is often to become alluring and desirable enough to attract the right man, who it is hoped will bring you the love and security and social position. Some women may be driven by business success, but for the majority, even those in business, there is much focus around finding the ideal partner as the most important goal and mark of success in life.
These conventional models of success have little to do with being happy, much less finding fulfillment or Freedom. The vibration of ‘wanting’ will always keep things away from you. However, if you have not tasted these forms of success and discovered for yourself that alone they do not bring the lasting happiness they promise, then they tend to retain a powerful grip on the mind and imagination. So some people have to go through enough failed relationships, until they see that, without inner growth, they are condemned to living out the same dysfunctional patterns. Or they need to make enough money to discover that it never eliminates the anxiety for the approval of others. Each person has to discover for themselves that growth is the only answer to being truly fulfilled and Free in life. The alternative, if one’s karma is ripe, is to become inspired for the Path, without having to spend decades ‘chasing rainbows’.
Then there are others, who have already begun the Path, and made enough progress to pull themselves out of the more obvious stresses and fears of their earlier life. Now, because life is so much easier than it was before, they mistakenly think they have got all the juice there is from spirituality and the Path. They say they are happy. This person never gives up the idea that success in life is about position, money and getting love from others. So they remain stuck in wanting control, wanting love and approval, and wanting to be safe and secure. When you are stuck in this wanting energy, control, approval and safety all remain elusive, no matter what worldly successes you have to your name.
However, this person’s mind is so conditioned, that they continue to chase and struggle and work towards their unquestioned life goals as the primary objective. If you ask the person what they hope their life goals will bring to them, many people have not considered this question. They are driven by their programming, on autopilot. Their mind is their master, rather than the other way around. When you want control more than you want to be Free, then you will not release control, so things keep going out of control for you. This applies the same with approval and safety. So when your intent for Freedom is weaker than your other life goals, your consciousness never really grows, and you will have the tendency to try to use the Path as a means to get what your ego thinks it needs from the world to make you happy or safe. Your consciousness remains manipulative and absorbed in self-concern and the energy of getting and wanting. This keeps your vibration low, and means that the highest Grace never descends on you, and the magic of inner transformation that the Path is really all about remains closed to you. To this person, the realm of Grace, or the Divine, remains theoretical, not experiential.
If you never consciousness remains bound by material life, you may indeed reach some of your external life goals. But you will find that they do not bring the inner peace, approval, respect, satisfaction and security that your mind dreamed they would. You will never be free of anxiety. You will never be able to finally rest. Look at the current economic crisis. It is a perfect case in point. Imagine a person who has worked 40 years to build up enough money, hoping it will make them feel secure, and in a couple of months, all this is washed away. They never understood that this life is about clearing your karma, and going back to the Source, to God, to Love. They have wasted a whole life in wanting, struggling, manipulation, and getting. At the end of your life, you will leave in the same condition you arrived in – naked and with nothing. What is the meaning of it all? What is worth doing between now and death? The only thing you can take with you on your onward journey at the time of death, is your consciousness – how you have lived and loved.
The inner choices you make determine your destiny. The Universe knows your heart. If you live a life of ignorance and selfishness, your vibration will remain low and gross, and you will never be truly happy or fulfilled, much less achieve the ultimate state of union with God. On the other hand, if you seek to grow, to refine and purify your consciousness, life will get easier and you will transcend all the lifetimes of karma that you have accumulated. You will behold the Divine nature of things. And all the material things that you thought you had to struggle a lifetime to get, will be available to you with no effort, just when you don’t care about them any more. When you are beyond wanting and needing, everything is given to you by Grace. This is what is really meant by the alleged words of Jesus, “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and then all else shall be added unto you.”
Also, see (7), above, for the anecdote of Narayan and Lakshmi, which illustrates the same Truth. The super famous, the super wealthy, and the super successful (in conventional terms) are as plagued by wanting and fear as others. You cannot begin to feel fulfilled unless your motivation is truly to use your gifts and resources for the service and upliftment of all beings. Much less know the Bliss of Divine Love.
14. Blame and criticism rather than self-responsibility.
When a person is experiencing a great deal of dissatisfaction with themselves and their life, it is common to project this onto others as blame and criticism. This compulsive behavior is a poor attempt to deflect attention from one’s own misery. A person stuck in blame and criticism will tend to project these energies onto any person around them, which may include the Path itself, teachers, teachings, relatives, friends and strangers, even God. It is not uncommon to be angry with God for one’s life or past.
The difficulty with this position, is that it is a way of avoiding taking responsibility for you own life and feelings. It is a way of not doing the work on yourself. It is a distraction, a diversion, from actually looking within and letting go of your feelings and beliefs. If such a person were to just expose themselves to the vibration of Truth, whether via written teachings or a higher being who embodies these teachings, or even just through intense prayer, then Grace would begin to elevate their mind, and they would begin to find solutions to difficulties and situations that may have seemed hopeless before. Blame is the inner world of the victim. It leads to despair and hopelessness, as it reinforces the illusion that your life is this way because of other people or circumstances beyond your control. This total abdication of responsibility is a way of giving your power away, and leads to an enormous loss of energy. People stuck in blame are often tired, frustrated, angry, sick, hopeless and depressed. The moment you are courageous enough to take total responsibility for your life and feelings, that is when you have the power to change it all. You can take your power back at any moment.
15. Paralyzing fear and self-judgment.
For many egos, there is so much background anxiety, so much fear and clinging, that their life is a story of lurching from one urgent crisis to the next. In such a state of restlessness, the mind is often unable to calm down long enough to actually concentrate on anything of a deeper nature. When the mind is in a crazed state (which many people live their entire lives in), it is unable to grasp the subtle nature of things, which requires making space for contemplation and introspection. Insight comes naturally, all by itself in this state of allowing. When the consciousness is overwhelmed by fear, however, it is common to be perpetually seeking to control one’s environment. This expresses as a strong need to avoid uncertainty at all costs.
Unfortunately, growth requires letting go of control, and only then can the person discover that when you DO let go, REALLY let go, something greater and more marvelous takes over. But you must discover that for yourself. You cannot have someone else prove to you in advance that if you let go enough, everything will work out. All the person knows is a lifetime of things not working out, because they have never ever been shown how to let go, so they have no evidence for the power of how this subtle universal law operates. They don’t know what it even means to attune to higher energies. Self-judgment is another very common obstacle. When this habit is strong, there is often a deep-seated conviction that if they look within, they will only be faced with how bad, selfish and wrong they are, and their already fragile self-esteem may be shattered. It is safer to stay away from looking too deeply within. In this way, unresolved guilt can keep the door to growth firmly shut.
When anxiety and self-judgment reach high levels, they become paralyzing. The cure for this person is to reconnect to the universal courage that lies within us all, and to know that when you look deep enough within, you will actually find perfection, innocence and beauty, not darkness and badness. This is true for all beings. But because the ego, in its ignorance, has the habit of judging others in order to make itself feel better, it secretly fears being judged itself. The two always go together. The ego often has so many guilt and self-punishment programs, it can even conclude that “I do not deserve to be completely Free (given what I have done or been, or not done or been)”. So it is busy doing some form of penance, which only serves to keep you a prisoner. God never punishes. It is only the ego that punishes itself (usually with the assistance of religion and morality!) When you expose yourself to Truth, just by being open, the healing energy itself will elevate your mind and spirit, and you will be able to see yourself from a new vantage point, without blame or judgment or condemnation. You begin to see the innocence of the child in yourself. Then rapid growth can begin.
16. The overriding need to be in control.
For such a person, with overwhelming fear, wanting to be safe, seeking security and control, it is common for the ego to co-opt the Path and to see no further than attempting to use the teachings as a more sophisticated set of techniques to get what they want. Like ‘The Secret’ on steroids. This person therefore never develops the inner purity of motivation and heartfelt sincerity that make the Path the magical journey that it really is. They remain stuck in a world of spiritual materialism, always trying to control life, now with better tools. They succumb to the view of these precious teachings as no more than a ‘toolkit to solve difficult life problems’. Or a more sophisticated means to get what the ego wants in any given situation. The Path is relegated to the realm of ‘technique’.
In this distorted and dumbed down paradigm, all the mystery and all the joy is missing. The person never gets out of the ego prison of “trying to get what I want”. So the highest Grace never descends on them. All the magic of the Path, the miracle of transformation, goes unnoticed for this person. Without inner purity of intention, the intuitive faculties and higher intelligence never awakens for this person.
The door to Grace never swings open. So they never know what all the fuss is about. “Why do people become so absorbed in this path, why so committed?”, it asks, ignorantly. The wonder of discovering how life really works never comes alive for them, because they are stuck in trying to control and feel good, rather than trying to learn and grow and serve others as the primary motivation in life. This person will tend to think the Path is mundane and cannot understand why others may be so committed to it. Nevertheless, it may be hard not to notice people around you who are sincerely walking the Path, because their growth and transformation is unmistakable. But the ego can be in denial about anything !
Again, the cure for such a person is simply to connect to their own courage, and to explore these teachings with the primary intention to grow and learn and become the energy of Love. One must be willing to learn how to give up fear, rather than be run by it. And you must be ready to observe yourself closely, with no judgment, regularly and consistently. Then growth happens very quickly, no matter what the past has contained. With great sincerity, the lowest of natures can be refashioned very rapidly. This is the miracle of Grace.
As one great Master once said, “God’s Love is unconditional, but His Help is not.” When you take one sincere step towards Truth, God / Grace takes a thousand steps towards you. It is a thrilling adventure, in which you must discover and prove everything to yourself. The sun shines equally on all. All you must do is seek the sun, and meticulously remove the clouds. For one who is sincere about the goal, the promise of the Path is permanent Freedom and joy, absence of all difficulties, complete understanding of life, overwhelming joy, LOVE and bliss like you cannot imagine, and the end of all fear. Forever. To the discerning, it is worth any sacrifice. It is the permanent transformation of your whole life and being. The end of being reborn into the endless cycle of birth and death.