Spiritual Practice

SPIRITUAL PRETENDERS: Because millions of people are seeking liberation from suffering under the illusion that they are already on a path which leads that way, truly awakened individuals are rare. Even those who exude devotion to transformation hardly ever evolve past wanting.

All struggling for a spiritual awakening—which is not first founded in your declaration of freedom—regardless of its tenure or depth, is invariably insufficient to launch you onto the path.

Professionally seeking in the “Garden of Ego” commonly manifests as false humility in a spiritual persona, trapping many for lifetimes in avoidance of their own full potential. While seeking to trust in themselves and in the process of life, many have discovered that coming across as a spiritual person is more important (and easier) than actually being one.

We all know the type: calm, open, and understanding, but when life applies a little pressure—in the form of doubts or challenges—the perfect storm, which is only a scratch under the surface of composure, emerges on a word, scathing all in its way.

“I just don’t know what came over me,” they will say, and with those words, abandon their will to their shadow… as if anything ever could come over them!

I remember my first true spiritual retreat. I said “true” because my primary motive for attending was to seek guidance on unifying my real life with my spiritual life. I had previously attended hundreds of seminars so that I might feel better, have out-of-body experiences or learn how Siddhi powers could be used to create wealth. At that time, the gap between my real life and my spiritual life was wide. Because of conditioning, I was convinced this was perfectly normal.

Being a saint and a sinner, and keeping the company of both was, after all, considered to be part of a “balanced life”.

I was to learn, though, that nothing could be further from the truth. Indiscriminately sustaining relevant relationships that unknowingly sustain conditioning and the shadow separates humanity from awakening.

As I wandered from one class to the next, I came across rooms full of seekers. Some had been on their quest for twenty years or more! Many were so glassy-eyed that I could not tell who, if anyone, was home. Most seemed quite lost; I certainly was. Sometimes, even the teachers were not at peace. I discovered the “spiritual elite,” those who possessed great knowledge about spiritual matters, but who seemed more interested in the security of their spiritual concepts and groups than they did in awakening.

Such spiritual pretenders seemed to be everywhere. As a curious neophyte, I was a little dismayed. This state of affairs seemed to hold little hope for my own budding quest.

My first encounter with a spiritual pretender was in a taxi in India. He and I were sharing a ride from an ashram to our hotel. He was a long-term student of a (genuinely) fully awakened teacher who had just led a retreat at the ashram.

This student was expounding the teachings so eloquently that I was convinced that he, too, was free! I asked how he was applying these wonderful teachings on a day-to-day basis. He went on and on with unreserved excitement about how great his life was. In particular, he told me he found a lucrative new job soon after abandoning his old life to be closer to his teacher. He told me how his new employer let him attend such long retreats and then make up the time later. But, to me, this interpretation seemed petty, not to mention completely disconnected from the scope of the enlightenment teachings we were just immersed in.

So I asked what he would do if the financial future of his teacher depended solely upon him? I wanted to know how he would apply these great teachings of trust, surrender, and unlimited potential in relatedness to a real-life challenge. Suddenly, the vibe in the cab changed dramatically, and for a moment, I was actually frightened. Now, I was faced with an angry and frustrated young man. He expressed what seemed like a well-rehearsed list of excuses for limitation—for not changing—because, as he spouted: “I like things the way they are”.

I was shocked.  When he finished, the car fell deathly silent. It was clear he had nothing more to say to me about this or any other topic. I turned around and peered through the crimson haze of a New Delhi dusk to see if we were close to our hotel. We met a few days later at the airport. He completely ignored me.

So obvious, so clear, and so challenging.
Since you has told us about that last week end , it’s an ongoing earthquake in my life and as you say:"it’s never enough until it’s too much.”
In that challenging time, I realize that evolution is up to me through the choices I make.
You have touched old structures and unquestioned beliefs about sexuality for instance.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be in that shaker.
Christophe

The observation that our highest ideals are rarely reflected in our daily lives is a dilemma that some us struggle with. If we are not struggling with it than we must of reached the highest level of evolutionary enlightenment .... not! Whether we are brain surgeons saving lives, professors shaping lives or sales clerk engaging with many different kinds of people we always have the conscious choice to effuse the evolutionary spirit and to courageously speak up when when we hear an old thought pattern being expressed in a harmful way.  Some days when I hear people speak with blind, preprogramed bias it cuts me to the core, other days I am more accepting as perhaps a mother would be of a young child. However, there are still too many days when I hear words come out of my own mouth that are obviously from a conditioned response. I love the term Andrew used during the women’s retreat ... “Hold the Formation”! Just walking out our front doors every day gives us the opportunity to engage and embody our highest ideals. The five tenets are pretty awesome!

Thank you so much for the what seems to be an ever increasing opportunity for collective engagement.

your call to grab hold of oneself with clear mind and eyes and set upon the task to manually take one’s own clay and form it in the image of own’s one highest recognition is awe striking and at the same time down to earth realistic. The creation of the new emergence of life’s formation: none-duality, is our task and I appreciate deeply that you made it a do-able task which therefore is ethically and morally demanding.

sounds like a sort of group spiritual tantra

The video clip really captures the energy of the retreat which was like a rocket ship and has remained programmed at a cruising altitude ever since! You stressed how it is up to us to bust through our inertia, to cultivate humility and strength, and to push through our limited physical preferences for sex, sleep, and food. Ever since the retreat, there is nothing but pure joy in being human.. in having the capacity to develop, to grow, to go beyond my thoughts of myself in order to find out what it truly means to change. This is a message you have been driving for quite some time, but it is no longer a concept “out there” waiting to land. It is here if we all dare to fall in love with how much more we can be, how much further we can go--for the awesome purpose of serving this higher “We”. 

There are many parallel paths that lead in the same direction, but not to the same place.  The ego recognises the change and says ‘oh, we are playing this game now are we?’’ and the being thinks they have transcended.  The best adaptation of the ego’s antics was in a Stargate episode called Egon, it’s an excellent demonstration of the ego’s insanity and power.

This question keeps hitting me whenever I read about integral approaches to spirituality: If you read teachers like Nisargadatta and Huang Po they say drop all discursive thought, all concepts etc, and once habitual thought is stopped action changes by itself. They do not say “Change your life, or quit your job, or integrate all your selves” And they do not make a separate undertaking of integrating, developing etc.  They say it all changes spontaneously, because the only thing keeping it all going is discursive thought. But they do say the struggle to stay out of discursive thought is titanic.  I would love it if an integral practice devotee would answer this directly, since it seems that Integral Practice is still the product of discursive thought.