One of the common misconceptions is that your spiritual journey will be filled with angelic experiences. Blissful openings of your heart, quiet epiphanies, and overwhelming moments of unconditional love inspire us to take action steps towards our personal freedom. The assumption is that these experiences will eventually lead to enlightenment where you can sit in the lotus position and magically float three feet above the cushion below you.
Yes these beautiful loving experiences happen. But they are not the only experiences to happen. Very often your spiritual journey will be one humbling experience after another. In those humbling experiences your self importance is exposed for the bloated self image that it is. Then your beliefs about your self and your self images are pierce by awareness and crushed by truth. You are humbled when you realize that you had believed such illusions and lies for so long in your dreaming slumber without awareness.
If you journey further you realize that any early hopes of grandeur at enlightenment and mastery turn about 180 degrees. You discover that humble service to your fellow human being in the manner of love and compassion is the life of the enlightened
These are the words of don Miguel Ruiz. He is the author of the Four Agreements and The Mastery of Love. I don’t know which book they are from. Perhaps The Voice of Knowledge. The creator of this video didn’t seem to give a reference to the work. If these aren’t his exact words, then at least this is in alignment with his message.
These are the layers of the onion to be unraveled. To be free of your identity of the body. Then to be free of your identity of the mind. Then to be free to move beyond the Soul. To be life, the force that moves through all things. That is immortality. Life everlasting.
Advice often comes from the Blind. People in emotional pain reach out, to anyone, even those that don’t know how to help. Although they try to help, and intend to help, they don’t. Sometimes they just make things worse.
In a forum someone wrote:
I am very miserbale and sometimes feel like giving up. What are some things that I can do to be happy. Do you know of any websites I could use?….ANYTHING
Are you happy?What makes you happy? — Miserable
One of the bits of advice they got back was:
Think about a warm puppy. Another person suggested to forget about your self for a while and focus on helping others.
Other bits were helpful, but too often people give advice that can’t be integrated. IF this person is really miserable then it is unlikely that they will be able to focus their attention on a warm puppy. They might think about a warm puppy, but jump to the fact that they want one but don’t have one. If a person doesn’t have the skill to focus their attention where they choose, then suggesting that they focus on something positive is not just a waste of time, but setting them up for failure. This will take them on a deeper downward spiral.
If a person is drowning, do you suggest to them that they try the breast stroke?
Then if a person is drowning in emotional suffering there are many good intentions, suggestions, and advice that don’t amount to a life raft or a helping hand. If you don’t have something that you know will help, then don’t throw anything that will help them sink further.
What does it take to learn the skills to master your attention, focusing your mind, beliefs, and your emotions? These are all skills that lead to Self Mastery
In spite of what the inner judge expects, it will take some time. How much time would you give your self to become good at playing a musical instrument? Perhaps a year with hard work. Even after that you would continue to improve on those skills for years afterwards.
The skills of mastering your mind and emotions deserves that same respect of time.
If this were just the knowledge that comes from reading or memorization then that would be a different matter. But that isn’t the case.
During the first couple years of my personal and spiritual growth I found this to be true. Later, in a massive awakening of my self importance, I realized the magnitude of the illusion behind this belief.
In the expansion of consciousness that accompanied these realizations I discovered compassion.
It now seems impossible to me to hold to this belief that people create their own reality and be compassionate at the same time.
