New Spirituality

[lukej]

Hello everyone, 

I just wanted to make a post about something that I have noticed. In some circles, enlightenment is seen like becoming the Christ in and is treated with as much suspicion.  I see a lot of well-meaning spiritual people judge and criticize "normal" people and other spiritual people they as less than. Ego is treated as evil and the cause of all problems and people shield themselves with negativity with visualizations. Now, this is just from my experience.  I am not saying this is wrong or bad but I see it comes from a place of fear. 

I feel somewhere along the way we have missed something.  I do not feel spirituality is a means to self-importance, nor is spirituality really the answer to all problems, nor a way to escape reality and avoid the "darkness". If you do this that is fine I understand the innocence of it. Through my experience love has squashed all dogma out of me, and has fully integrated me. 

Now, I realize that I may be speaking from an odd place. I've been very spiritually aware since I was young and I do consider myself to be enlightened. I literally see an energy field of light all of the time. But after that experince, it was only love that satisfied me. It was only opening up to a love  that allowed my deepest and fullest awakenings to occur, and now a regular basis I become infinite just sitting and meditating. But from this place may I offer some insights or ideas for thinking about all of this:

• The divine is taking care of you. It wants to be you. It set all of this up for you.
• Nothing in you is wrong or less than
• To integrate is to love something and bring back into  your being
• Love has no reason, so love freely 
• All of your spiritual insights will not save you and will have to cast away to open up to the full beautiful radiance of the divine. 
• All things are here for your highest evolution. 
• This is a fun game the divine is having with itself 
• Being human is a gift, having a mind and thoughts are also gifts
• Feelings and sensations are also gifts
• Desires are perfect as well 
• All  insights are temporary and fleeting the universe is always changing 
• You have no control and you are innocent  
• You are your own authority 

So, from that point, what are you still trying to kill inside yourself? What are you trying to purge yourself of? The divine? Are you making yourself less than the perfection you are in hopes that eventually God will let you have your awakening and free you of everything? 

What if you teamed up with the divine and admired and loved you like the divine always will? 

This is just a different way of looking at things. Take this as you will. I just hope that it will inspire you to love yourself more. 

 

 

[Nahm]

@lukej Beautiful. There does seem to be a common pickle...”when I realize this enlightenment thing, I won’t have to deal with these thoughts and sensations anymore”, as if enlightenment were anything other than self discovery. As if the nature of the thoughts & sensations ever told otherwise. 

[lukej]

@Nahm Exactly. 

It is a subtle judgment of thoughts and feelings. It's like they just want our loving attention, respect,  and to be recognized as divinity. 

Though I do find it all to be fun. It's like God made all of this so tricky and hard so it could just experience the pleasure of love melting away all the pain. 

What else is God going to do for all of eternity? 

Though I can understand people wanting an escape. But to me, that means that don't have a good relationship with themselves, which arises from the way we are raised. They try to parent themselves as their parents did. Treating God as though it is their parent, not being open to the idea that no matter what they are loved, understood, and accepted. But still this all part of the innocent fun God is having with itself. 

[zeroISinfinity]

@lukej Yeah and God can be blind as bat and batshit crazy. ?

[Gili Trawangan]

@lukej Very nice post. I have to admit that I sometimes fall into this trap of demonizing the ego, in others and especially in myself.

Now here's the problem, if I just accept everything as it is and as divine, will I be able to awaken? Isn't self-inquiry in a way a bypassing of the ego? Isn't there necessarily a struggle in the process? For example, I tend to feel a lot of resistance towards doing yoga, and even towards meditation. Isn't there the danger of just saying "hey the ego is divine and wonderful as it is, so let me love it and go watch TV instead?"

I'm not trying to disagree with you, these are genuine questions. From the point of view of someone who has awakened such as yourself, I think you are absolutely right. But for most of us, who have not awakened  (and want to), I think there is a balancing act that isn't easy to figure out...

[lukej]

@Gili Trawangan Good question. So, let me say it this way. I don't think you can get to the higher states of awakening by hating and demonizing the ego. Now, doing meditation is not going against the ego or against yourself. Now, if your intent is to sit there and rid yourself of ego then that can be a problem. 

I have found self-love to be a very potent spiritual practice. It is not like I have forgown spiritual practice, in fact, they have become extremely pleasurable for me to do.  

The impulse to watch TV or anything else like that you might think that it comes from the ego, but really it is a conditioned response to deal with emotions we don't want to deal with. If you can catch yourself and love the desire to watch TV love yourself while watching TV and love everything that is going on and fully committed to it you won't want to do it all the time. 

The more you declare everything to be the divine (I call it the light) the more you love every experience the closer you will be to awakening. The struggle is to love the things you have rejected and are afraid of. But we do the struggle because we know we are worth it and are willing to love ourselves rather than try to purify ourselves. Love will purify you but once you reach purity it is not what you thought it was (purity is having no reasons). 

This is how I quit smoking. I didn't force myself to quit I made it so totally okay and I loved every part of it that my being had nothing else to learn from it and dropped the habit really quickly. 

Everything in your experience can be used to further your spiritual evolution. 

Edited June 18, 2019 by lukej

[VeganAwake]

@lukej I like your purity is having no reason statement. Very interesting, is this statement related to goallessness and non attachment/unconditional love? I find a peaceful awakend bliss with surrendering and not needing anything to strive for or achieve. Just being present in the divines creation and quietly watching nature play its course. 

Edited June 19, 2019 by VeganAwake

[lukej]

@VeganAwake It is more like feeling safe enough to do things without knowing the reason why. We are told we need to know why we do what we do. But honestly, you spend all of time and space thinking of reasons why you do what you do, why you are attracted to what you are attracted to, and so on. If we look at a child they have for the sake of having fun, they enjoy the reasonless joy. Love in its purest form does not need to come up with reasons why it loves something it just does and it is okay with that.  

[Nahm]

@lukej Again, beautiful. Thanks! So true. The awakened one in this house is 7.