A Big Pitfall On the Spiritual Path
“The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with being.”
The path of spiritual growth, healing, and enlightenment is a wonderful and fulfilling path, but like most paths, there are pitfalls and traps along the way. One of these big pitfalls on the journey of spiritual advancement is that of striving for enlightenment. If we are striving for something we will automatically be caught in suffering and struggle. Why is this? When we are striving, we are caught in the illusion of time and are trying to get to some magical moment in the future when we imagine that we will have and be all that we need in order to achieve enlightenment and a perfected state where pain and strife do not exist. The way of living in the future or past is the world of illusion and fear. This seems crazy, right? I mean, we have to think about the future in order to make plans, and we have to address the past in order to set ourselves free, right? Yes, to a point. However, this way of living, caught in the illusion of time in this way, is a trap that keeps us caught in our suffering…it does not alleviate it. We can briefly visit the future in order to make plans and even address past emotional wounding in order to heal it, but we must learn to live our lives in the current moment as much as possible if we are to ever truly be free of suffering. The ultimate truth of reality is that there is only this moment, the eternal now. The past and future do not actually exist, they are in a sense figments of our imagination, as we cannot access them from where we are in this physical world of form, and we only ever live in the present moment. Can you think of any time when this was not true?
If we’re striving for enlightenment we’re already moving away from it because enlightenment, peace, joy, harmony, and happiness can only ever be found in the present moment. Since this is true, the number one obstacle is this idea that one day in the future I will be enough, I will measure up, I will have overcome my issues or I will have fixed whatever I need to fix in order to become the version of myself that is in fact enlightened. This is a big trap and it’s really easy to fall into and even once you see it clearly, and it’s easy to fall into it again and again. It seems like we should remember this, right? We don’t because we’re oriented to this third-dimensional reality that teaches us separation and that what we need is “out there” in the external world or in the future somewhere. The story of ego is that sometime in the future we will acquire whatever it is we want to acquire whether it’s knowledge, enlightenment, material possessions, a job, the love that we are striving to get to it’s always in front of us somehow. It is never accessible to us in the present moment. So what happens? We end up on an endless hamster wheel because even if we got to the desired place “over there” and we became that person that we wanted to be then what would happen is that there would then be another “over there” goal that would be set up for us to achieve, and on and on it would go.
It is really crazy, but that’s how our ego works. The ego will constantly tell us why we’re not enough why we still need to do X, Y & Z in order to get wherever we want to get. Its main storyline is that we’re not enough, the world isn’t enough, life isn’t enough, other people aren’t enough, and that nothing is enough as it is. This story of not-enoughness is the main storyline of the ego-self and so if we recognize this and we really get this we can hopefully at some juncture stop falling into its traps. The work is to keep coming back here to the present moment and knowing that right here right now is the only place the only time we are ever going to have happiness, peace, joy, and enlightenment. As long as we are striving we are suffering because if we’re striving or sending ourselves this message that we don’t have it yet, it will automatically be kept ahead of us in the future, and therefore remain unattainable to us.
It is only when start to really live in the present moment that we have access to the ‘‘enlightenment’’ we seek. Now, let me clarify that enlightenment does not mean that you will overcome the human condition. It does not mean that you will have no more pain, loss, suffering, or unfairness in your life. Not at all, and I cannot stress this point enough. It is found only in acceptance of the present moment as it is right now, with all of the pain and all of the messiness that this moment may bring. Enlightenment is not perfect and it is not alleviation of pain, plain and simple. It is an acceptance of those things being a part of human life on planet Earth. The truth is that right here, right now, we have full access to the enlightened state that is really a deep connection to the moment and the willingness and ability to feel it all and accept it all, as it is in each moment.
Many people have the idea that they need to “fix themselves,” that they need to solve the “problem” that is the self. This is the ego’s favorite game…it sits in judgment of us and convinces us that there is something wrong with us that we must fix. The truth is that there is absolutely nothing to fix at all. Even the healing path is simply a process of waking up to the truth- it’s a matter of cleaning the lenses of perception so that we see that in fact, life is already perfect in its messiness and pain, that we are already perfect, as we are right now, and that there is, in fact, nothing missing at all.
Pay attention to your thoughts and whenever any thought-form arises that tells you that something is wrong, work to move deeply back into present moment awareness. If you are not paying attention, it will snag you over and over again. Mindfulness practice and working to stay grounded at the moment are fundamental to the path of personal transformation…without it, we will get caught in ego and fear, over and over again. Presence truly is the gateway to freedom. When we cleanse the lens of our perception, we wake up to the fact that we are already that which we seek, and we are already can live in bliss and enlightenment. As you come into presence, notice the familiar thoughts and stories of lack and fear, and allow them to fall away by refusing to interact with them. Do not get caught in the web they weave. Do the inner work necessary to shed all familiar past mind recordings from your inner critic and thought-forms of fear and limitation. Allow all that is not you to leave through the withdrawal of your attention from their hysterical stories.
Know that ultimately, you are pure awareness, pure consciousness, and pure love, that this is the truth of who you are in the spiritual sense. In the human sense, you are human, which is to sometimes be messy, unconscious, fearful, judgmental, and even hateful. You are all things, and all of the various and seemingly opposing parts of you can exist all at once. The work of loving yourself and healing your life is to stay present with yourself, holding all parts of your experience equally with love and compassion. Simply allow yourself to be with yourself in the present moment with your breath, with your life, with what you hear, with what you feel, with what you smell, taste, and sense, painful, wonderful, blissful, or wildly uncomfortable as these things may be. When you allow yourself to sit in the discomfort, the fiery, dark pit of despair, this is where the magic happens. Your full presence, your willingness to sit with even your most terrifying fears and discomfort without flinching away, without running, will liberate you from the suffering that you create when you try to escape or attempt to be somewhere other than where you are. Rest in yourself and know that you are safe.
