(This is Part 1 of a series.)
Every once in awhile I'm tempted to write about the spiritual journey, even though there is no journey. Any sort of notion of getting from here to there is acually a strengthening of the identity. And dissolution of one's identity is what the spiritual "non-journey" is all about.
I like a metaphor that the mystic Adyashanti uses. He compares the spiritual journey with an icecube melting in a glass of water. That's perfect. The identity doesn't get anywhere, doesn't accomplish anything. Rather, the identity just dissolves, and when it does...then something else, which cannot even be described but which was always there, flowers.
By "identity" I mean that sense of knowing who we are. I'm a husband or a wife, I'm a mother of two, I'm an accountant or a nurse, I live in such-and-such a place. I have these opinions about this and these sacred beliefs about that. It's the identification with our thoughts, our actions, our emotions, our judgments, our history, our situation. We identify with our identity and seek to improve it.
What we usually refer to as the spiritual journey could better be called "making the dream more pleasant." We transfer our identity from a materialist identity to a spiritual one. Nothing has changed, actually, except that now we have a spiritual identity.
And we use our "spiritual knowledge" to make our life more pleasant, comfortable and/or gratifying. I'm all in favor of this, have done a good deal of it myself over the years, and in Song of Existence have gone into some detail about how to do it.
Nevertheless, it needs to be pointed out that all that has nothing to do with awakening. Awakening to our true nature as human beings has nothing to do with what we can call Stage 1 of the "non-journey"—and yet it cannot be said that Stage 1 is not helpful either. It is helpful.
In Stage 1 we would describe ourselves as a "spiritual person." We have a relationship with spiritual guides or ascended masters or ancestors or a religious founder or angels or a guru or channeled beings or whatever.
We surround ourselves with white light. We read spiritual books, listen to spiritual music, think "spiritual" thoughts, use the "spiritual" realm to increase our success in life. And—here's the hook—our life does feel better because of it. It's all good—yet again, though it seems strange to say it, none of this has anything to do with awakening.
Fact is, most of us don't want anything to do with awakening, because there's absolutely nothing in it for the ego-identity. Awakening has nothing to do with feeling good or succeeding in life or with "being spiritual" or even with having a peak experience. Which is why most of us don't really want it.
After we've had a peak experience or two or a dozen or a hundred we begin to realize that, as lovely as they are, even peak experiences are just more experiences. That which can arise and pass away, no matter how sublime, is not actually awakening.
In Stage 2 we focus our energy more intensely and begin a process of consistent meditation. Perhaps we chant or we repeat a mantra or dwell on our guru or say a special phrase or see the inner light or hear the inner sound. We may have visions of Jesus or the Buddha or devas or angels or devils or whatever, depending upon our conditioning.
The interesting thing is, those inner visions and inner sounds and so on, which we usually take as evidence of "progress," are more often traps. If we become attached to our visons or peak experiences and identify with them—exceedingly easy to do—it's just a further strengthening of the identity. Now we're really a spiritual person, spiritually advanced and so on. The identity may have shifted to a "higher" form, but it's still there. It can use anything to perpetuate itself.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 11.17.06
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