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“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity”
Lao Tzu
The truth is that you are a God disguised as a clown. You are one of many clowns, but each one is unique. God has a lot of fun experiencing our rivalries among ourselves, complexes, cooperation, love, wars and all the things that come from feeling separate. It doesn't matter what we do or how we do it. It's all about being different from each other with our distortions and interacting with each other. After death we get rid of our "problems" and personalities, and our finished incarnation is as valuable as anyone else's. There it doesn't matter what you have achieved or to what degree you have grown spiritually. This pressure is present only here. This is what people after clinical death experience talk about when they reacall the boundless and deeply touching acceptance on the other side. This is why enlightened masters are not activists or politicians, but just sit smiling in a quiet place. That's why the wise martial arts masters in the movies don't want to fight. The deepest acceptance brings the peace and freedom that comes from not needing to interfere with the world or fight it. It's passive enjoying the richness of each moment and being reconciled to the fact that the dance of our lives is part of the whole. Let's perform it with passion and confidence without worrying about the end result - it doesn't and never did matter.
„When you attain Satori (enlightenment), nothing is left to you at that moment but to have a good laugh.”
A sentence in Zen philosophy
Spiritual Growth
„Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not overcrowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.”
Sri Ramakrishna
„The purpose of practice is to have direct experience of the Buddha nature which everyone has. Whatever you do should be the direct experience of Buddha nature. Buddha nature means to be aware of Buddha nature”
„Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”
„Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it, because the result will never come. But if moment by moment your effort arises from its pure origin, all you do will be good, and you will be satisfied with whatever you do.”
Shunryu Suzuki
There is nothing wrong with those activities. However, we should understand that these are not the only right way for a living, but only one of millions of ways to experience life. We do not have to race against each other and force ourselves to grow, which may not necessarily be our calling. We don't have to struggle to implement the rules of spiritual life that we read somewhere. Man's destiny is not to be a saint. Everyone has his own individual qualities and needs that should be realized. The most important thing is to find what fulfills us. If you enjoy reading books about spiritual life - do it. If you experience deep states during meditation and return to the practice in passion rather than resolution - you are on your way. If you're obsessed with reading cards and birth dates - you'll be very successful at it. However, if you feel that spirituality is leading you nowhere, leave it and go into business, sports, or anything else. You can do anything but you don’t have to do anything.
Spiritual growth in the general sense is limited to this life only. Your Soul is doing well regardless of the decisions you make about yourself. People who find satisfaction in spiritual practices are polarized into experiencing their astral body just as others are polarized into, for example, experiencing their physical body through sports or building it up at the gym. Both are this way from the beginning and it was not their choice.
So aren't we at a loss by giving up the reworking of traumas from previous incarnations, removal of blockages and healing of ancestral karma that spirituality offers? It is important to understand that these distortions form our personality and our lives. To completely get rid of all of them requires a level of consciousness that is extremely rare among humans. Not only do we not have to be crystal clear but we shouldn't even be. As humans, we have nowhere to run from our traits and characteristics. We can only choose between fighting a doomed battle with them or befriending them. This does not mean agreeing to a miserable and tiresome life. The only thing worth fighting for is our personal comfort and security. From a spiritual point of view, it doesn't matter how battered we are by our experiences, but for us it's a very real thing. If you can't deal with your problems on your own with spiritual materials and guidance, then get help from good medium, get a good energy treatment, an acupuncture treatment, and so on. Once you allow yourself to be helped and return to your proper life balance, let go of further demands on your condition and enjoy what you are. You will not have the second opportunity to experience being the person you know today as you.
Accept all your failures, appreciate your successes and laugh at your own jokes. Know what you're not suitable for and what you're good at and feel good about it all. High consciousness brings understanding, and understanding is followed by true acceptance. Acceptance that immediately fixes what decades of development techniques try to fix. Accept what you are, and if you are interested in modifications by spiritual techniques, give yourself over to it completely and have fun. Just remember that true self-acceptance entails accepting other people and completely different ways of life that are right for them and not necessarily right for you.
Most "growing" can't even explain what it means. What is being grown? Where does that growth take place? How can one check his progress and compare to someone else growing with different techniques? Most, however, are not concerned with actual transformation and understanding the process. Their minds are satisfied with juggling lofty words and building the illusion of their enlightenment before others and themselves. They spend years convincing themselves that they are getting better and wiser. At the same time, they use esoteric explanations (excuses) for their problems instead of honestly verifying where they really are.
Some people find short-term self-appreciation in paid certificate courses. It is absurd to think that by taking a few days of workshops one receives the highest competence in a particular area of spirituality. Effectiveness and level of understanding comes from personal predisposition and state of consciousness. A course is not able to make such a change right away. Particularly dangerous are initiations and other rituals of inclusion in some group. The effects of such activities can modify and seal us, just like vows or sacraments. They work rather in the interest of the person/egregore bringing us into the chargers community, and can be so long lasting that they are not limited to a single incarnation. There are also certificates authorizing the work with a particular patented technique, but as we see it, this does not apply to the individual growth, but to the development of business and we will not talk about this issue here.
Others search for a guru/coach to lead them to enlightenment. Such a person states that his spirit is not grown enough and decides that he will go on a long difficult journey through renunciation, humility and discipline. A wise teacher knows that his role should be only to point out student’s programs, habits and blockages that he himself is unable to see, and then confronting him with them. What the student does about it is always up to him. Demanding challenges and strict rules from the guru is most often an action against oneself.