This is as far as the “I” gets in the spiritual journey

 Psychology is all-right to make our lives better. There are always some problems of the past, some abuse, some trauma, some infantile aspirations and aversions that need digging up. Psychology can’t free us from ourselves though because it is centered in the belief that there is a center of being that needs to be worked with; needs to be healed, made sane, made rational. This center is illusionary and even at the beginning of Awakening we don’t quite grasp this fact.

 

With awakening a new world opens up. We stumble on center-less being, and we call this feat the Dao, God’s Grace, Spirit, Grace. It’s a bi-polar existence though as the all-too-human moments return again and again. Still, we become light workers, try to put the spiritual talents that we acquire to good use, sign up for an enlightenment quest, teach what we know to others, and so forth. It’s a different existence as before altogether but there is still a center, a light worker, a healer, a teacher, a searcher.

 

What’s next then? How to make the commitment to the new world complete? Why should there even be a “next”? I feel the problem is that we in the spiritual community don’t own up to the fact that despite all these break-thoughts that we had we are still not complete. The truth is we fall in love with the teaching, the healing, the spiritual moments; we are way too busy convincing others of the benefits of positive living that we fail to acknowledge the negatives that are still present for all of us.

 

Occasionally there is a voice that appears to come from the beyond, but often the implicit belief of many is that they have a command of that eternal state, that they monitor their thoughts, that they are connected to awareness—the background—and that they get better, more spiritual all the time. Hardly anyone says, “This is as far as the “I” takes me, from here on Grace has to fill in the rest.” It’s not very sexy but the imaginary self cannot break down the illusionary walls of the center.

 

It is not easy to write this for the fear prevails that “those who say it cannot be done should not stand in the way of those doing it.” Well, most of us do our spiritual practices to the best of our knowledge. I try to do the best I can today—like writing this post and hanging out with likeminded friends—and leave the next steps of the spiritual process to itself. Let’s see what happens.