Essential Zen

"The spiritual seeker is like the man sitting at home on his sofa, who gets the bright idea to go in search of home, so he packs his backback, programs his GPS and heads for the hills.

Where is he going if every step he takes is one step further away from his goal? He's on a journey to discover this fact, and only this. There is no other reason.

He passes through streets lined with booths. Everything he could ever want is available at the spiritual bizzare but the one thing he's looking for; his own home. Nobody can tell him where it is or sell it to him or give him a map or beat it into him. Even the wisest can only point him back the way he came, but he's already been that way.

He comes upon the big tent. "Welcome to the Spiritual Circus" Here he can study the words of the masters, learn all the tricks and techniques. He learns to meditate and be blissed out and present in the moment and experience Oneness and infinite Love and he thinks he's getting closer to home. 20 years later he's still looking.

If Oneness is the Truth of his Being, what does it mean to be the experiencer of Oneness? If his home is Truth, of what use are the words if they don't point him home? If Truth is already what he is, and he won't effortlessly notice, what amount of effort will bring about this realization?

The spiritual search serves one purpose only; to help you realize the futility of the spiritual search. For the imaginary self, it serves the purpose of distraction, delay, obfuscation. The 'me' is buying time, turning away from the gallows steps over and over. It's a game, a pretense, a sham. The mind will run through the streets screaming "There is no me!" What foolishness.

The spiritual path is about learning to die gracefully. No more games. No more delay. No more excuses."

daphne wrote:So many people writing about 'the imaginary self'

daphne wrote:... makes one wonder who is it that writes the waffle... not to mention discovering that the 'spiritual search' is a rip-off.. and of course.. spreading it out to all the other imaginary selfs! There's a book in the making there somewhere.. wonder if its imaginary cash too!

Atomicinterpretation wrote:

The spiritual path is about learning to die gracefully. No more games. No more delay. No more excuses.

Hells to the yeah. This relates to my support of evolution instead of enlightenment as well. When you decide somewhere along the lines that you've reached your Nirvana, or whatever you want to call it, then you stop evolving, you set yourself up to drown painfully beneath any waves of change that may come your way. And they always do. It seems change is the only constant here in this Universe. So evolution is impossible without willingly taking the hand of Death, with perfect love and perfect trust, in the name of a new incarnation, new experience, and new perception.

The path is not about a destination. The true destination lies in the realization and manifestation of all that which is truly possible in any given moment along the way.

The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.

Atomicinterpretation wrote:(Don't know how to quote with boxes yet.)

"Perhaps. IMO, it is not necessary even to manifest all which is possible."

Actually, I agree with this. Maybe I could have worded it better, because obviously you can't manifest everything in any given moment. When I said "The true destination lies in the realization and manifestation of all that which is truly possible in any given moment along the way," I suppose I was referring to, or rather speaking from, the Infinite Universe idea. I was feeling optimistic that morning.