Why Self Development Does Not Lead To Enlightenment

In our culture, however, the pursuit of “enlightenment” (which essentially means remaining in direct awareness of reality) has become confused and conflated with the self-help/self-improvement project. People talk about wanting to grow and become a better person, and often imagine that the end point of this growth process is something like enlightenment. This demonstrates a real lack of understanding of the nature of the spiritual path (as conceived in Asian traditions anyway). Not only is permanent awakening not the end point of the growth process, it is not even in that direction. What??!

See, if you stop and think about this for a moment, you will see that it is clear: according to all yogic traditions, your true nature is always already perfect, at the core of your being is pure radiant divinity, and you are always already one with the infinitely divine Consciousness that gives rise to and sustains the entire universe. TAT-TVAM-ASI: you are That, here and now. Therefore, the realization of this truth does not depend on any degree of personal growth. Rather, it is a paradigm shift where you stop identifying with the phenomena within Consciousness (e.g. thoughts, emotions, body image, etc.) and wake up to the fact that you are Consciousness itself – the only constant in the eternal world. changing world of your experience.
And yes, it is possible to wake up so much that you never fall asleep again. You don’t become a categorically different kind of person; you ultimately see the truth so clearly and completely that you cannot unsee it, and thus you reside in a different paradigm than before.

Despite fanciful stories of ‘sudden enlightenment’, this does not happen overnight. Just as it may take a while to awaken from your physical sleep before you are fully awake and lucid, in the same way, once you have touched the truth of your Being, you must continue to touch and deepen your consciousness. of Consciousness for months or years before it becomes your default state. In that process, some kind of growth is necessary: ​​reaching a level of maturity where you know what you really want and your daily actions reflect the deepest desire of your heart. In other words, you need to mature enough to get out of the way and make space for the awakening process to unfold. But this kind of growth is a necessary complement to awakening, not its cause.

So you have to ask yourself: are you unconsciously believing that awakening to your true nature must wait until you have completed your therapy, or until your life is not a mess, or until you can retreat to a sanctuary in the bunch? or until you attain samādhi? Do you spend a lot of time and energy on a self-improvement project that yields only incremental gains, without first accessing the source of unconditional love within you? If so, you are suffering. And you’re not alone.

Here’s what looks really weird from where I sit: Many people who practice self-improvement type spirituality work very hard to acquire the qualities that are natural byproducts of staying in wakefulness (bodha-stha). This goes from back to front. First wake up to what you really are and then integrate that realization into all aspects of your life. Waking up is actually the easy part compared to integration, but much harder than either is trying to integrate a realization you haven’t really had yet. That’s what most people are trying to do in this game. I know, you have had powerful experiences where you tasted your divine essence; but this is really not the same as properly waking up to the belief that your thoughts, memories, and story have something to do with who you really are.

It’s so simple: you can’t heal the “broken self” as long as you believe it’s you. Or you can, but it’s ridiculously difficult. On the other hand, if you awaken and become centered in your true nature, you can lovingly address any misalignments in your body and mind that need to be addressed. If you are willing to do the work of integration, every layer of your being will become imbued with the powerful energy of awakening. You then begin to embody that wakefulness, which is beneficial to all beings. If you don’t do the work of integration, even when you are centered in your divine core, it doesn’t really benefit anyone else.

This is important. Some people become aware of their true nature and then reject the body-mind and its problems instead of working with them. This is called “transcendentalism” by my teachers (and “spiritual bypassing” by others), because such people simply seek to transcend the body-mind. On the Tantrik path, in contrast, we seek to infuse the energy of pure consciousness (chit-shakti) into all levels of embodiment and aspects of daily life. This is called integration. But again, to do that you must be able to access the energy of Consciousness at will, which takes practice.

So integration is the real spiritual growth, but that is also true Nothing
has to do with trying to recondition yourself to better conform to an ideal found in books on spirituality or in the mouth of a teacher (what most people call spiritual growth). Rather, it means doing whatever is necessary to open the mind-body system in such a way that the energy of awakening can flow freely and permeate every aspect of your life (when this is actualized, this becomes mahā- vyāpti, the Great). Pervasion, in Tantrik Yoga).
Living in the middle of the sea of ​​nectar, with my heart-mind immersed solely in the worship of You [as the substance of every experience]May I attend to all the ordinary pursuits of man, and enjoy the inexpressible in everything. ~ Utpala Deva

This process of integration and embodiment involves a lot of looking. When you hold up a thought or self-image and look at it in the Light of Consciousness (again, assuming you have access to that Light), you can clearly see how it is out of alignment with your deepest nature and throw it away (by By definition, they are all misaligned to some extent; but the less coordinated thoughts may be useful for some purpose). For most people, this doesn’t happen automatically; they have to actually do the work of looking and throwing away; or, in the case of saṃskāra
s or unresolved experiences, viewing and processing; this is a crucial distinction. This explains why some people can be ‘enlightened’ but not integrated; and when they become teachers, they usually cause harm. There is a difference between accessing the Light of Consciousness (prakāsha) and doing the work to see what that light does and does not reflect in its fullness (this is called vimarsha or self-reflection).

Artwork by Jungle Eye

A person who has done a lot of vimarsha and has therefore let go of his self-image and processed many of his unresolved experiences is in a state of freedom called moksha. Such a person is called jīvan-mukta, liberated while still in the body. This is significantly less common than awakening or even persistent awakening. It is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life, but it is not an attainment, since nothing has been achieved; rather, something has been lost.

It is a state of being truly unburdened and free. But even this is not a terminal state, because there are always more saṃskāras to be digested and more integration to be done. Yet there is a tipping point beyond which you can never return to the state of bondage and delusion. Passing this turning point caused the Buddha to simply and humbly say: kṛtyaṃ kṛtam: what needed to be done has now been done.

What would it be like for you to drop all self-improvement projects based on a sense of unworthiness and spend your practice time learning how to access and dwell in your already perfect inner Self? This isn’t as easy as it sounds, because it means going beyond enjoying a feel-good idea of ​​your own divinity and accessing the real deal, which humbles and softens you more than it uplifts and affirms you ( ‘you’ here means the body-mind-personality complex).

What if you stopped trying to be a “better person” and just learned how to fully embody the being you already are?