On the Pursuit of Awareness

Personal "spiritual" awareness can only be achieved through individual internal pursuit. One can receive guidance into a practice of self exploration, but the treasures found therein present themselves uniquely for each person and can only be hinted at. They cannot be harvested, gifted or sold, for any price.

Entertaining the notion that reading and adhering to any religious or philosophical doctrine will yield self awareness, is like thinking that reading a recipe will please the nose and tongue, and sustain the body, in the same way that preparing and eating an actual meal does. No matter how brilliant the chef and how vivid the descriptions, there's no sustenance in vicarious fare. No matter how enlightened the author and how apt the analogies, it's impossible to communicate the experience of dissolving into oneness, and the understanding that it yields.

It would be easier to explain the sensation of slipping into a bubbling hot tub to someone who's never felt water before. And that would be virtually impossible. Words and cognitive thought are bound to the realities of space/time. Universal consciousness exists beyond such boundaries. It can only be experienced - not understood, captured or conveyed. This realization requires going beyond the self, and its needs and desires. It requires shedding everything we think we know and accepting a new paradigm of how we know.

It's possible to spell out actions and attitudes that create a good foundation for inner work. In fact, most need such guidelines. And communities built around aspirations of expanding awareness and nurturing good will are very beneficial. The problems lie in recruiting and recording, which take concrete promises and rigid conceptualization. Both of which effectively end up creating misdirection. It's very tricky to motivate and communicate to a mindset that's inherently unable to grasp the larger message.

Essentially, it takes two different languages. One that misleads, but that the rational mind can process; and one that strives to convey non-duality. One that speaks to the conceptual self; and one that speaks to the non-self.

The universe is fluid. We are fluid. And so, our pursuit and understanding has to be fluid, as well.