This blog has over 1,500 posts. It is packed with concepts. If you come here looking for concepts, you’ll certainly find them.
But if you’re seeking spiritual awakening, it’s good to recognize that our concepts will never meet it. The subject is literally beyond the mind. Words can only point and approximate. Words are symbols for concepts only.
There is an old Vedic saying – updated for today we could say “knowledge in blogs remains in blogs.”
The reality is never what the mind may expect. I can guarantee that however much you may think you know what enlightenment is, it’s not that. It’s a pretty much universal trait to have a doh! moment with awakening. Our concepts never meet it.
On this site, I suggest you consider ideas like working models, subject to change. If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, you know the models I use have evolved, I’ve changed some terminology, and I’ve crossed out a few things I later realized were wrong. Our understanding is always a work in progress.
If this is true, why do I bother? Because these pointers can be very useful for those living it. Having a little context for what is unfolding can be invaluable.
Such models can help put teachings you hear or read into some kind of context. Teachers may seem to contradict themselves or each other. Often this is only due to the stage to which they speak. Reality is different in each stage, just as the reality of a toddler is not the same as a teenager.
It’s also very useful to have a bigger picture of the process so you don’t get stuck feeling “done” or over-estimate anything.
Further, those studying the field need good working models. Many models I’ve seen are limited, distorted by one person’s experience, or confuse experience with being.
I write about Brahman regularly these days because it is prominent. Please don’t begin to think you understand Brahman by reading a few articles about it. For someone in Unity, Brahman is nonsensical. For someone in Brahman, Brahman is an unfolding profundity that takes time to be known.
And please don’t use your estimation of someone’s stage to judge them. We’re all on the same journey. And we’re all a broad mixture of development with some things open, other things to heal, and many experiences yet to be had. Human development is not that black & white. Rating others just makes yourself smaller.
My wish is simply that the articles here help support rather than hinder your journey. But that is up to you.
Davidya
Last Updated on June 16, 2016 by
Davidya, this post is tremendously important. Before commenting further, I just want to note the important achievement summarized by “Over 1,500 posts.”
Consider the source — that Davidya! Celebrate the quality!
Including that modest little statement, “I write about Brahman regularly these days because it is prominent.”
Everyone reading this blog, you recognize here what Davidya has just told you about himself, without bothering to use little words like “I am in….”
Thanks, Rose. Can’t take much credit as the source though. More like the messenger. (laughs)
On Brahman being prominent, the wording is because it’s not about the person but rather what is unfolding through it (in spite of it?). It is also unfolding in 2 local friends, several regional friends, and others I’m in touch with so the topic is quite lively.
Back at the importance of this post, I bring the perspective of also serving as an Enlightenment Coach.
Each of us has distinctive specialties. Yet I do think it is important for every Enlightenment Coach to offer two things:
* Understanding about Enlightenment. What it actually is, with plenty of nuance included.
* Help for evolving rapidly and, even, helping folks to cross the threshold into Enlightenment.
Doesn’t it make sense that both of these would be needed? I haven’t read even 500 of Davidya’s posts here, yet I have read enough to know that he does include both sides of the coin.
Readers, you may not be aware that both types of help are NOT always offered at resources like this. Two big cheers (out of two) for Davidya!
Yes – there are many sites rich with concepts but rather lacking in quality means. But without means, how is it to be lived?
And when it is lived, where can we go to understand what is unfolding – not as an idea but a lived reality.
One more response, if I might.
Thank you so much, Davidya, for raising that point about judgment.
Many professions aim to help with spiritual development — including Enlightenment Coaching, meditation instruction, energy healing for the sake of spiritual progress.
These services are often, sadly, fraught with mushy thinking, sentimentality, and even outright fraud.
One trend I have noticed is a kind of permissiveness, or lack of discernment, about Enlightenment. Discernment need not mean “Being judgmental.”
To provide understandings and criteria about different states of consciousness, as Davidya does so beautifully, isn’t the same as judging or claiming superiority.
A wise discernment can protect every seeker of Enlightenment.
Right – there is a big difference between informed discrimination and judgement.
One of the examples I’ve seen of the second is Hawkins “levels of consciousness” scale, used with muscle testing to rate things. This scale was adapted from Sedona’s work in emotional self-awareness. Hawkins used it to rate spiritual development by emotions and went on to rate just about everyone, putting himself up top with Jesus. He also taught that his readings here infallible.
One of the more recent trends I’ve enjoyed is more non-denominational on-line discussions where people are not so protectionist of their path. More open sharing. But there can also be an anything-goes, it’s all truth, and so forth, which doesn’t help much either.
Thanks, Rose
What I so enjoy about this blog & its writer, {yes, that’s you sir 🙂 }, is the kindhearted, open pointers, given without dogma or coercion, & most importantly, offered/shared from experience, not philosophy.
In terms of the value of answering questions, I find that a well-timed answer can help reassure my mind that everything is unfolding in a healthy manner, allowing me to drop ruminations quickly. And something else a little more mysterious has been happening lately; whatever I might be dealing with in life, or asking an internal question about, seems to be covered in a blog post that I read here, seemingly at random …
I also agree with you and Rose about discernment, the importance of which cannot be overstated. I see discernment as ultimately being about taking responsibility for oneself & one’s choices. In my experience, no ‘progression’ is possible without taking this step of turning back to yourself and your own authority, and also being patient when things are not immediately clear (as in not turning immediately to a spiritual teacher to spoon feed you when the path seems unclear).
Thanks, Amaryllis. I do slip into a bit of rigidity once in awhile but it’s always a good sign there’s something to be seen and released.
When there is flow, the answers to questions arise wherever the attention is. If the attention is on a flowing source, that process is more complete.
And yes to discernment and self-authority. The spiritual journey is one of learning. That doesn’t happen if we abdicate responsibility.