“When will I realize that everything is an illusion?” “How do I give up my ego?” “How do I quit doing?” These questions are raised by an inordinate number of people of late. It’s like farmers worrying about harvest time while the weeds are overgrowing their emerging crops. This premature questioning results, in part, from neo-Advaita teachers who portray the spiritual search as a waste of time and self-realization as a conceptual sleight-of-hand. However, even those who espouse a path of action risk explaining too much of the process that, in retrospect, led them to a spiritual realization. Explaining too much of the process may create a generation of seekers who think they know where they are headed.
Thinking you know where you are headed or what is just around the corner is worse than not knowing. It’s like explaining the plot of a mystery before you read the book. The author’s attempt to guide you into the world of the story is ruined by your foreknowledge. The tale’s emotional component and its potential to affect you are swept away and your reaction to it is flattened. Pre-conception leads to a pre-ordained conclusion.
Of course, seekers are always looking for the formula. I recall Richard Rose saying many times that we were asking the wrong questions. He was right. Someone recently asked if I had given up during my spiritual search. They clearly were trying to find a formula, and then isolate the catalyst – thinking, “That’s it! I have to give up, then I’ll be enlightened.”
You can’t practice this end game. That’s like the Asian monks who composed their death poems years before they died. That’s not facing facts. That’s imagining “how it would be if….”
Realize that describing the enlightened viewpoint is like describing a dream. You either find a nod of recognition or you don’t. Taking action based on this dream description is a bad idea. You ask me how I see the world and I reply, “It is like a painting on water.” You go home and think to yourself, “The world is a painting on water. Why don’t I see it? What is wrong? How do I see this?”
Maybe I should have said nothing; maybe you’ll have a feeling of recognition. Either way, don’t run about your brain drawing conclusions from a statement.
As has been said before, start with the basics. What are you most sure of? That’s where you have to begin being honest. You know this table is solid. Sure, some physics book may tell you otherwise, but hit the table with your head and you’ll know truth. Now look for what is solid in you. Look again and again and again, and determine to keep looking till you find that which is beyond questioning.