Not Faking It and Making It

On a recent listen to an interview with Christopher Wallis, a scholar-practitioner of Tantric Shaivism, I was drawn to the distinction he made on spiritual growth verses realization. He sees it like putting the cart before the horse (or the self before the Self). I'm sure the resonance I have around this point is based on my own transgressions in this area. For instance, all this "seeking" with blogs, books, practices, and teachers can inflate the personality at the cost of knowing one's true personhood. I can feel exalted about my experiences and knowledge, but all that will do is get entitlement and pride to sneak in.

Wallis says: 

“What most people think of spiritual development is a kind of retooling and rejiggering of their personality; or a reconditioning of themselves according to whatever spiritual narrative they've bought into. I think this is ultimately counterproductive and dangerously so, because if you develop an effective spiritual ego that's all shiny and everybody praises and strokes you, you have so much less reason to wake up out of your ego structure than you did before. So to go about things back to front is not only a waste of time but you can actually end up digging yourself a much deeper hole and the exact thing that you started out interested in [to realize Truth] becomes almost impossible in this lifetime.”

Not in this lifetime?! How dare you?!

But thankfully, I'm aware of this and I'm constantly keeping my gnostic and intellectual curiosity in check. In that, my intention around reading and blogging is more so that God can read and write to me. I am staying with what I love, because what I love is what I can be. And since I don't golf, why not read spiritual books and blogs? Moreover, I believe the metaphysical pointers matter so we don't lose sight of where the realizations are taking us.

Yet, we never want to jump ahead of ourselves. Instead, this will just develop more concepts around what we believe it means to be a Self-realized person. This is a constant re-prioritization of undoing, where we are unhooking our entanglements of the mind.

We need to be utterly naked in every moment to what is, while falling in love with the whole of it. In turn, the recognition of the solid ground we are rooted in will allow for real growth to emerge.