Bit of a long one today, so read if you’re feeling patient!
I felt inspired to write a little about one’s motivates for engaging in spiritual practice. This discussion leads back to that powerful force itself which lies at the heart of all manifestation: desire.
Whilst I feel some powerful force, beyond my self-centered grasping, was at work when I, the-most unlikely-guy-to-stick-to-any-form-of-routine on the planet (it took me until I was 25, and a massive amount of forced effort, to develop the habit of brushing my teeth regularly! 
) suddenly became able to do something regularly, twice a day, without fail – I also, of course, brought all of my humanity and self-centered grasping into meditation practice with me.
That’s something that I’ve had to, gradually, become much more deeply conscious of. Becoming deeply conscious of it, gaining insight into it, gradually frees you from its bondage.
I wanted to write a little bit about the evolution of the motivation to practice: I think that after time, much like the mantra refines itself, the motivation to engage in practices and inquiry also refines itself. This has been a key “milestone” for me.
In the early days, I just came to practice to feel good. The reality was, I didn’t feel all that happy when I first came to meditation. Practice gradually cured the episodes of depression I used to experience. Freedom from psychological suffering was always a big motivation for me, and I believed in basically doing whatever the hell it took to make myself feel good.
Eventually, after a couple of years of this, I became disenchanted with bliss and yoga-highs. It seemed to me that it wasn’t much different from an addict using drugs to get high; I was just using spiritual practices to get high. I began to see that, using practices, from this position of self-centered grasping, was not really helping me to evolve. I’d been able to cultivate some pretty pleasant experiences, and an on-going feeling of ecstatic bliss, but sometimes even after a lot of rest, I’d come out of meditation and be really snappy.
There was a dichotomy between my “spiritual life” where I was meditating and/or spending time alone, feeling very serene, open and blissful and my “personal life” where I was sometimes being a bit of an asshole and not seeming to display much maturity. I could see I was still a slave to the same ego-driven fears and desires.
It was then that I began to see the transient nature of any state or experience. No matter what experience you have, or state you get in, no matter how awesome, how pleasurable, how amazing it feels: it’s always, always just temporary. This made me start to realize that enlightenment couldn’t be a state or particular experience, given all states and experiences are temporary.
It was this realization that caused me to start true inquiry. Yes I’d done “inquiry”, as in the mechanical repetition of stuff like “who am I”, with at least the subconscious (if not totally conscious!) motivation of “getting something out of it”: some state or realization or experience.
True inquiry began when I didn’t want to “get something” out of inquiry anymore. I’d stopped wanting experience to give me something or fulfill me in some way. I realized in my lifetime I’ve had millions of experiences, they’ve all been temporary, and not a single one of them permanently fulfilled me. I realized it was madness to continue trying to get lasting fulfillment out of something temporary and constantly changing like experiences.
That brought a much deeper level of stillness to my practice. For the first time ever, I started “just sitting”. Sitting without hope or desire, without attempting to manipulate my experience or get something out of my practice. Sitting for no reason at all, and just being aware.
For the first time my motivation changed, from a self-centered grasping for some sort of pleasurable experience, to the desire to simply see things with clarity. To see what was true. Seeing that one truth, the impermanence of experience, and it’s unsatisfactory nature, was the first step on the way. I guess in hindsight this roughly correlates with the Buddhist concept of “Dukkha”.
The inquiry I began was not a mechanical process, it was more like a passionate scientist engaged in the discovery of how subatomic particles function and interact with each other. It was a thrilling process of observation and discovery. I journaled a lot, I began to question my assumptions about what I was and everything I’d been given to believe about reality. Just about everything I’d ever learned or thought to be true. I stopped showing up to work, started calling in sick, and I’d spend all day engaged in this process. It was a magical time.
This was when the realizations I’d long desired started to flow, and I began to experience myself not as a separate self, but as a vast, spacious, expansive, blissful, unified/non-dual awareness. It was permanently life changing in a way which words simply cannot describe. So much suffering, fear and negativity just dropped away.
Then the honeymoon period ended. There was probably about a year and half with this sense of vast, magical freedom. That good old grasping self-center was saying: I LIKE THIS EXPERIENCE, MAKE IT STAY HOW IT IS.
Even in spite of that, the realization was never lost, what was seen could never be unseen. But the sense of freedom, the height of the experience faded away. I didn’t really know what to do after this.
In fact, it was extremely confusing. On one level, I’m this vast, spacious expanse of blissful consciousness, completely free from all relative concerns, yet at the same time, there’s a human being, flawed and foolish, trying to do his best in getting on with day to day life.
How does one reconcile these two extremes? I decided to just enjoy myself as much as possible, now safe in the knowledge that in grand scheme of things, this person’s life is just a drop in the ocean. A slightly nihilistic view, although a form of nihilism which was colored by love, bliss and happiness.
It was actually very good. I was able to relish the egoic state of consciousness of the person. Before, I’d been a person, in an egoic state of consciousness, trying to escape the egoic state of consciousness due to a desire to avoid suffering and because of some preconceived spiritual nonsense that I’d swallowed about this being the right thing to do.
Now I was simply able to see the egoic state as neutral, neither good nor bad, but quite magical in its own way. It was wonderful to feel the intensity of the emotions generated by such a state, to live in the world and drink in all its conflicts and fears and joys and shadows and terrors whilst at the same time experientially knowing my boundless freedom from this grand display. It’s like enjoying a good horror movie whilst safely tucked up in bed with hot chocolate.
I was able to make peace with being human, for the first time. As a little child I was intensely spiritual in nature, and as I moved into puberty I found everything about being human shocked, frightened, hurt, angered and disgusted me. I think this was why I found myself so keen to escape into some sort of spiritual experience from a relatively early age (18).
This new way of experiencing my humanity showed me that a human life really is a great gift. It may be very hard to bear, full of so much heartache and pain, but still it’s something to be savored, something to completely give oneself too. I was able to completely let go of spiritual ideals and concepts, trying to match a preconceived standard of how a spiritual person should be. Instead, I just allowed things to be as they are.
But after a time, a year or two, I began to receive signals that these apparent two extremes: the selfless sky of awareness, and the self-centered contraction of ego, do need to be brought into some form of congruence.
I hadn’t changed that much after my experiences. I’d found I’d become joyful and happy almost 100% of the time, as well as calmer and more balanced as a person. All kinds of things had stopped, like feeling insecure for instance, or being seriously worried about the future. But I definitely met people who I could see where expressive of a transformed human being: people who radiated love, peace and wisdom. I could see this human being, Josh, hadn’t really become like that.
My experiences have taught me that you don’t, you can’t, “fake it till you make it” at this sort of transformation. You don’t will yourself into it. You don’t intend it or set it as goal. It happens when the false self within you – that which grasps and contracts and thinks it knows stuff - genuinely dies away.
The false self can’t choose to die away, like the leaves on a tree; they only start to fall when it’s autumn. But this left me with a quandary; I could still feel a calling for my state of consciousness to evolve, shedding its former shell of self-centered grasping. Yet simultaneously, I’d directly seen there was absolutely nothing I could do to provoke this to happen. No amount of effort, practice or seeking on my part was going to evoke this change.
Furthermore, from the standpoint of the self-center, which is mainly interested in just getting what it thinks it wants, or what will bring the most pleasure, I didn’t even want this transformation to happen. No, that part of me just wanted to cling to the secure, comfortable, pleasant and familiar. So I have a powerful call to evolve, a powerful desire to preserve the status quo, and nothing I can really do to change anything.
Then recently, the answer came to me: to simply gain insight and clarity. To simply become very deeply conscious and aware, of every thought, of every belief, of every desire – to look at these things and examine what causes them. Not to try and change or manipulate them, but to gain a very deep insight. Where are they rooted, which ones are true, what are their consequences. To gain a deep insightful clarity into my human nature, and particularly the pattern of self-centered grasping that I can see arise.
I saw that I should should pursue this inquiry with no motivation other than to see everything very clearly. Then if change happens it will happen, if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. But once again I’ve rediscovered the passion for simply seeing things clearly with sensitivity and insight, with no agenda, with no preconceived or desired outcome. To engage in this inquiry for its own sake, because it’s wonderfully interesting!
That’s the most important milestone for me recently, just to do things for their own sake, and to love seeing clearly above all.
