BASED ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE over the years,
as well as with conversations with others, this is my observation:
many people don't want to do deep ego-slaying inner work and
traverse through the bardo
between their current life into a more transcendent state of
awareness. They say they do, but when it comes down to actually
stepping into the corridor of the unknown and all that it contains,
a toe may dip into the water, but when the body gets a sense
of what's in the pool, the reaction is, "Eh – not
today. Maybe tomorrow." And that tomorrow finds the person
talking him- or herself into something perhaps a little less
challenging, but they convince themselves it's just as good.
Maybe a little aromatherapy, or an energy work session. "Yeah,
that's it," the person says. "I can just relax and
have someone use some great smelling oils and then move my energy
around. I won't have to do a thing, and my consciousness will
be elevated."
Or, they go hear a talk by an eloquent, impassioned speaker
about forgiveness, or the compassionate path of the Bodhisattva
or contacting Ascended Masters. Makes them feel all inspired
and enlightened inside. Then someone cuts them off on the freeway
on the way home and all that free-floating bliss disappears
instantly in a stream of expletives, and all that love and light
devolves into rage. Justifiable rage, mind you. "I mean
- did you see how that idiot was talking on their cell
phone and not even paying attention? Damn clueless jerk."
Another Scenario:
The person has been "on the path" for a long time.
Maybe ten years. Maybe twenty, or even thirty. They've read
it all, seen it all, and tried it all. In their own minds, within
their own idea of themselves, they think they're pretty advanced.
They can regurgitate some of the best "spiritual-babble"
and clichés effortlessly and without question:
"You
teach what you need to learn." "If you see something
in someone else that pushes your buttons, it's actually your
stuff." "Do what you love and the money will follow."
"Your thoughts create your experiences. If something bad
happens to you, it's because you brought it upon yourself with
your thoughts. No exceptions." "Follow your bliss."
But when they are personally questioned about any of those ideas
in reality, they attack you for just asking. Not so love and
light after all.
Another Scenario:
The seeker as narcissist and/or blamer: "You've
wounded my soul with your negative energy by challenging My
Truth." "I'm just on my path so don't lay any trips
on me." "Because I deserve it." "My inner
child is a victim of my parent's ignorance, and I'm wounded
and it's not my fault I act like this."
All of these scenarios I'm describing are egoic roadside distractions
on the spiritual journey. We can become immersed throat chakra
deep in the quicksand of any concept or idea we cling to, and
even use these concepts as weapons to smugly hit others over
the head with how spiritual we are and they aren't - not even
connecting the dots that self-definitions of being love and
light folks yet acting like any intolerant arrogant fundamentalist
is the epitome of spiritual hypocrisy.
From the "If it weren't true
it would be funny" 2007 file of Spiritual Life:
It's hip to be a hypocrite. It's even socially acceptable in
a smoke and mirrors World of Appearances. Being a self-righteous,
proselytizing, "luminary" who doesn't walk their well-rehearsed
publicly espoused shtick is an epidemic that many like to fool
themselves into thinking they are getting away with because
nobody questions them. These folks appear to be so ego-driven
to become everyone else's guru/healer/life coach that they neglect
working on themselves - and get really pissed off when someone
like me holds up an unclouded mirror to their behavior and says,
"Have a look.
What do you see?" Yet, their own authentic reflection of
their faux-ness is so terrifying, so You-Figured-Out-My -Wicked-Witch-Melting-In-My-Shoes-Weakness
horrific that they can't do it. And they wave an energetic middle
finger in my direction. Fortunately, I have embraced the martial
art of detached stepping aside so their angry energy boomerangs
back on them. I care more about the urgent state of the planet
than how some guru/healer/life coach who surrounds themselves
with sycophants feels about me poking a hole into their armored
bubble. We just don't time to enable hypocrisy any longer -
in others or ourselves.
Trust me, I've been dissed by the best. Names you know and probably
have bought books by or attended workshops with. And all I'm
doing is asking them a question, without malice. Just asking.
Just like I ask anyone else, as I am an equal opportunity questioner.
Just like I ask you, the reader of this article. I ask myself
to do the same thing all the time, and I tried to diss myself
for a really long time as well. I mean, how dare I ask myself
to look at myself? The nerve of me for crying out loud.
That's actually as funny as it looks on your computer screen.
It's even funnier if you can relate to it yourself. And if you
can relate to it yourself and find it funny as well then all
hope is not lost - with you anyway.
To tell the Truth, the spiritual journey is both dead serious
and extremely funny. Often at the same time. Yet the current
state of the planet we all share is no laughing matter. It really
isn't funny that some of us have become caricatures of ourselves.
It really isn't funny that many of my fellow children of the
60s have become so materialistic, so appearance-obsessed, so
Swiss-cheesed with hypocrisy and so consumed with consuming,
and so in denial about their own shadows in favor of the novocaine
of spin and distraction. 
People
of my own generation who have demanded accountability from their
political leaders for decades do not want you to ask them why
they are driving a gas-guzzling SUV to shop at Whole Foods.
The unreality of the reality of life in 2007 on the Third Rock
from the Sun is a scenario that scares people into hiding and
justifying their hiding. Collectively, we face the most compelling
challenges and difficulties that humanity has ever confronted
- because we can literally blow ourselves and our planet into
smithereens with one power-monger's wild-eyed "bring on
Armageddon" push of a button. Peak oil, global climate
change, overpopulation, nuke-giddy North Korea and Iran, environmental
rape and pillage, economic instability, terrorist paranoia and
even bird flu warnings all scare the heck out of people. It's
more fun to drive that SUV over to the mall and have a little
shopping therapy, because who wants to actually look at the
impending global train wrecks?
The underlying energy of the following self-justification monologue
would also be funny if it weren't so true:
"I mean, come on, we're told by all these illumined celebrity
sages with New York Times bestselling books on their resumes
we're supposed to live in the moment, right? Be here now, right?
Follow our bliss, right? Shopping makes me feel blissed out!
Or maybe it's numb. Or empty. But hey, isn't being 'empty' a
Buddhist thing? It's all good then. I like my towering SUV and
I like buying shoes at Nordstrom and I deserve it. I'm on My
Path and that's My Truth. Let's go take a Pilates class and
after that pop into Dr. Feelgood's office for a few quick shots
of Botox before we have dinner at that new vegan place that
I hear so-and-so eats at all the time and maybe he'll be there
and see how fabulous I look. It's all good. 
And
if you have a problem with that it's your issues, not mine.
You've upset my space and made me spill my soy non-fat chai.
Look, excuse me, but my life coach is texting me, and she charges
me to read her daily inspirational affirmations and so what
if she sends the same messages to everyone they're good but
why does she have to do this during peak rates time for gosh
sake so I have to go now. Buh-bye."
Yeah, ok, maybe that's pretty exaggerated and silly la-la land
sounding. But la-la land is also a state of mind as well as
a geographical location bearing a town with the zip of 90210.
My point is we can fool ourselves with who we think we are and
be in a total state of denial that is nowhere close to California.
To tell the Truth, every one of us has the ability to be absolutely
as clueless as that guy who cut off our love and light friend
after her class, and to spiral into rage or self-righteousness
when something like that happens to us. We are all quite capable
of landing smack into the middle of our own repetitive comfort
zone coping devices regardless of how spiritually unproductive
and even destructive they are and not even realize how detrimental
this is. We all can have ideas and images of ourselves that
may not actually meld with reality, and we all can project our
ideas and images of who someone is and what they're all about
onto them that may have absolutely nothing to do with who they
really are.
The hard work of deep inner transformation feels like a death
sentence to many. That's because it is. It's death to our egos
and all the cows we hold sacred. It's a stake into the heart
of all of our illusions and delusions. It's the ego-lethal injection
of realizing we don't know what we thought we knew or have what
we thought was secure and everlasting that promptly removes
the floor from beneath our feet and the safety net we so carefully
constructed to break our fall into the nothingness of the realm
of losing the "I" part in the equation of spiritual
awakening. We avoid taking our own enlightenment too seriously
because that would mean letting go of all we unquestioningly
accepted, whether it has been spiritually productive for us
or not. And that includes absolutely every idea we may have
about what being a "spiritual" person means.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches that recognition
is liberation. Being able to acknowledge, transcend and shed
the skin of our old self and every bloated and false notion
it clings to is a sacred death process that ultimately leads
to freedom. Not the imitation freedom we think we have because
we have a comfortable amount of money in the bank, but the real
get-out-jail currency of eyes-open head-out-of-the-ground awareness.
Unlike what satisfaction MasterCard can buy, this is what is
truly priceless. But as long as we are sucked into roadside
distractions of 
in-the-moment
gratification - whether it is indulging in feel-good platitudes
or feel-good shopping, we'll continue to comfortably numb ourselves
from real, lasting transformation and simply exchange our handcuffs
for leg irons - and never have that sacred death or the bardo
walk into spiritual rebirth.
So to tell the Truth, like I said in the first paragraph, many
of us do whatever we can to avoid authentic spiritual awakening,
as much as we claim to want it. That's cool, as we all have
been given free will. And as much as there is a sense of urgency
on the planet, on the other hand, it's all a dream. The situation
then becomes even if we know it is a dream, we can choose to
be awake at the same time and move what appears to be a collective
nightmare into a collective vision of the possible, as long
as we are willing to truly own our part in the process - and
that means also fearlessly doing the work, and yes, embracing
sacred death.
Process
Journal - Questions for April
Tell
the Truth: Are
you avoiding sacred death and spiritual rebirth? How? What
are you willing to do to change?
