The Urge to Capitalize on Awakening
El impulso de capitalizar el despertar
A question about noticing the pattern of wanting to use spiritual practice for personal gain, and whether that impulse is itself a problem.
The Urge to Capitalize on Awakening
A question about noticing the pattern of wanting to use spiritual practice for personal gain, and whether that impulse is itself a problem.
I'm noticing a pattern, an intention that's trying to get something out of this experience. This journey wants to use it to be better, to help with career, to help with success. Mostly those themes. I see it operating, and I don't know if that's a problem, or if it's somehow trying to make this journey its own rather than just the pure intention to seek truth. Is there a way to approach this energy that wants to capitalize on awakening?
Just seeing that is all it takes, and you're already seeing it. It's the nature of the human mind. You're noticing it, and just by expressing what you've expressed, you're showing where your values are and what you care about.
Sure, there's a part of you that wants to gain, to achieve, to get something out of the spiritual work. But you see that. You see the problem in it, just by asking the question. And if you even try to fight that impulse, it's more of the same.
What this is really about
That said, the pointer I would offer is this: keep in mind that what this is really about is what is happening now. It is to realize that what is happening now is what you're looking for.
If at any point you can say, "What I'm looking for is what's happening right now," not as a whole other belief system, but as an experiment, a practice, an inquiry: what if?
Because if it becomes a belief system, it won't go very far. But it can be discovered. It can be realized that everything you're looking for is what's happening now. I say "what's happening now" because it means everything that's happening, whatever is happening, whenever you ask.
Nothing else is it
If that is what this work is about, then what you can get tomorrow is not it. The ways in which you can grow and develop are not it. Those things can be valuable as well. But the core of what I'm talking about, one way to say it in the context of what you bring up, is this: the realization that what you most deeply want, what you are looking for the most, is what's happening right now and nothing else. Everything else is secondary.