The great disillusionment

All methods of spiritual practice eventually lead to the same place: complete failure of the ego-driven search, disappointment with our ability to produce satisfactory results (fruition). This is because what we seek cannot be produced. Fulfillment is not the effect of a prior cause. It is not currently missing and later found. It is not originally flawed, then fixed by personal effort. It is not a product of the busy-work of self-improvement. Nor can it be given to you by a teacher, deity or god. Our true original nature is always totally pristine. It is perfect all the time. The constancy of this natural perfection is what is actually going on. This is the only thing that is ultimately true about us. All other so-called truths are relative, dependent and temporary. Like fish in water, we are always home. Like stars in the sky, we are always shining. Like the unending expanse of open space, we are always free. Our innate enlightenment is flawless and incorruptible. Even now.

What are we seeking, then? What is it we hope to find through spiritual practice?

To act as if we are not originally whole is a blasphemy. Seeking and grasping are blatant acts of disrespect toward primordial truth, nature, and our own Being.

The ego-driven spiritual search is a child's tantrum.

Mature spiritual life begins after we experience the total failure of our anxious efforts to attain peace, fulfillment, enlightenment. The very intent behind this effort denies what is always the case. Only once we pass through the genuine experience of this total failure can we begin to undergo the process of authentic self-cultivation in all Nine Petals. If we are still seeking a cure for our spiritual discomfort -- a source of adequate intoxication and distraction -- we will only feel frustrated by genuine spiritual teachings. For the purpose of such teachings is to undermine this game of seeking and self-delusion, and to dismantle the cosmology of insufficiency (which we unconsciously allow to dictate our life).

Each of us come to spiritual practice with the same desperation and unreasonable expectations we bring to everything else (relationships, sex, work, child rearing, etc). We want a situation that will make us happy, once and for all. We want things to go our way. All the time. Disenchanted with the "material world", we hope that through the spiritual search we will finally be successful; that yoga, meditation, mindfulness, mantra, or the guru's magic hug will take away our pain and transport us into heavenly bliss.

It never happens.

No one has ever woken up way. The plan is faulty from the onset. The secret agenda behind spiritual seeking is ill-founded. It denies the very truth that is already fully operative. It contradicts natural law and goes against what we actually are in our deepest essence.

The game of seeking is nothing but a glorified act of denial, an exotic diversion from our personal discomfort. Spirituality easily becomes an effective means of dissociation. In seeking, we are running away from something.

That something is the key to our awakening. It is our own direct experience.

Awakening is about meeting life with unguarded intimacy. It's about facing ourselves with relentless love and honesty.

When we do this, we are on the brink of something revolutionary. When we back it up with practice, and a little patience, we begin to ignite the Cycle of Awakening.