Most people live their daily lives totally identified with their roles (mother, husband, sister, lawyer…) and obsessed with survival needs, acquiring possessions, assuring a good future for their children, financial security, comfort, physical appearance, information, a good social status… So involved in the superficial pursuits of the ego and samsara, that they cannot even imagine that this is not it, that this is not reality.
The quest for true awakening and spiritual evolution only appears when either the person have gone through many life experiences and realizes that nothing can really satiate his inner thirst, or when the person is deeply involved in ordinary life and an important crisis shakes him off, strongly pushing him out of his comfort zone. If one does not realize that is bound, why would one look for freedom? If one does not see that there is much more to life than dissatisfaction and suffering and struggle , why one would search a way out of it? The spiritual path is not something that can be taught or advised to follow. Unless you are ready for it yourself, you will not see the need. You will be unhappy, trapped and still thinking that going faster (or slower for that matter) is the solution.
The spiritual path is the path of transformation. And it is not for the faint hearted. It is not an easy road. It is windy, challenging and it requires commitment. Yet, it is the only way to awakening and freedom from maya, from the illusion that we are our ego, our body, our relationships, our job, our possessions, our pains. It is freedom from the illusion that we are separated and in competition. It is freedom from the rooted idea that we are on the good side and others are wrong and therefore, our enemies. It is freedom form the damaging emotions that we usually feed and get us deeper into the mud. It is freedom from compulsion, from rage, from jealousy, from fear, from our inner wars.
Most people prefer to live in their illusion. Walking on a spiritual path is hard work: you need to question yourself continuously (ideas, concepts, behaviors) and also watch carefully every step you take. The physical and mental demands of being human are many and can drag you down for a long long time. But the there is a way to transcend them, as many spiritual traditions have shown for centuries.
Our experiences do not define us. They are just circumstances allowing us to learn and remember that we are bigger than them. We are bigger than life. We are sparks of Light in an infinite illuminated sky. As Teilhard de Chardin put it: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience”. In order to awaken, let’s acknowledge that we have have been sleeping and start walking the path out of the Matrix.
