Self, Development, Spirituality

Purpose seems to be the key. If you know what is your purpose in life, you will think clearly and precisely. It will act as a magnet that connects what you are, in body, mind, heart and spirit, to that purpose.

How can we align that purpose to that which already exists? That Awareness that seems to be the very Nature of All, the very coreless core around which Wisdom in the world has become coiled, be it in the form of Great Wisdom Traditions, esoteric religion, or children's fairy tales. Can we have an "individual" sense of purpose if that which is felt as individuality does not exist in the first place?

Personal Development is something that is held in high regard by me. But if personality is the greatest lie ever told, how then is the development possible? Does it just make the lie a bigger lie? Or is it that through development we paradoxically become more aligned to what Wise Folks call our True Nature?

Is it that evolution is the natural process of all that has existance, either potential or actual, towards the All that has no attributes other than the All of which it is, and becomes continually, composed by? Can it be that the All and Nothing gives us a break in form of  feeling this sense of individuality that is the only a vessel for the always-existing life force, God, and Tao to flow through? Could it be that this very feeling of flow is something that's there whether we sense it or not - and when it is sensed, that's when we feel to be "ourselves" the most - when just about everything seems to go right. And maybe that feeling of being the person "I am" the most, is the closest we can get through our personalities to that which is outside, inside, embracing, neither nor, neti/neti, our personalities; like the river of which every wave is a part. And like that very river which gives in all of its kindness each and every wave a chance to feel its own individuality, it also allows them to become what they already are: the river itself; or better yet, water; or better yet; molecules; or better yet: Life in Toto. So that which is life can not be taken separate from the Totality of Being.

That Which Is has individuals but the individual can never have that which is. It is out of kindness, I suppose, that the Totality makes it possible for us to experience our isolated selves as the totality. It also allows the waves to become what they are. I don't know if it's becoming since if that is what they are.

 Just maybe, Personal Development is the Evolution of Enlightenment. If in Enlightenment that dynamic self-system we take to be our personality is seen to be One with all that is arising, maybe it isn't such a funny idea after all to consciously evolve that which already exists in all Four Quadrants, either gradually preparing to know That, or by accidentally happening upon it. As I've heard Genpo Roshi say, "Enlightenment is an accident and meditation makes you accident prone". 

 So is evolution of consciousness possible? Or is it just there, always already, as a background of whatever arises in it? My answer for now is: it is both. Consciousness can be thoroughly grasped only in nondual fashion. It must be seem as both the background and the objects arising. And the evolution of the objects, even though One with the background, is the Sacred Duty of humankind, because that is, it seems, the relative side of the consciousness evolution: making the world a better place. To put it in simple terms. 

And on the infinite side of the equation is Spirit, the realization of which is inevitable, since that too is what we are. We contain multitudes, we are contradictory. We are Spirit manifesting as evolving AQAL-perspectives, the development of which can only lead to a single direction: the embracement of All, by All. 

PS. So personal development does make sense, right? Right?!? Either way, I'm going to start squeezing out my purpose consciously and put in on paper sometime very soon. I didn't pay 50 cents for that Tony Robbins' book for nothing, damn it! ;)

 PS2. Joining Cameron's pod, browsing his + Isaac Shapiro's website, among other influences, set my thought train in motion today. So some of the stuff in this blog owes a thank you/an apology to those people. Cheers!