These are the 3 major reasons why people fail on the path to self realization.
In this newsletter I cover the first one.
Desire:
There are a lot of misconceptions about this one.
Some people picked up the idea somewhere that they should strive to live without desire.
But that is a misunderstanding.
Desire is necessary to gather enough motivation in order to move on and keep moving on the path.
In order to keep up your training, your spiritual practice, move on from one stage of development
to the next.
In the words of the Dalai Lama:
“Desire must be there.
Without desire how can we live our life?
Without desire how can we achieve Buddhahood?
Strong desire to become Buddha,
but desire to…harmful, no, that’s bad.”
Not enough desire, not knowing what you actually desire or a wrong desire, block your growth.
A desire which is not balanced, wholesome, can grow into anger, hate.
Against everyone and everything which stands in your way to obtain what you desire.
The medicine for this type of desire is cultivating patience.
To much desire, to strong, is related to greed or lust.
Desire can become so strong that it pulls you out of balance energetically and mentally.
By which you loose a lot of the effects of your training.
This is the first cause for failure on the spiritual path.
Even for the advanced.
In very advanced people this can occur in the form of wanting more and more.
More power, faster, etc.
Nothing wrong with that, since the spiritual path is a progressive path.
But when it pulls you out of balance:
wanting more just for the sake of wanting more, things start to go wrong.
Also for beginners.
People who want to do astral projection but without learning to protect themselves
energetically first for example.
Or people who want to learn telekinesis, but not cultivate the necessary mental power or energy for it first.
Or healing without learning to recharge and balance energy.
Taking the time to develop and master a skill, has been replaced by a desire for more and more.
The desire is so strong that it can push you from one station to the next, and again to a next one…
and so on, without ever “arriving” at any station.
In this way, you keep moving, you keep your mind busy, but don’t progress.
Let alone reach self realization.
The medicine for wrong desire is mindful awareness.
Mindful awareness comes from expanding your consciousness through meditation.