When Spiritual Practice Becomes Control: Doorways to Wholeness

For a while, for me, I was, like, so focused on, like, not losing contact with my own wholeness. I was so focused. I was, like, meditating all the time. I know what it felt like.

I had to do this, that, and then I could kind of stay in it. And then after a while, it was, like, so rigid and controlling that it had just become this new form of, like, control and spiritual ego trying to be perfect in this weird way, right? And then it just began to go, oh, it's okay. I don't need to be there all the time.

It's just nice. You know, I visited it twice today. It's just nice to know it's there, right? And when that shifted, then it was just, then it started to just be there more and more often, right?

So, I think, like, to start talking about this idea of doorways. And what I find lately is spiritual practice is often about finding doorways into your own soul, your own wholeness. And there's many different ways. There's many different types of doorways.

And I think, with spiritual teaching, beginning to teach more formally, I just keep coming back to this idea that there's only so much we can do as humans. And then we have to wait. And so, a lot of what I've learned on the path, and I recommend other people learn, is finding different ways to return to yourself. And this can be done on many different levels and different techniques.

So, with the guided meditation, when we're able to connect with the two poles in the paradox, and hold both poles at the same time, then the relationship between the two poles is born. In that relationship, there's the potential to let go of the attachment or belief connected to the two extremes, the two poles. And when we let go of that attachment, and at the same time, we see that the relationship between the two, say, hard and soft, the two opposite things, goes from tension and strain, to power and potential. So, in that shift, a door is open.

It is not necessarily the feeling of power and potential that is what we are, right? That is what is expressed from what we are, right? If that makes sense. To me, it feels like the holding and living within the paradox kills the sense of self.

If you do it in the way that I do it, our identity can't exist in a world where opposites don't exist. It can't exist in a world where anger and love are the same thing. It can't exist in a world where happy and sad are the same thing. And in the death of the separate sense of self, a doorway opens, space arises.

And if you have the appropriate intention and preparation for that moment of opportunity, then very rapidly, you will just go right through that door. And on the other side is what you truly are. Your wholeness, spirit, whatever you want to call it. The emptiness that is fullness at the same time.

The beginning part of the spiritual journey for me after my second awakening was all about getting to spirit, getting to wholeness. Having these moments, a couple hours, maybe a day on a retreat where something would shift. I wouldn't quite understand. And then all of a sudden things would open up and I would be in this kind of expansive, open stillness.

No sense of a self, very low sense of a self, that kind of thing. So initially, that's what it's about. It's all about getting there. Then as you get farther on the path, something, for me, something shifted.

It was pretty far on the path, but something shifted. And it was as if I had been coming from separation and visiting wholeness. And then all of a sudden the foreground and the background shifted and I was living in wholeness and visiting separation. So that's a good, a good goal.

It's a good sign that you're kind of moving forward on the path. So ways to find doorways, right? For example, the practice Nedi Nedi from Advaita Vedanta is a classic way to find doorways where you're just saying no and no to all these questions. You know, if you've read the book or, you know, look at the book I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj.

You know, that's what that whole practice is about. So you can find doorways in the mind, right? Whether that's through seeing through, seeing through the stories or the illusions in the mind, right? So one way to do it is to try to see what is the story of my mind?

What is the story of myself? And then looking to see how true it is and how it is, how stable it is, right? You still look for like holes in the armor or chinks in the armor of the self, right? And notice how it changes to fit whatever information is coming in from the world, right?

So we're just trying to put little holes into it, right? Or they say, and I think Zen Buddhism, they talk about the doubting, the great doubt. And that's what that's about, is you're doubting all of these parts of your life and these mental assumptions that you've made for so long. And you're doubting all of those things until the doubt, the ball of doubt gets so big, right, that it begins to kind of separate you from that belief of the story of the mind.

Another example, I was sitting meditating, so my freshman year of college, it was after my first awakening experience. I was sitting there meditating out in front of the dorms. I remember looking at the ground, and there was like these little ants on the ground, and they were crawling in me, and they were crawling on the leaves of the grass. And I remember looking up when the sun was out, and I looked up at the trees, and the trees all had kind of this shape.

And it was like half the trees had like these leaves growing out the side, and the other half didn't have any leaves or very little, and I couldn't quite figure it out. And then I looked up, and then the sun, you know, was kind of at this angle, and you could see how the sun was hitting the trees all in the same spot. And so all the trees in the row on the street were all growing in the same shape, reaching to the sun, right? In that moment, I just connected with the underlying nature of reality that all things are interconnected, that all things are one, and that no thing is distinct from another thing, right?

So another doorway. Eventually, what you find is that all of life, every experience, every moment, every emotion, is a doorway into your own wholeness and what you truly are. And that the thing that changes is how you see and also what you want to see. If you put a great value on seeing the truth of your being, on seeing the interconnectedness of all things, on seeing the patterns that replicate and interweave through all of life, then when you come to a moment, that is your priority, right?

And you will then find your way through that moment into your wholeness. What I found is the more that I found these doorways and went through them, right? The more confident I became that I couldn't be lost, right? Because every time I got stuck, every time I was stuck in suffering or in a pattern, eventually, it would open up and then I would get pulled right through.

And then in that hundreds of times, it happening however many times, right? Just began to relax and I began to stop grasping and grabbing onto things and just letting life move, right? Not trying to control everything. And what you find is that the doorways appear much more often when we are relaxed, when we're not trying to control everything, right?

In the, I think it's the Zhuangzi, in Taoism, right? They say, um, something like the butcher's knife never needs to be sharpened because the butcher's knife, when it cuts through the animal or the cow or the pig, I think it was a pig, it finds the spaces in the joints. So the blade never dulls, right? That's, that's what I mean, right?

When we can see fully and when we are relaxed, but with great intention at the same time, then the blade is sharp and the movement goes right through the spaces. And there's then no obstacle, right? Because you see that everything is made up out of what you are and that even that is not real. And the spaces between it are just as real as what you're made up of.

And in that, you can't get lost and you won't stay stuck. Right. Right. For me, I think, in the end, the reason why it's like this, I mean, it's hard to say, but most likely it's because of what's looking, you see.

What's looking is our humanness, right? We are spirit looking out through our humanness. And the humanness sees everything in as dualistic, right? As black or white, as hot or cold, as anger or love, as happy or sad.

That's how it sees everything. And spirit is before that, right? And so what happens is everywhere we look, how we see is imprinted on what we see. And if we fall into confusion, we believe that that imprint is how the world is.

But that's not the case. That's just how our eyes are, how our mind is, how the humanness is, right? And when we see that that imprinting is just a reflection of us, right? It's just an expression of what we are, but not all of us.

And that we're actually the thing that's looking and the seeing and the imprint at the same time. Then the whole thing opens up. There's space everywhere. And there's all these ways to return to yourself, right?

And if the opposite happens, if we get stuck, if we're scared, if we're going too fast, if we're too anxious, whatever the reason, then it's impossible. To find those doorways, right? Because we've rigidly grasped onto that layer of reality. And that layer of reality is that human imprint, right?

And so this can be learned, right? This is, I feel like this is all I do all the time. I'm just seeing that. Oh, look at this.

Oh, yeah, there's my human imprint. There's, oh, there's the light. Oh, look, and there's what I am in between the two. Oh, that's so interesting, right?

I'm constantly forgetting it and then remembering it, right? And it's just like it feels like this riverbed that you've gone down over and over, right? That you know the curve. You know, oh, oh, it goes like that.

Oh, there it is again. Oh, yeah, that's nice. Interesting, right? And then it happens again.

And it happens again, right? And you can see that for me, I have a, I'm some very image-based and I see things and feel things in these kind of complex images, these three-dimensional images. And so when I connect with it, it's like, oh, that's how it is, right? That's how it feels.

And then instantly you're like, oh, and there's the heartbreak and the loneliness, right? Because so many people in the world are stuck on that reflection aspect and think that's everything. And then I want to be like, hey, this is so nice. Let's hang out and connect, you know, in the vastness of us.

We're both this pure potential and the dualistic human part and the thing that's holding both at the same time. Let's meet there. And, you know, so many people in the world have no awareness of it, right? And you go, oh, there's the heartbreak, right?

Okay, there's the heartbreak. And oh, what is the heartbreak? Another doorway into, right, your wholeness. And it just keeps repeating.

It just keeps repeating. It builds and it breaks. It builds and it breaks over and over, right? And it's just that simple.

It's just getting so familiar with it. Oh, this is what it feels like when it builds. Oh, I like it. Look at it.

It's built. I love it when it's built. Oh, look. It's cracking.

I feel it. I don't like it. I don't like it when it cracks. It's dying.

Oh, don't die. Oh, it's gone. Oh, I kind of like it when it's gone again. It's nice again, right?

And it's just, you're just getting to know your rhythm with it. What is your stories about it? What is your attachment to it? What is your emotions, right?

What is your preferences? You know, some people love the beginning. Some people don't. Some people like the ending.

Some people don't, right? It's not, it doesn't. None is not better than the other. It just is.

And it's just about getting really good at that. And you just, it's so funny. For a while, for me, I was like so focused on like not losing contact with my own wholeness. It was so focused.

I was like meditating all the time. I know what it felt like. I had to do this, that. And then I could kind of stay in it.

And then after a while, it was like so rigid and controlling that it had just become this new form of like control and spiritual ego trying to be perfect in this weird way, right? And then it just began to go, oh, it's okay. I don't need to be there all the time. It's just, it's just nice.

You know, I visited it twice today. It's just nice to know it's there, right? And when that shifted, then it was just, then it started to just be there more and more often, right?