Are all spiritual teachings for the ego?
Jay Matthews replies:
All spiritual teachings are for the ego, yes.
The spiritual search has been compared to a thief pretending to catch himself. Nowadays, we might say this search is like malware posing as anti-virus software.
The ego is our tendency (Sanskrit vasana) to seek, to strive, to question, to hanker and to doubt. Spiritual seeking is a subtle way of activating this tendency.
The ego can survive for years on the pretense of destroying itself. In truth, there was never any ego to begin with, and only blissful silence ever was, so we can return to the peace we never left right now.
The egoic tendencies (vasanas) always try to postpone our return. Their «searching» is actually postponement. So, we must call off the search and keep quiet.*
Advaita teachers like to say: «It’s as easy as plucking a petal off a rose.» To be clear, it’s more like working at a rose petal factory, plucking petals day and night for weddings.
You give the activation energy one job—return. Again and again you return, with perfect persistence. But the effort is joyful, because you’re returning to joy.
*This is something that only occurs effortlessly, permanently and naturally when you are fully awakened (LOC 1000).
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