Awakening is not a self-improvement project. Although there are many who think it is.
Somehow, in today’s world of immediate access to teachings from all sorts of traditions, in today’s world of soundbites and spiritual quotes, awakening has become confused with the favorite project of the ego: becoming a better “me”.
The ego-self loves the idea of healing the wounds of the past, learning practices to improve the quality of inner life, overcoming emotional blocks to living the best life ever, finding it’s purpose in the world, and manifesting abundance, joy and the perfect relationship. To the ego-self, everything is a commodity to be added to the spiritual shopping basket. Mindfulness, meditation, presence, nonduality, truth, freedom, awakening .. call it what you like, it can all be acquired by the ego for its own aggrandizement.
It’s often a subtle acquisition, one that can hardly be noticed. It’s not evil or terrible, but it does prolong the incessant hunger of the ego-self. It builds a temple out of the erroneous belief in lack. It reifies the false construct of “me” identity. It solidifies the matrix of separation. And it feeds fear .. fear of not being good enough, loved enough, special enough, safe enough, worthy enough, spiritual enough, ad infinitum.
Many take on the mantle of awakening as a token on the path of self-discovery. But not many have truly awakened. To truly awaken is to have seen through, with laser-vision, the illusory construct of psychological self as a separate entity. To truly awaken is to have merged into the totality of life, to be one with whatever arises, to know oneself as both the awareness that is aware and the experience that is experienced in awareness.
To truly awaken is to have dissolved all need for betterment, all need for the self to be happier or richer or more loved or more spiritual. It is the end of the self-improvement project. And until this is your honest truth, there is still an invitation to a deeper inquiry. An inquiry that takes you right to the core fear .. the fear that you do not exist.
If you have the courage and the humility to go all the way, deeper and deeper until you are no longer there, only then will the jewel of awakening reveal itself. And the beautiful paradox is that only when there is nobody there to take ownership of awakening will you know your true awakened nature.