There is this paradox that we all live with concerning language. As soon as you translate experience into words, you have substantially altered the experience. In essence, you have destroyed experience and created something new: a story. Most of the goals and desires that we formulate for ourselves end up as a narrative: we tell ourselves a story of what desirable looks like for us, and we set about to ‘make’ our desires come true. Our entire culture is based upon the fulfillment of our wishes and dreams. However, our wishes and dreams are by their very nature unreal, fabricated by the mind. We often discover that the distance between our dreams and our lived experience is so vast that we find ourselves disappointed, upset, and even angry; so, we set about to creating new goals. This is especially pernicious and problematic when one’s ego seizes upon a ‘spiritual’ goal and places it on a to-do list.
One example of this is surrender to God or to one’s Higher Power. This is, undeniably, a good idea. We are not in control of so much of what happens around us, and our illusion that we can influence events, other people, and the general course of History creates intense suffering. What happens, however, is that a good idea becomes the next Spiritual Goal. The ego takes over and applies Material World understandings to God consciousness. The same person who makes lists of future accomplishments for her profession, housing and entertainment needs, perfect partner characteristics, and so on, decides that ‘surrendering to God’ is number one on the Spiritual List. This is an impossible undertaking, since the very act of placing a concept like surrendering or letting go on a list of things to accomplish destroys the goal itself.
When any aspect of ‘spirituality’ becomes a goal or a challenge for the ‘seeker’, the game is lost. The very moment one decides that one ‘wants’ a spiritual experience, one has missed the point completely and enters into ego territory where everything is a commodity and desire destroys the potential experience. As soon as you start seeking what we all already have, you are wandering far from what you say you want. Looking for God or for spirit in any form is futile; God and spirit are accessible through your state of mind, not the state of your desires. Spirit shows up when you prepare yourself to receive it, or when you are given the grace to perceive it. You don’t ‘find’ Spirit; you become aware of its presence and allow it to work through you. This is as much the case with those who ‘hunt ghosts’ as for those who ‘hunt God’. Whatever it is that you try to track down will evade and elude you; whatever you are ready to receive will find you. Your intentions and your state of awareness matter–your desires and needs do not.
Serious meditators, psychonauts, healers, channelers, mediums, and shamans enter into trance states with the goal of arranging a spiritual meeting with another. For this to happen, their sense of self is often erased, leading to what some call ‘ego loss’ or ‘ego death’. This state facilitates communication with a higher power, but it not a goal in itself, unless one makes it so. Ego loss becomes the goal when one doesn’t have a larger purpose for their practice, such as learning to surrender to situations and people over whom we have no control. When ‘ego death’ becomes a goal in and of itself, the ego has–ironically–taken over and made a spiritual state into a challenge. The ego loves challenges and competitions; especially ‘spiritual’ challenges, because the ego’s desires can hide behind the cloak of a ‘higher purpose’. This is why spiritual leaders can become criminal despots or moral disasters: think gurus who lead their flock to commit suicide (Jonestown) or priests who molest and abuse children who trust them. Although these are extreme examples, anyone who enjoys the window dressing of spirituality and makes a show of their enlightenment has fallen into the same trap.
My epiphany of late is simply this: there is nothing to seek and nothing to find. There is much to accept and to embrace. And yes, you have to voluntarily place yourself into a state of grace in order to receive the gifts of a multifaceted and multidimensional reality that includes everything that people seek: ghosts, God, aliens, Oneness. This requires an alteration in perception. Your stories, your drama, your upsets, your grudges, your ambitions, and even your intellect and critical thinking skills will all block you from the experience of a complex and ultimately incomprehensible reality. Do not attempt to understand or explain Ultimate Reality. If you do, you will fall into the trap that consumes me on a regular basis: the idea that one can explain and convince others to believe the existence of what we call the ‘paranormal’.
What is, after all, the paranormal? The paranormal is what the ego, what the individual self, cannot explain or make sense of with our current scientific or philosophical paradigms. The paranormal is that space where we hit the wall, where our language breaks down, where we can no longer make reality intelligible for ourselves, much less for anyone else. It’s that space where we live. It’s who we are, but are afraid to admit it. For nothing is stranger than the fact that we exist and perceive ourselves to exist in isolation from everything and everyone else. There is no journey; simply a remembering of something ineffable that we always seem to forget.
–Kirsten A. Thorne
The Soul Bank: Stories, Research, Essays, (B)Logs 