Looking for an instant enlightenment? Who isn’t? 🙂
Today, we live in the most convenient times to attain Self-Realization or what some also like to call “Enlightenment”. Like never before, we now have an instant access to our most loved, admired, and authentic spiritual teachers, coaches, and motivational speakers. Media and technology have made it very easy for us to listen to our favorite idols wherever and whenever we want to.
Not only that but our favorite spiritual and motivational coaches have also started traveling throughout the world to meet people and to talk to them in person. Gone are the days when a disciple had to travel to a far away Gurukul (ashram) to meet their spiritual teacher and live with him for years until he has attained enlightenment. The teachings of our gurus are now easily available through their online blogs, books, speeches, TED talks, podcasts, social media accounts, YouTube videos, audio CDs, DVDs, so on and so forth.
These days, the urban spiritual teachers also add humor into their talks. They realize the reduced attention span of modern people and keep us entertained with their timely and witty jokes. They speak to us in a language that we can understand. They simplify the most complex spiritual concepts and processes for us. And yet, we fail to grasp the essence of their teachings! Have you ever asked yourself why? Why are we lacking the willingness to cooperate and collaborate with them?
Do you really think the spiritual masters need to travel all over the world for us? Do they need to be funny for our sake? Do they really need to have Facebook and Twitter accounts? Are they looking for fame or FB likes and tweets or even waiting for their posts to go viral? No! Authentic spiritual teachers require none of this. In fact, all of this requires tremendous resources like time, money, and energy. And yet they do this selfless service without thinking twice considering it their responsibility towards humanity. Spiritual teachers of today have changed themselves to fit into our modern trends and culture but we haven’t changed a bit to fit into theirs! They have opened up a portal for our spiritual awakening and are waiting to transport us to our original home but unfortunately we lack the capacity to absorb their wisdom and implement it in our lives.
Why is this happening? In spite of listening to them daily, why do the majority of us see no change in ourselves? When we hear them speak, we feel an instant fire deep within us and we feel like our motivation has been ignited. We feel energized instantly and are momentarily reborn and can take over the world. So what happens after you are done listening to their videos or after you are finished reading and re-posting their motivational quotes? Where does the motivation go after you close the books written by your idols? What happens to all the promises of self-improvement you make to yourself while listening to them? Why do you again feel the same emptiness inside that you had before listening to their talks?
I believe this happens to us because we are not willing to work on ourselves. The only difference between our idols and us is that they are constantly working on themselves and providing us wisdom gained from their experience. And where is this experience coming from? From the work they do within themselves! When we listen to them, we are only listening to the wisdom, which is a result of their experience on themselves. The effect of such wisdom will only be temporary on us. I call this “borrowed wisdom” and there is only so much somebody else’s wisdom can do for you. You cannot live your story based on somebody else’s truth. You need to find your own truth.
Your goal is not to simply follow your idols on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and re-post their quotes. Your goal is not to be physically present with them or even desire them. Your goal is to become like them and even better! If you think simply reading or listening to their talks is going to make you whole, then I am going to tell you very honestly that if you personally do not work on yourself, you will still feel huge emptiness inside of yourself even if your idol is sitting right next to you. They can show you the way but cannot fill the emptiness inside you.
Remember, your spiritual goal is to actually implement their teachings in your life. How are you going to implement it in your life so that it has an everlasting effect on you? You have to continuously work on yourself and keep upgrading your Self! You will need to develop a deeper understanding of yourself; you will need to sit down and meditate. You need to make time for yourself. There are no shortcuts to awakening! You need to put in a lot of work.
Experience is necessary to awaken or to be enlightened. Do not make the mistake of thinking that your actions such as listening to spiritual teachers, reading literature or ancient scriptures is the ultimate experience. These are mere actions performed by you on a day-to-day basis and not the real experience itself. Experience only happens when you learn to experiment on yourself and become the end result of your experiment. Live your own story; be your own truth!
~ be love
Sayali
