The result depends on your ability to surrender
Published in Orient Yourself
5 days ago (Medium.com)
When the forecasts of scientists, astrologers, and mystics converge, realize there’s something you should be paying attention to.
Apocalypse could be right around the corner. Our world hangs by a thread, while we take everything — and ourselves — for granted.
But what if apocalypse (on the inside) is exactly what we need to finally wake up? And what if external difficulties are the only thing that can trigger this inner revolution?
Preparing your mind for the worst case scenario may be the best spiritual tonic you can give yourself. It definitely was for my journey!
Take the following thought experiment.
Society starts changing so quickly that everyone around you begins going mad.
First the proliferation of AI. Then 2 billion climate refugees. Then nuclear-scale water wars and religious ‘end times’ hysteria.
Bereft of jobs, the billionaires draft a whole generation for war. And the pollution from our weapons accelerates the ecological crisis.
Large parts of the world get depopulated. Fresh, yet ancient diseases become unleashed from melting icecaps. Economies become local, not global.
Among all this, enclaves of light arise, dotting the Earth with new hope for human potential. Hives of humans with the wisdom to see through rhetoric, and the compassion to sacrifice their self-needs for collective-needs.
But it doesn’t look very easy. Disease, nuclear radiation, and poverty are the backdrops to your spiritual awakening, not plush yoga studios and 24/7 access to internet.
How did reading that make you feel?
There are two ends of the spectrum. One, you felt paralyzing terror and a thank goodness the future is always being newly forged, not fated. Congrats! You’re hopeless.
Two, you breathed a sigh of relief. The madness is coming to an end and giving way to even more madness. But this time, you have to be sane; rooted; spiritually attuned just to survive the instability. You can’t wait.
Here’s why spiritual prodigies are always living, even inducing their lives to exist at the second end of the spectrum.
Incarnation as human is a privilege.
It’s not an all-you-can-eat buffet of sensory pleasure. It is the raw material you need for the task ahead.
The first teaching ever given by the Buddha was that we live in a cesspool of misery, of our own making. For countless reincarnations, we have been multiplying the ignorance making us suffer.
We consider our bodies “us,” until our youthful charm leaves us, and physical intimacy along with it. We consider our minds “our true selves,” then turn around and fight each other based on conditional and alterable political views.
The teachings of the Buddha, “the all-knowing one,” begin with recognizing misery and its causes, because no awakening is possible without a truly impactful inner end of the (comfortable and ignorant) world.
- We become jaded with temporary, cumbersome romance and seek cosmic, unconditioned compassion instead.
- We get sick of putting up masks of identity, and search for the deeper origin of consciousness instead.
In these cases, suffering of some sort leads us to abandon the lower, and seek the higher.
So how do we actually get there?
Humble listening and reading.
Humble reflection and contemplation.
Humble application, practice, and replication.
Your time is short, and the path is long. Step by step, the goal is reached, after multiple lifetimes of inner work. But only if you take it seriously each moment.
The great yogis of Tibet have echoed this classic message century after century.
“Practice is very important, because one never knows when they are going to die. We are composed of the four elements [water, earth, fire, and air], and we never know when they will part. The four elements are your enemy, and there is no time to sleep or relax. Everything is impermanent. There is no time, you must practice always.”
This is the wakeup call you’ve been asking for.
If you prioritize spiritual development and then the world ends, you’ll be one of the seeds that inspire a new humanity.
If you prioritize spirituality and the world remains, you have an era of abundance to support you.
You have everything to lose by getting caught up in the impermanent chaos of the external world.
You have everything to win by putting in the inner work.
Even having a Buddha in front of you to inspire and teach you may not make an iota of difference — case in point, the example of some of his personal disciples failing to attain liberation.
The path is yours to walk. Don’t let your innate desire to simply be told what to do slow you down!
Written by Rami Dhanoa
·Editor for Orient Yourself
Re-thinking human potential with meditation & Indic philosophy.