What Any Spiritual Journey Is

           Something that happens after a shift in consciousness is you see how things are in consciousness as opposed to what ego has said is happening. Obviously, it’s a radically different point of view!

From ego’s point of view, a spiritual journey can seem integral and deeply meaningful. It is the source of ego’s deepest validation of itself as real, so it is its deepest delusion. But from the point of view of truth, pure consciousness, ego’s spiritual journey is incidental. It is what ego does when it senses truth rising to conscious awareness.

Some have glimpses of truth, moments of “awakening” where pure consciousness rises briefly to conscious awareness, like near-death experiences or mystical experiences. As only ego can be said to be in any kind of dream (the illusion that it is real), then “spiritual awakening” can be said to be something that happens to ego. It is ego coming to realize that there is a truth beyond itself and its world. (It often calls this truth “God”.) One may think this is a sign that they are enlightened or are on the way to it. But really, it is just that truth rose to conscious awareness for a bit, and this happens far more often than enlightenment (pure consciousness [truth] rising fully to conscious awareness, causing ego to fall away).

However it happens, a spontaneous mystical experience or a near-death experience, an ego that has caught a glimpse of truth usually ends up on a spiritual journey of some kind. One thinks that the glimpse happened for them, rather than that truth just happened to rise to conscious awareness. For some, that glimpse leads them to the nearest house of worship. They feel they now know God is real and they are going to worship God and try to follow the laws they have been told are from God to be right with God. But for others, the goal is to “get back to” what was seen in the glimpse of truth and stay there. They want enlightenment. So, they embark on a journey they may think will cause ego to fall away but what they are really doing is learning to scrub ego of its harsher parts. This is what A Course in Miracles and all spiritual paths are for, whether they teach you to be a better person and “sin” less or learn to recognize and question ego’s structures and beliefs to break them down so that you have a clearer mind. The only “journey” that can be taught is one of ego using an awareness of truth to mitigate ego. If taken far enough, the outcome may be self-realization, or an ego that has come to accept itself, warts and all, and by extension, others, too.

Of course, there are many who do not have a near-death or mystical experience who also feel moved to worship, study, and/or practice. Though not so dramatic as having a near-death or mystical experience, they, too, are experiencing truth rising to conscious awareness. No matter how it shows up, no matter how distorted, dysfunctional, or downright silly, any spiritual journey signals truth rising to conscious awareness. Ego will give these journeys many reasons and much meaning, but from the point of view of pure consciousness, it is just that it is inevitable that truth will break up illusion. If you step back and look at it this way, you will see it is all the same thing occurring to varying degrees and there is nothing to correct or fight over with another. You can just watch and listen to their expression of truth rising to conscious awareness and let it pass by as you focus on the truth it represents, no matter how dimly, no matter how buried beneath ego’s nonsense.

 

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