If you’re on a spiritual journey—a quest for enlightenment—you must beware of the numerous traps and distractions you will inevitably encounter.
These are all designed by your ego, your sense of self, to keep it alive and thriving. We must recognize that what we’re seeking lies beyond the mind and the ego, beyond the human condition altogether. The ego will not want to go where it doesn’t exist so it will do whatever it takes to survive, it’s our most basic survival instinct.
This is where the allure of spiritual teachings, practices, and gurus comes from; instead of a stepping stone towards enlightenment, they become a sanctuary for the ego. Perhaps you landed on Buddhism or something more New Age, perhaps on energy practices like yoga, Chi Gong, Reiki, or bioenergetics. Some of us may believe in the Genesis creation myth and some of us believe in Simulation Theory. Some of us make life decisions based on intuition and some of us get guidance from spirit guides, tarot readings, or astrology.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these, the problem is that whatever it is, our ego found something it likes and now it wants to desperately cling on to it. If someone makes a disparaging comment about your particular belief or practice, you get defensive. You think you’re more evolved or more spiritual than others who hold different beliefs, not realizing that it’s all part of the same false construct we all built within the dream.
Spirit guides aren’t communicating with you through the ether and the universe isn’t communicating with you through repeating numbers or random coincidences.
Can’t you see? The only one communicating with you is YOU.
You’re making all of this up, and taking any of it seriously just puts you deeper into your ego and deeper into the dream. A requirement for enlightenment is for all ideas, experiences, words, and teachings to fade into insignificance. Your mind and your ego cannot grasp this. No spiritual practice or guru can give you this.
Anyone who tells you to do what they prescribe to be happier, to manifest something, or to raise your vibration is missing the point. And if they want your money or your loyalty as a prerequisite to impart their teaching, run the other way. Who is the one that cares about all those things? An awakened being wouldn’t care about money, or raising their vibration, or manifesting anything because the ego that would want all those things isn’t there.
The self you’re trying so desperately to improve isn’t you. You don’t need to find your life purpose or the meaning of life, you need to realize that ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ are human inventions and life just is. The very idea of awakening or enlightenment is also just empty words, a journey that implies growth strengthens ego rather than dismantling it.
As Thomas Merton says: “the moment fact is transferred to a statement it is falsified. One ceases to grasp the naked reality of experience and one grasps a form of words instead.” Ego thrives in these labels and in the pursuit of more. Work on rejecting all these external mirages and go instead to the pure internal state of direct experience, the state of experiencing life itself. Who is this “I” that exists and lives? Learn to see personal attachment to any belief, practice, or construct as a detour.
The moment you notice attachment arising, recognize the ego’s grip, and redirect the focus inward to your direct experience. Who is it that wants these things? You already have all the answers you seek, but all the noise you’re creating is preventing you from seeing them. Silence, stillness, and deep introspection lead to the dangerous questions that ultimately dissolve the self and dismantle the very fabric of your reality.
The journey to enlightenment is not a journey at all and it doesn’t require anything outside of yourself, it’s simply an awakening to the truth you already know. Use the spiritual teachings you come across, like this video, to take the next step, and then leave them behind. Remember: if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
The JJ Experiment 