I'm wanting to talk about the difference between the East and West around the spiritual journey and the ego.
So you know somebody wise once said the East really understands the inner logic of the spiritual journey and the West really understands the inner logic of machines.
And we're in this time of cross-fertilization where you know the East is industrializing and the West we're being faced with the need to go inward and look at ourselves and maybe,
Not maybe,
To bond with ourselves more and bond with Mother Nature,
Becoming less alienated.
Okay and so how do we do this?
Well if we look to the East,
The East talks about mind,
That every person has a mind.
Now it's not their brain,
The mind is considered their ego,
Their body,
Their whole view of life,
Influences from past lives,
Patterns coming from past lives because in the East they believe in past lives as well as you know the early conditioning.
It's everything and it's said that you know as a person moves into enlightenment is when the mind dissolves and basically that person is free of any pattern coming from their childhood or other lives,
That their experience of life is just pure undiluted soul in human form.
So they're living and acting and being directed by their soul and expressing it and that these what these what these big lights have done like Vikhanda,
Yogananda,
You know there's so many of them,
Well a few of them really but they're widely known names.
Yeah and in the process of you know to become enlightened in the East they really emphasize the guru-seeker relationship and basically say that it's very difficult to achieve enlightenment without this.
Now in the West we talk about the ego,
We don't talk about past lives because some people believe in them but it's not part of our tradition.
We're just really waking up to how much the early patterning of a child influences their whole life or can influence their whole life.
We talk about how self-actualization is when the person overcomes their ego enough to be able to express their energy in the world but we don't talk really too much about it and we don't talk about how to get there because we don't have these thousands and thousands of years of traditions of spiritual traditions the East has.
Now this material is really spelled out in a lot of those ancient texts and again the guru-student relationship is seen as key.
Now in the West we have real trouble giving over you know being humble enough in a way to see somebody as a teacher and follow their guidance when maybe our ego is saying no don't want to do this don't do it don't do it and there's this distrust and there's lots of you know it's often a money exchange so there's money in there too which can just confuse because you know we're not going to be able to do this there's money in there too which can just confuse because you know the teacher may be building several summer houses who knows and you know it's always you know when you get paid again it's you know tempting to maybe keep somebody coming for direction to keep the income up when maybe that person needed a bit of space and just distance from the teacher a bit.
So these are the troubles with the spiritual training.
In the East there's been more of an emphasis on you know poverty really it's Christ-like poverty you know don't accumulate if you're on to the spiritual journey.
Again these are these thousands of years of traditions but the thing I want to talk about is that in my experience to achieve enlightenment you really have to trust somebody beyond yourself.
It's very difficult to really make a lot of headway just you know praying to an invisible God.
I mean you can you can I mean but the really you know the really deeper surrender is if you have a close relationship with somebody who is self-realized what happens is the student they gradually realize how devoted this self-realized person is to them and how all the teacher wants is the student to blossom into this awareness and this the teacher will do anything to help the student and as the student realizes this it becomes easier and easier to drop all the withholds and fears and distrust.
And then plus that you've got this self-realized person's guidance you know where they're spelling out to you like what you what your next step is and you know they know when you've got like a pattern that's really hard for you and they will be very compassionate with you as you struggle with it.
You know this all then helps a person move out of their ego or in the east the mind to then be able to express their soul energy here on earth.
The Hawaiians used to call a person like this companions of God and that's just true I mean it's when you just expressing your true energy and that's why self-realized people are so happy because they just get to be themselves.
They walk around like a toddler in a grown-up form you know if you see a toddler they go around hugging people and everything and it's the self-realized person is just expressing that kind of energy in grown-up form because you see if we all trust enough if we all realized how loved we are our hearts would just open and we would you know experience our true our true natures.
Now I feel in the in the west we need more we need more authentic teachers more love-based authentic teachers so you know just keep going you know maybe you'll become one we need an army of them anyway bless your hearts hope this helps you
