"success" in spiritual life

genkaku

Just noodling:

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage here in the U.S. put me in mind of a spiritual spin-off:

What person in his or her right mind struggles mightily in the present to achieve a future in which s/he could live in the past?

Spiritual practice is not for sissies. In practice, spiritual endeavor can be a terrific struggle -- heroic, perhaps, though I dislike that word. As the LGBT community and its supporters fought a million battles, shed a million tears, faced a million roadblocks and suffered a million disappointments, so too anyone entering into spiritual endeavor has taken up a rending effort. It's not for sissies no matter how many smarmy hymns anyone sings. It's hard work.

And yet, hard work for what?

Success by definition resides in the past and anyone who tries to lead a life based in the past is asking for trouble ... for doubt and sorrow and uncertainty that may be the antithesis of anything resembling spiritual "success." Leading a life that relies on the past puts individuals on a collision course with the fact that they live in the present. Oooops! You don't need to be a Buddhist to recognize this difficulty: The past may affect the present, but living a life based on the past can't cut the mustard.

Isn't some recalibration of "success" in order? How could anyone "succeed" if the success they sought led them back to a land of delusion and fantasy they sought to escape in the first place ... a land of a past that can never be relived or revised?

Hard work for what?

OK, you made it into heaven. Now what?

Don't ask me: It's your life.