Self serving spirituality
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I was just remembering the end of Papaji’s interview with David Godman, and one of the things Papaji says is that his highest transmission of teaching is something he has never given to anyone. When asked why not, he says it is because nearly all the people he encounters are still at heart egotistical and selfish. That their spiritual search is actually self-serving.
He also says that this higher transmission is something of the heart, and that if you are at your core not worthy of it then all you will hear is speech to the mind, and a mind understanding of it. That this mind understanding is something that the western mind could appreciate, but that it is not the purpose of the teaching.
It seems to me this might be the case with some Buddhist teachings as well. That one should look really carefully at whether the spiritual search is to serve yourself, so that YOU can evolve or know the truth, or whether you really feel as if you could serve the world with your enlightenment. Whether you really have abandoned serving the self.
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It's a very valid question, when you think your search is for freedom or for truth, to question whose freedom, whose truth? These things are still self-serving at heart. It gave me quite a shock to realise that.
Ramana Maharshi once said, the greatest gift you can give to the world is your own enlightenment. That led me to think, work on your enlightenment and you will do fine with serving the world. And if you look at the life of Ramana or Papaji, there were no great periods of service to the people there.
Instead they spent time doing their own thing, coming to their own inner expression, their enlightenment.
hhmmmm.
Pardon my skepticism, but I come from traditions that have marketed perfectionism as something uniquely transferable and subject to the prideful ascendancy of the right tribal membership.
It is not that a being, subject to the imprisonment of his own making, can not speak eloquently about the values of freedom. It's, that for freedom to be anything more than another mental conjuring, it needs to be shown through a de construction of the illusionary jail that spawned the very concepts of anyone's imprisonment.
The goal of goalessness/practicing for practice sake/ going on, always going on, always becoming Buddha/a transcendence of self & other/ are not so much as something conferrable as they are the innate inherency of any life's potential.
but only in this one fleeting nano second.
I'm reminded of this
Spirituality ....What's in it for me ? ...
Nothing, hmm okay I'll take it, but it had better be worth it
Tee Hee!
You are forgiven. As usual no get out of jail free card, neither available or needed. The chains and doors/obstacles are all constructions.
In a similar way there are no secret, higher, advanced teachings that are not always being expressed by those open to listening, observing, attending …
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/W59Nb72sYJhMJKGB8/a-non-mystical-explanation-of-no-self-three-characteristics
Of course it is self-serving. Until the goal is reached countless lifetimes from now. If it wasn't self-serving, WHY would we do the effort and work to master ourselves? It is also important to simultaneously work on developing compassion/metta/loving-kindness. So we don't increase our ego by attending ONLY to our own desire to progress.
Those who are attracted to Buddhism are those who are moderately unhappy and looking for a solution. Those who are utterly miserable usually drown it in drugs or alcohol. Those who are content almost never take up Buddhism.
Buddhism is work. Why do it if you are already content?
So there we have it. Buddhism is self-serving altruism.
Serve yourself by being truly altruistic.
how revolutionary!