While this joy detached you from the mundane world, giving you the hope that you’ve transcended suffering for good – it did not last.
Why? What happened?
You sincerely hoped this higher state would never leave you.
But it did.
Did you make a mistake? You’d ask for forgiveness, but please, you wanted it all back.
Days passed. Nothing changed.
You became doubtful. Perhaps you needed to read another book or try a different meditation.
The more you tried to catch that higher state however, the quicker it slipped through your fingers.
It made you feel bad about yourself.
Doubts started creeping in.
Memories from your past came up.
Perhaps your parents were right, you weren’t that “good enough” after all.
Perhaps your teacher was right, you wouldn’t amount to much in life.
Perhaps society was right, good things only happen to others.
Like all those good things that happened in the past – they never lasted.
Maybe it wasn’t meant for you, you thought. That’s what your past taught you. That’s what your surroundings kept echoing throughout your childhood.
Out of nowhere. The demons from your past came up. Those lies you always fought with. Those lies you always pushed down. Those lies you started to believe in.
Somewhere deep inside yourself however, you didn’t completely lose hope.
While this battle between negative thoughts and the hope to be freed from them exhausted you – you weren’t going to give up.
You turned yourself to every possible spiritual material you could get your hands on.
You educated yourself on spiritual and metaphysical topics. You learned from different teachers. You tried different spiritual practices. You gave your spiritual growth your whole heart to.
Sometimes it felt like all your hardwork paid. When you expected it the least, you’d have glimpses of something higher, something sacred, with meaning – a life beyond the five senses.
Most of the time however. No matter how much you did, learned and practiced, you would still feel left behind. Abandoned. Lonely. And confused. As if you were being tricked.
On top of that, the world wouldn’t give you a break.
The moment you committed yourself to your spiritual growth, it was as if an “alarm” had rung because now everybody needed something from you.
You tried hard to juggle both, your spiritual growth and your desire to help all those who needed you. But soon enough, it became a mess.
Day after day. Life felt like an endless and draining battle.
Your energy levels dropped. You weren’t as joyful as you used to be.
Still, you remained hopeful about your spiritual growth. You kept it in mind. But life happened.
Plus, what were you supposed to do?
It’s true that the books you read taught you some stuff about the universe, about spiritual laws, about consciousness and how we create our experiences.
It’s true that certain teachings opened you to certain practices, which you tried.
But for how many days were you supposed to close your eyes and breathe deeply? How would you know you were doing it correctly? What was the purpose of all these practices?
As you probably learned throughout your spiritual research, everything that exists is composed of both the masculine and the feminine aspects.
While the spiritual teachings most of us are familiar with have a good feminine aspect of trust, openness, intuition – most of them lack a developed masculine aspect.
The masculine aspect gives us a direction, a goal, a structure – and without it, no matter how wonderful a teaching is, no matter how beneficial it will prove to be in time, we will give up. Human beings are goal-driven. We need a direction in order to act.
To function properly therefore, and reap the fruits of our spiritual practices therefore, we need more than to “feel good,” we need both trust and structure.
Unfortunately, most spiritual teachings focus too much on trying to make us feel good using mystical and abstract concepts instead of giving us a direction, a structured understanding of who we are, why we’re here, and how to make the best use of this opportunity we have right now to flourish.
So you kept zigzagging in your journey, going through ups and downs.
And while you had “highs” at times, your efforts didn’t produce much results.
Once again, you met eye to eye with your demons. The pattern repeated itself. Back to square one. This place felt familiar.
And in a moment of despair you thought to yourself, am I really not good enough? Is this the only place I’ll keep getting to? Will I ever go beyond it?