Reality Check: Is it them or is it me?

Any form of spirituality of religion that ignores and does not address the reality of our emotions is at best slow as a snail or at worst inefficient and bound to fail.

Every human being faces the gap between how we envision life to be and how it actually is. In that gap, we activate frustration and irritation, and as this frustration and irritation accumulates without being addressed, it gradually morphes into anger. As this hidden and unexpressed anger accumulates, it comes along with a quest for release. But because our society generally does not condone the release of anger, we seek situations that give us justification to release this anger. Therefore, when we clearly determine that “somebody else is wrong,” then we enter the path of unleashing our negativity upon the target. This target can be just about anything: The person who cuts in line at the grocery store, or the man/country with the wrong religious or political orientation. Once we have the target that deserves to be hit with our now sanctified, self-righteous anger, we let him have it. This takes place on the individual and collective level and is so subtle and fast, it takes incredible training to intercept.

To even go so far as to admit that we carry multiple dimensions of poison within that require cleaning, that itself takes a great deal of maturity. It really is easier to point and say, “You make me do it.” And then to go about and actually clean out the dark chambers of our life takes even more maturity.

There are very few spiritual avenues that I am aware of that present a clear and concise insight into the need to clean our negative emotions on a daily level, not just to maintain a basic level of sanity, but to clean it to a point that awakening becomes possible.
This severe presence of negative emotions in human beings is the reason why we do not access our deeper core, where awakening resides, even if we try hard with all forms of meditation and prayer. (Besides, it is painful and unpleasant.)

Yesterday I read a piece by Sri Chimnoy. He gave a pristine, crystal-clear presentation of the various levels of Samadhi (Awakening) that simply impressed me. He also said that none of his students where nowhere near to having Samadhi experiences. This admission shocked me, but I was again impressed by his honesty. Of course, given the man taught for over 40 years, this is a sad recognition. The question of course arises, what was missing in the body of his teachings?

One of the first steps to cleaning up our hidden negative emotions is to identify our shadow, our personal saboteur, always waiting to sabotage us just at the right moment.

Imagine you are facing your shadow, your saboteur in the chair opposite you. Ask: What is your name? How do you sabotage me? Do this and be surprised, because you will hear an answer.