"What is spiritual development?"
You have probably asked yourself this question at least once in your life, even if it has never occurred to you to engage in spiritual development on your own.
“Perhaps these are some kind of visualization exercises?”
"Maybe this is meditation, whatever that word means?"
"Or maybe this is a prayer in some temple of some religion?"
"Or are these some kind of complex exercises with strange body positions?" you ask yourself.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to give a correct answer to this question, because spiritual development is everything that is mentioned, and much more that is not mentioned. It seems that every group, even every person in the world, has or should have its own understanding of spiritual development, and this is good, because if anything other than Love and Truth represents its essence, it is Freedom.
Therefore, in this case we will briefly describe the experience of spiritual development during the process that we recognize as Remembrance.
Remembrance
Remembrance is easier to explain by what is not, than by what it is.
Remembrance is not a "System", it is not a "Training", it is not the "Final and Only Truth". It is not the exclusive right or privilege of the rich or the highly educated. You cannot buy it, nor force it to reveal its secrets to you, because there are no secrets in it at all.
Remembrance is available to everyone, regardless of gender, race, nation, religion, education and social status in society. It is the gift and true nature of every human being, and to find it you do not need to cross hills and oceans, because it is always with you, in you.
And what prevents you from remembering, what constantly hurts you, like a pebble in your shoe, is your Ego, that old, faithful friend, that Guardian who takes care of you and who does not allow others to violate your personal space, but also the Jailer who does not allow you to leave that same personal space in your own possession.
The universe is infinite, and you are still locked in your cocoon, in your small, strong, personal prison. With a personal jailer.
Roads
There are countless roads, and sometimes they run on their own, sometimes they go side by side, and sometimes they cross each other and intersect. Then, often conflicts and quarrels arise between passengers about whose road has priority, whose is better, faster, older, younger... or whatever is.
Some roads are less traveled, full of potholes and not maintained, so that only the occasional weary traveler passes them. Some are forgotten and completely abandoned.
Sometimes a road is really just a path, something small and personal, not like those wide paved paths with lots of warning signs, information signs, signs about everything and anything that is important to a traveler.
The path is harder, because you make it yourself. There is nothing in front of you, and behind you only the faintest hint that someone has passed before. You do not know where it will lead you, or what you will find at its end, if there is an end at all. And yet you walk, ragged, hungry, beaten, barefoot, like one more traveler among many, who through the web of time, customs, cultures, fate and life, slowly but persistently remembers yourself.
Paths of the Ego
Many people understand spiritual development on the path of the Ego as another, this time spiritual goal. So, it would be good to take a closer look at why and how the Ego perceives goals.
The basic idea of the "Ego's Path" is to achieve goals in order to gain power, as a proven way to achieve personal happiness.
The Ego is constantly more or less dissatisfied, and it always seems to it that it lacks something, and what it lacks it considers to be outside of it, in other people and in the world of things and phenomena that surround it. That is why the Ego evaluates who or what it lacks, makes a plan to attract it to itself, and works on its implementation. Now it has a goal.
If he manages to achieve this and add it to himself, then he is happy, and this happiness can last a lifetime, but it can also be short-lived. If it is short-lived, then the Ego thinks that he has chosen the wrong goal or that the goal achieved was too small and simple, so this is the reason why he does not feel happy.
That is why he now chooses a much larger goal, which he is sure will bring him lasting happiness this time. It is clear that a great goal requires great effort and sacrifice, after which he does not have the time and energy to devote himself to those on whom the achievement of his goal does not directly depend. Those people for whom he does not have the time and energy are usually members of his own family.
Very early on, one of the many goals begins to stand out, and the Ego quickly realizes that all goals, no matter how tempting, are merely steps, at the top of which is the throne of Power. For the Ego, Power is actually Happiness.
On the Path of the Ego, Power is omnipresent and is reflected in all areas of life, no matter how insignificant they may seem to you. Apart from the ordinary, it is also present to a certain extent in that broad area of interest we call spirituality: magic, hypnosis, levitation, fortune telling, healing, secret societies, UFOs, clairvoyance, religion, martial arts... and much, much more, these are areas in which the Ego seeks and realizes its Power, because any mastery of some of these knowledge, skills or abilities makes it better, more successful and more powerful than others.
That's why there is a seeker of Power in the spiritual field. They are here and there, trying this or that, just to see is there a little Power for them?
Path of the Soul
Imagine that one dark, stormy night, on a country road, escaping from a storm, in ankle-deep mud, you lost a nugget of gold, and that a couple of sunny days later, without much hope of finding it, you returned to look for it. Just a few days ago it was just a mud puddle, now it is again a difficult country road, interspersed with deep furrows that have been pressed down by vehicles.
Of course, at first glance there is no sign of your nugget, and yet, as if some invisible hand is guiding you in this direction, you stop over one of the hardened piles of dirt, without even knowing why. Frustrated and a little angry at yourself, a little at the storm, realizing that this is very important to you, even if you don’t know why, you are suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. You don’t even remember the last time this happened, but now you can’t help it, because the tears are already finding their way to the ground. And suddenly something catches your attention, and, looking down in amazement, you notice how in a pile of ordinary, dried dirt, cracks are suddenly born and appear, from within which you can see the glow of your nugget of gold.
You bend down slowly, gently dissolve the womb of earth with your hands and carefully, as if it were made of glass, you take it and lift it up to the light of the sunny day, as if you were presenting it to the world. Worried about it, as if you were its mother, you turn around and look from all sides, looking for something that does not belong there, maybe some damage or a piece of dirt on it.
No, you can rest assured that even eternity, let alone the days he spent trapped in the mud, could not harm him. It is still the same as it was many millions of years ago when he was sent into the world to publish the news that no matter where he was cast and forgotten during his lifetime, no matter how long after you finally remember that he exists, he will still be waiting for you, exactly the same, originally pure and unchanging.
The Path of the Soul is different from the Path of the Ego.
On the Path of the Soul there are no victories and defeats, conflicts and quarrels, rewards and punishments, best and worst, honest and dishonest, successful and unsuccessful, strong and weak, first and last...
On the Path of the Soul you will not become stronger, richer, more sexually attractive, smarter, more beautiful... moreover, if you were any of these things before, on the Path of the Soul it will become completely irrelevant and will dissipate infinitely.
There are no goals on the Path of the Soul, not even the goal of Enlightenment. Since there are no goals, there are no rewards.
"There are no goals, no rewards, so why do we even bother?" you ask yourself.
Because in your past and this present life you have already remembered so much about yourself and your Soul, that everything else has become irrelevant to you.
"Well, can I get anything through spiritual development, at least something, something small ?", you ask.
No, you gain nothing, but you lose everything you have.
It is enough that through meditation you allow everything that is not you to fall away from you, which means almost everything that you already are.
Technically, the process involves gradually clearing the Mental, Emotional and Life Body of the Mental, Emotional and Life Ego, after which you will finally be able to freely express your true spiritual nature on the Physical plane and thus make it "solid" and permanent in this and all other dimensions of consciousness on which you exist.
In essence, Remembrance as the Path of the Soul is not based on either Faith or Knowledge, but is a state of consciousness of Direct Experience of the spiritual energies of the Universe.
Transition
Many have of course wondered what they need to do to move onto the Path of the Soul from the Path of the Ego, so it must be said that the transition is a natural process that occurs over many lifetimes.
As a human being endowed with Free Will, you will experience a life like a candy store, full of sweet and tasty goals, each of which is unique: it can be Knowledge, Wealth, Fame, Satisfaction ... and there are as many of them as you, that is, your Ego, have inner desires and impulses that you want to try, experience and realize. Of the many goals, one of them will always seem sweeter and tastier than the rest, so you will focus on it in future lives.
When you find yourself in a bakery again and again, one day you will think, "Oh, I am tired of this cake because I have tried it countless times so far" and the moment you think that, it will disappear from your life forever, now you will have one cake less.
The process of exploration-analysis-saturation-abandonment of one goal after another will continue over countless lifetimes, until finally in one of them you find yourself in a pastry shop where there are no pastries at all. Then all the goals that attract and move people, as they once attracted you, will lose all meaning, so you will consider your life meaningless. And then someone, most often your Soul, will whisper to you that meaninglessness is good.
Then you step onto the Path of the Soul.
Oliver
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