happiness salesmen” or “spiritual charlatans.” We are all overly familiar with people who say what you want to hear. People who dare to offer the effects you seek, without activating the necessary causes. The bottom line is that these people offer you methods for better and deeper slumber, to sleep more comfortably.
It is pure “spiritual trilerism.” Which beaker holds realization? You will never know. The game of ego is based on cheating. Your trilerist ego is fooling you. Your ego, to avoid your awakening, has created the mental idea that waking up is a matter of effort, that it takes time, that it is difficult... It has turned awakening into a new dream, “the spiritual ego’s dream;” it has generated a new obstacle so that you do not do without it, ditching it all together.
The greatest obstacle to awakening is the idealization of awakening really means.
The ego will do anything so that you remain in slumber, even promising the moon or nirvana, if that is what it takes. It will don a tunic and use spiritual language without knowing its true meaning. It will take you to a hall of mirrors, where several “yous” will confuse you as to your real identity. It will practice “spiritual trilerism” with you.
The spiritual ego is even more dormant than conventional ego.
Awakening is not entering nirvana. In truth, people who awaken continue to walk the surface of the planet, and have normal lives, but they no longer seek anything. Awakening does not lead to inexhaustible joy, internal ecstasy, nor perfection. Obviously, they experiment peace, certainty, truth... but this is a natural consequence of their new perceptive state.
Awakening is not...
Absolute joy
Perfection
Ecstasy
Renouncing the world
Vanity
Being super positive
Superiority
Feeling better
Absence of challenges
Mystical experiences
Activation of Holy Powers
Perfection
Awakening leads to knowing who or what you are; that is more than enough.
Once awake, you will not care for whatever kept you awake before. You will enter a state of Grace (which I will delve into at the end of the book, meanwhile, be patient and follow me)...
For the time being, my best advice to awaken is to renounce your attempts to feel better with whatever it is you are facing now. Try to renounce the “self” that believes that things must improve or be very different. Do not try to awaken to feel better, or to try to solve a problem related to your slumber. Because, at the end of the day, trying to satisfy your ego is to believe in its supposed needs. That would be like wrapping one dream into another, but not awakening. Tell me what you prefer: to return to reality or feel better within the fantasy?
I have two good questions, with their corresponding answers:
1 Who awakens? Not ego, of course, since ego is the made-up character of slumber, the hero o all the adventures in the world of things. Let us say that Presence becomes conscious of itself through your consciousness or nervous system. The observer recognizes himself through the instrument they use: the mind.
2 Awaken from what? Awaken from a fictitious mental illusion. Awaken to what we really are and, from that point, keeping it ever present in all our experiences in the world.
Awaken from the belief that we are separate, that we are imperfect and limited.
Life has, with its crisis, an infinite number of opportunities to awaken. They are windows that open every now and then, to allow to you leave the dream. They are mirrors in which we recognize ourselves. First it is a call, then a scream, and finally a kick where it hurts the most. And remember, there is only one end: to awaken. Everything else is a beautiful but inconsequential fairytale.
This book is one opportunity to awaken. You found it within your slumber to ensure that you could return to reality, and not lose yourself in the depths of slumber. To explain it better, please allow me an analogy: Imagine that you are dreaming, and in your dream, the phone rings. You have two choices: one, to integrate that call in your dream, and dream that you answer the phone; thus, the dream continues. The second choice is to assume that the call is from a place outside your dream (reality), and that you need to wake up to take the call. Your choice.
We are all called to wake up (not one, but multiple times); not all of us, however, opt to do so (not one, but multiple times). What is soothing is that the finale of this little theater is already decided. And it is a happy ending (better than that), because it could not be any other way.
The enlightened coach knows that we are all equally powerful, and exert our powers as a choice, that has to be respected. The enlightened coach does not undervalue or overvalue anyone, because he or she has specifically awakened, and remembers the feeling of non-separation. He or she knows that is the destiny of all human beings, sooner or later. He or she patiently awaits, in the knowledge that time is an irrelevant variable, there is no first or last.
What happens from now on depends on what you decide. This book may be a phone call within the dream, or a phone call from outside the dream. In the first case, you will read it and keep dreaming; in the second case, you will read it and awaken.
Lastly, let us look at the difference, if there is one, between awakening and enlightenment: enlightenment is produced when awakening does not relapse, when it is maintained and permanent. To simplify it:
Awakening: to remember who and what you are (what you have always been). Theory. Provisional state.
Enlightenment: to reflect that understanding in your everyday life. Practice. Permanent state.
When awakening takes place, the desire to be someone other than yourself ceases completely.
5
THE OBJECTIVELESS COACH
Can you imagine a coach without objectives?
Let me explain what this means, so you can understand the question. Surely you know that coaches and trainers are characterized by marking objectives for their clients, and encouraging them to work hard toward achieving them. Here, we will turn the world upside down because, in fact, that is the present state of things, so in fact, we are setting it straight.
If you let me, I will tell you something about me. There was a time when I took note of all the recipes for success that I could find. It was fun; a game to see how far I could go. I must acknowledge that many of those recipes worked toward the end for which they were designed: to be successful, to achieve goals and objectives.
I learned the science of achievement. I understood that success, the art of achieving what is desired, is an almost exact science if you follow a contrasting protocol.
Yes, success is predictable. It is the inevitable effect of a mentality and concrete habits.
To achieve what is desired is not that complicated when you follow models revealed a long time ago, yet still valid today. But, as with everything else, there is a price to pay for success; that price is effort, time and, sometimes, personal sacrifice. You achieve something at the cost of something. I am not interested in the kind of success, since you will achieve it at the cost of something else... it is bad business.
But since it works, and because results are actually evidenced, one ends up becoming a greyhound, always chasing a hare. The bad news is that there are many hares to chase, and they are faster every