Missing the Sense in the Training

When you look back on your time at school, you might remember tests which were returned with the note “You have missed the point!” together with a bad grade. This means that you have written about something which was not at all the topic of the test.

When your job is to explain how to make bread but you prefer to talk about how to prepare cakes then you have missed the point and the original, aspired goal wasn´t accomplished. And even if you say that baking bread is similar to making cake, you still have missed the point.

In some aspects of life this might be not a problem but in many or most aspects it causes real problems.

And in most cases it is simply a lacking of awareness and secondary a lacking of understanding the sense of the task.

Imagine your mother wants to make an apple pie for her guests in the afternoon. As she is in a hurry, she asks you to go to the super market to buy a specific type of apples. You go to the super market and you buy peaches instead. Meanwhile your mother has prepared the cake to add the apples. As you bring peaches, her cake doesn´t work out as the recipe doesn’t fit for peaches. Time, effort and money are wasted. Bad emotions and stress came up. This is bothering and unnecessary.

Missing the point comes along with the ideas of perfection and the optimum. The optimum is perfection in a specific situation where different aspects play a role. Let´s imagine that you have bought a precious tea which you want to enjoy. The maximum taste of this tea unfolds when you cook it at 90°C for exactly 5 minutes. This is the optimum for maximum taste which means perfection. Now you have three choices. You cook the tea under the level of the optimum or you cook the tea above this level. In both cases, you have missed the point, the real sense and the tea won´t taste well of perfect. Only when you exactly hit the point, the optimum, the level of perfection, the tea will be great. So in conclusion, if you do not enough or if you do too much, the results won´t be good or satisfying. It is always about hitting the optimum and with this perfection.

In some cases the optimum is not a peak or point but it is a frame which offers a certain scope. This scope is defined by your resources of energy, time, motivation, etc. And it is also a matter of efficiency. For example, you can buy different types of apples in big quantities for the apple pie of your mother. Certainly she will find a fitting number of good apples for the cake but in fact she needs only one type of apples and only 7 in number. So the rest is wasted.

In general the ideas of optimum, perfection, hitting the point, maximum, minimum, efficiency, etc. are important in everyday life. But they do also play a special role in the spiritual training.

Especially here it is very important to work in an efficient way to get good results. If you do not enough training, you won´t reach any goals, if you do too much, your energy won´t last long enough or you harm yourself. And if you do the wrong exercises then you won´t accomplish what you were originally looking for.

Spiritual training is serious training which can be compared to the training of high performance athletes. Only they can reach maximum results and this only on the basis of professional training.

If you are just playing around then this is nice and brings fun but what are the results?

When we examine now certain spiritual traditions with their diversity of exercises then we can see that in parts over time the original sense has been lost and that representatives are missing the point in their teachings. Here we see also the negative principle of separation at work which is in contrast to the principle of unity and of integration.

A very good example is Yoga. In the original concept all Yoga paths were one great path. The different Yoga paths represent different aspects of the human nature which all need to be respected and developed for the higher sense of perfection. So when you follow today one Yoga path, then you develop yourself one-dimensional which is not lawful. In a second step, there was also a separation regarding single techniques or exercises which is also and even more unhealthy and one-dimensional. So today teachers proclaim that it is good to use one exercise to gain enlightenment without paying attention to the big disharmony which is caused by doing so. Then there is also a third unlawful development in Yoga where a preliminary training has been expanded beyond its original sense, replacing originally higher training. This means to set a servant into the position of the king which is unlawful. As a last point regarding Yoga, in the Western World, Yoga has turned into a hollow shell losing its original sense completely. This is the downfall of Yoga, the mother of all spiritual trainings. Today it is hard to find a school which pays respect to the higher laws and the original sense of the One Path.

When we examine now the Bardon training from a higher perspective then we can see that Bardon has set the single exercises according to the laws of harmony and with the aim to present an efficient system for perfect development and mastery. So when the student follows his instructions then he follows a hidden and higher sense from which he will benefit even if he does not understand everything as a beginner. If the student now plays with the exercises in a way that the original point is missed then he causes problems, bad results or wastes precious time and effort and maybe gets entrapped in delusions. So I want to give a warning about this. You should exactly know what you are doing and if you make changes to the exercises or the training schedule, you should be aware of the effects.

Thanks to the internet, we have many students or experts today who write about their experiences, their understanding of Bardon and their own ideas for exercises. In main this grows from positive intentions but this is no guarantee for the quality. Very easily the point of an original exercise can get missed. Invented exercises can be one-dimensional and also dangerous. And such exercises can also stay below or go beyond the original sense. Then you waste precious time with nonsense. Especially exaggerated exercises can not only waste time and effort but can also lead to a wrong self-perception in having achieved something great with the idea to be a good student or maybe even better than other students. And this is again an ego-trap.

So in conclusion I can only warn about these things. Please be very conscious about proposed exercises and teachings and ask yourself if they fit into the original purposes, if they are one-dimensional, maybe dangerous, if they are based on simple misunderstandings of the original teachings, if they are ego-driven, etc.

Spiritual training is not a game, not a type of entertainment but it is serious stuff where you need to be in full awareness and control.

Remember the four pillars of Salomon´s temple.

And if you are unsure about teachings and exercises then it makes sense to discuss them with like-minded fellows.