The intellect, procrastination and the deep ocean

There are things in life which are still painful for me although I have a deep understanding of their cause and sense and all further aspects. Today I want to talk a little bit about these things.

Starting the spiritual journey is somehow like deciding to take a walk through the jungle at night, not knowing what is awaiting you and where your journey might end. The spiritual development is for normal people a kind of black box where you enter, where you stay and where you come out one day. The unknown is waiting and the unknown can cause a lot of fears. And additionally the mind loves to imagine all kinds of horrors, dangers, strange events, etc.

On the other hand, the spiritual path is not an intellectual path but it is based on pure practice and own experiences. No one can change this and no one can take the walk instead of you.

So we have fears and the unknown on the one hand and we have the necessity for practice on the other hand. What to do?

There are spiritual seekers who put their fate into the hands of God, equal what might happen, they trust in God and in themselves. They have a strong faith and sometimes they are as fearless and powerful like the old Samurai from Japan. So they start their spiritual training and with this they make true spiritual experiences. There is nothing whatever could stop them. These are the children of power.

Then there are other spiritual seekers who are totally in love with God and they are absolutely sure that the divine love will guide them on their path. And this is what happens.  They undergo the practical training with devotion, joy and gratitude. These are the children of love.

And then there are others who think about the spiritual development. They think and think and think and think and continue with intellectual studies, finding always new good reasons for further intellectual studies, thinking and thinking and coming nowhere. These intellectual studies are based on so many useful arguments that they can go on forever. Maybe they want to discover the best spiritual system, then they want to do everything in the correct way, then they have to find scientific evidence about spiritual teachings, then they have to check materialistic discoveries about spiritual phenomena, then they have to save themselves from all kinds of dangers and traps and so on. And so they get older and older and in best case their intellectual knowledge increases but in the end they haven´t made any real spiritual progress.

So certainly you have the right to behave like this but it is not good to complain afterwards that you haven´t achieved any kind of real spiritual progress including no real and comprehensive understanding of spiritual topics. In fact it is a kind of procrastination mixed with fears and the anxiety of personal changes. “I want this and that, – I want these experiences, these special abilities and I want enlightenment but I do not really want to change myself.”

One result of this attitude is for example to make scientific studies about angel names and angel hierarchies but for which real sense? Or you compare spiritual experiences – and then? To state that student X had not so nice enlightenment experiences like student Y?

It is all comparable with the great desire to taste an exotic fruit. It looks good, it smells good and you have heard that it also should taste good but on the other hand the fruit could be dangerous or bad or whatever. So you do not decide yourself to taste the fruit by yourself but to ask other people how the taste is. You notice all the different descriptions and you compare them but in the end you do not know how it really tastes just because you haven´t eaten it by yourself. There is only ONE way to get to know the taste – you have to taste for yourself, YOU have to make YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE.

The only thing you can do is to ask those who tasted it already if it was a good taste, if there are aspects which have to be regarded for safety or health reasons, if there are any dangers or traps and certainly what is a good or the right way to eat it. But asking for the definition of the taste, it makes no real sense.

Another example. Imagine you have the great desire to swim in the ocean. Your intellect starts to search for excuses why you shouldn´t try it. Maybe there are sharks, maybe the water is too cold, too hot, too bad or whatever. So you ask the people who go swimming. They tell you that the water is wet, that it is warm, that there are waves, that there are fish, etc. But this does not replace an own real experience of swimming in the water. Only when you jump into the water to experience it directly, only then you know the water. Intellectual studies can never replace real experiences. And materialistic studies can never replace spiritual studies.

In fact the intellect can be the greatest obstacles on your spiritual path.

The spiritual world is like the ocean, very deep and very large. The limited intellect is not able to comprehend it. But your intuition, your awareness is able to unite with this ocean and to understand his nature.

Go beyond your limitations, beyond your fears, beyond your intellect!

The smallest piece of own spiritual experience is thousand times more precious than a life filled with intellectual studies on spiritual topics.

For me it is always hard to see when someone blocks himself in such a way. But as it is his free decision I have to respect it.

PS: One wonderful example of spiritual procrastination is the occupation with soul mirror work. You can do endless studies of your character in the past and of the present and you can work endlessly on possible flaws and wished for positive qualities but this simply misses reality. The master key for spiritual character refinement is the work with the four elements and further on meditations on the divine virtues where you unite with them and where you integrate them into your own nature. So always try to become aware of the traps you unconsciously choose for yourself.