Zen: The Art of Nothing

Many years ago, either a book or a person caused me to ask myself ‘would I rather be a good person, or a spiritual person?’ The answer to me, was obvious. Good person, of course, wasn’t that the point of spirituality, after all?

All these years later, I’m not so sure it is. I’m more inclined to believe that spirituality is about being in our natural state, becoming who we really are, and not good or bad.

There is no such thing as a nice person. We all have our bright and dark sides, and have a tendency towards one of these sides, that is all. The ‘bad’ people are more identified with their darkness, the ‘good’ people, with their light. In both cases, there is identification, and where there is identification, there is misery. Haven’t we all heard the ‘good’ people wailing from time to time, about how all the bad things seem to happen to the good people?

I remember harboring a doubt for a long time after meeting Jacqueline. If a person was a murderer, would becoming spiritual mean he becomes a murderer without remorse? I never mustered the courage to ask, somehow, but over time the answer presented itself.

Our bright and dark sides are nothing but aspects of our personality. Both sides are needed, and both sides can be strengths or weaknesses. So, a person who has a strong tendency to kill anyone who violates him in some way, may still have that tendency, but spiritual practice will lift him above the grip of that tendency on him. He might want to kill someone, but he will have a choice – a real one – to kill or not. And anyone who really has a choice makes the sensible one.

As I mentioned, it is not only our vices that trap us. We are more often trapped by the desire to be a ‘good’ person. This leads us into trouble when we have to look bad in front of others by saying, or doing something that makes us look bad. As a result, most people in the beginning stages of spiritual growth end up having their personal space violated quite frequently.

A dis-identification with the ‘nice’ person within, would leave us free to be a ‘bad’ person when the situation requires it, for example if a person is trying to cheat us, or trying to take advantage of us in some way. A person who is trapped by identification will respond either by being submissive or aggressive. When we let go of the fear of being a bad person, we will find that more and more, we are simply assertive, and actually a better person than we were before.

When the book and the movie ‘The Secret’ came out many years ago, it created quite a stir. It helped people realise that they were capable of walking out of those lives steeped in misery. It helped, and still helps people come out of a state where they’re blaming everyone else, or life, for their problems.

The basic premise of the law of attraction is true – “You create your own reality“. But as with most sacred scriptures, this one is also open to blatant misinterpretation. And the ego has twisted it quite wildly out of context.

You Create Your Own Reality

Of course you do! But what reality are we referring to, over here? Imagine that you are waking down a path. On one side, there’s a barren, dry land, maybe with a few dead animals. On the other side is a beautiful forest, you can hear the birds chirping, and smell the wild roses.

Reality = Perception

Now which side you choose to focus on, will determine your reality. If you choose to keep looking at the barren land and wonder why it is so dry, and why there are so many dead animals, you’re obviously going to be quite miserable. If you focus on the lovely, thriving forest, your life is happier.

The MISperception

The whole law of attraction propaganda has us believe that a completely flawless life is possible. That if you work in the right direction, you can attract the perfect life. And this is where the trap lies, because this is complete hogwash.

So today, followers of the law of attraction, religiously spend night after night making vision boards, setting targets, and willing their wildest fantasies to come true.

If they’re lucky, they’re disappointed sooner than others and wonder where they went wrong. If they’re luckier, they find out.

Why the Law of Attraction is unspiritual

The moment you start to wish for something in the future, there are two inherent flaws in your approach.

1) You’re postponing happiness

You’re not in the present anymore, but in the future, in the common but insane hope that something in the future is going to make you happy some day. If you aren’t happy right now, what you’re doing in the hope of being happy, isn’t going to make you happy either. The more you move away from the present, the more unhappiness you create.

2) You’re creating more karma

What is karma? Karma is doership. Attachment to the outcome. Real spirituality involves nonaction (not to be confused with inaction), where we do what is required of us without any attachment to the outcome. The law of attraction is anything but this. You’re always dreaming about the outcome.

The real ‘Secret’: You reap what you sow

It doesn’t matter so much what you do, but why you do it. If you’re spending days visualising your ideal life while believing strongly that your life at present is far from perfect, you can never create a perfect life, because you’re acting from inadequacy. Actions taken in inadequacy, will only bring you more inadequacy, not fulfillment.

If, on the other hand, you’re visualising from a feeling of fulfillment… now wait a minute. If you’re feeling fulfilled, why exactly would you waste your time visualising? If your life was perfect, right at this moment, would you really be fantasizing about a happier tomorrow? No. You’d be immersing yourself into this moment, trying to experience it as fully as you can.

Yes, you create your own reality. Right now. And your investment in right now, creates the next right now. If you live this moment in complete awareness, complete surrender, the next one will be perfect too, And the next one. And the next. And maybe, once in a while, life will gift you with a vision, and make that come true for you. That’ll be exciting and fun, but also just another addition to an already perfect life. Which you are living. Right now. And that’s the real law of attraction.

One of the biggest obstacles in one’s spiritual growth, is conditioning. This conditioning is a set of beliefs we have formed as a result of hearing something repeatedly from parents and other family members, teachers, friends, the media and the like.

And one important aspect of this conditioning, is that life is meant to be problem-free. In pursuit of a problem free life, people try a variety of things. First they seek ‘security’, then they want to ‘start a family’, then they seek success, money and when they realise that none of this brought them a problem-free life, they turn to God. Some give up on that too and turn to something else, but mostly people are dead by the time they realise that that didn’t work either.

It is this pursuit of God, this wonderful chase, that has created a probably multi-billion dollar industry catering to religious and spiritual seekers. There are, of course, people that are fake outright, meaning to con people. But I believe that for most part, people are genuine. However genuine is not the same as never misguided, and even the best can have a few misguided moments some times.

Here are a few signs that the guidance you are receiving is taking you down the wrong road.

1. It takes you to the future (gives you hope)

One very popular tool in this regard, is the tool of prediction and divination. It could be tarot, clairvoyance, communicating with angels, tea-cup readings, and many more things. People turn to these when there is confusion or too much pain in their lives, seeking some respite through a happy prediction of the future.

If the guidance you receive – either through someone else or through your own sources, maybe through the angels or in dreams, talks about the future – it is not spiritual guidance. Even if you are being given hope that a desired situation will come true. Such information encourages you to take away all the energy from the present and invest it in an imaginary future. This prevents you from learning the lessons you are meant to learn through this ordeal, and postpones and retards your journey.

2. It takes you to the past (brings you guilt)

It is of course, very important to learn from one’s lessons. However, guilt and learning lessons are mutually exclusive. Guilt is a trick that the mind uses to avoid learning lessons, so any guidance received to that effect, whether from a teacher or from some other source, is not beneficial to you in any way.

3. It makes you feel small

In a path where the very essence of the teachings is oneness, there is no place for big or small. The ego however, loves to trick itself and create separation. With gurus, people often put them up on a pedestal and make them big, even if they don’t encourage it themselves – and some do. Then there are those who communicate with beings from other realms or dimensions, and convince themselves that they are higher, purer and better.

Take a rain-check if you feel like you’re so small that you have a million lessons to learn and a long journey to make. Again, it takes your energy away from the present and places your hope in a distant future where you might be happy. While happiness comes when we give up the chase, this path makes you chase harder.

4. Or big

This one’s a no-brainer, but it is a mistake that most spiritual aspirants make anyway. Of course, the obvious trap is when a sect makes you feel special simply because you are a part of it, but there are subtler ways.

You can sometimes receive guidance that you are special. You’re here for a purpose, to improve people’s lives, to change the world, etc.  Then there are ‘spiritual’ paths that award titles, or articles that help you attach yourself to a label, like light-worker, empath, earth angel, etc. Anything to make you special, to give you an identity. These are tricks the ego usually conjures up to avoid coming face to face with its own insignificance.

5. It is confusing or vague

This is more relevant to information received through inner guidance or dreams. It is easy to mistake them for spiritual guidance when they come from this source, but if the information you receive is unclear, vague or confusing, without an option for you to ask for clarification, then it is definitely not meant to take you in the right direction.

6. It takes your power away

Any system that gives an object, a place, an institution or a person greater importance than your daily practice and personal conduct, is clearly more a marketing gimmick than a spiritual pathway. We see this everywhere – religious people skipping their daily practice and feeling redeemed by visiting places of worship, energy healers cutting corners and trying to substitute practice with crystals and symbols, even yoga practitioners thinking that getting into a complicated asana is somehow better than learning to say, follow the yama and niyama.

Spiritual guidance can be very powerful, and life-changing when it comes at the right time and in the right way. But be careful, and assess it well before embracing it and making it a part of your life.

It is common to confuse belief with faith, and with knowledge. There are big differences. Knowledge comes from experience. Belief comes from the lack of it, or in denial of it. If you believe something, then you don’t know it. You know that something is a belief when you are compelled to defend it, prove it.

Beliefs always exist in opposite pairs. A belief exists to counter an underlying, much subtler, usually hidden opposite belief.

If you believe deep inside that you are weak, then you spend a lot of time trying to prove to yourself and others that you are strong. You think that by creating this new belief, by feeling strong, you will become strong. But the underlying opposite belief eats away at and crumbles it’s foundation, which sooner or later brings you face to face with your weakness.

It could be the opposite too. You might believe deep within that you are too strong for your own good. So you spend years trying to prove to yourself and others that you are weak and dependent, getting yourself into all sorts of situations, needing to be rescued. Sooner or later, you get yourself into trouble so deep that no body except you can save you. And that day you will come face to face with the underlying belief.

You might even end up switching between these two states. Maybe over lifetimes, maybe over decades.

When you heal yourself, there is no belief left. The whole topic becomes a non-issue. If it is strength, you’re not going to worry if you are strong enough. You’re not going to talk, or even think about it. You know your own strength. When you really know, there is no need for belief, no need for thoughts or analysis.

If you really are powerful, you have no need to chase power, or shun those more or less powerful than you.

If you are truly happy, you don’t need to repeatedly keep doing things that make you ‘feel alive’.

If you truly feel special, you don’t need proof that you are, or that others are not. You simply never think about it. There is no doubt. So there are no thoughts.

If you really feel beautiful, you’re not going to spend hours trying to look beautiful, applying layers of make up or spending hours in the gym to get rid of that one last inch of fat, or taking selfies everyday, trying to look hotter than you really do. You have no need to hide the fact that you feel ugly inside, by trying to harvest compliments so you forget your own opinion.

If you truly don’t care what others think, you have no use of declaring it all the time, or posting it on Facebook. Because if you really don’t care, you don’t care about posting it either. You don’t need to mask the fact that you feel like a lesser person when someone dislikes you for ‘not caring’.

If you’re truly proud of being a mother (or a father for that matter), you don’t feel the need to declare to yourself or on Facebook that motherhood or childbirth was the best thing that ever happened to you, you’re proud of being a mother and you’ve got the best child in the world. You don’t need to do it, because you don’t need to negate a nagging fear that this whole thing might have been a mistake, and your child might be nothing more than ordinary.

If you really trust your spiritual path or teacher, you have no need to justify and convince others that your path is better. You don’t need to mask the fear that you might be on a slower path than you’d like, or on the wrong path altogether.

Of course, the tragedy is that most people have no idea about the underlying belief. If you found yourself reacting violently to any sentence you read above, mark that as a belief and work on it. The only way to uncover (and transcend) the underlying belief, is through meditation, but acknowledgement and acceptance will also take you quite far. Be free. Beliefs are not worth it.