Without effort, we cannot have real spiritual progress. Many people fool themselves into believing that somebody else can do the work for them–a guru, a healer, or cosmic forces unseen. Although help can be given, true understanding comes when we experience the root of our suffering first hand. Yes, gifts can be given, but we must be developed enough to receive them.
The average human being in modern society makes no effort to awaken at all. He is pulled by egoic desires that say, “I’ll be happy once I get this and that.” Moods are determined by external factors, and he has little control over his own body, emotions, or mind.
If you want to go all the way–enlightenment and mastery over your internal and external worlds, extreme and constant effort will need to me made. Meditating twice a day is not enough. Receptive/passive effort, which includes meditation and self-observation, needs to be balanced with an active effort. Active effort includes activities such as intensely sensing the body, used by people with overactive minds (hence, most people). Not only can such an effort quiet the mind and help conserve energy that would otherwise be wasted, it can also help to open up the subtle energy bodies when done consistently for long periods of time. Other active methods include alchemical and sexual transmutation, chanting, pranayama, visualization, building the astral and etheric bodies, etc. This short explanation gives no help to those not already familiar with these methods, but to see the extent to which effort needs to be made is indeed helpful.
Although active effort is what most Westerners would describe as “real effort,” receptive effort is of the utmost importance. It is similar to the story of the mad scientist who searched and searched for a brilliant new invention. It was not until the scientist gave up, or went to grab a sandwich from the refrigerator, that he had the brilliant epiphany of what he was looking for all along. Along similar lines, Adyashanti, a modern zen/nonduality teacher, talks about his experience with this.
“so I literally said,’screw it, I give up’ and as soon as I said, ‘I give up’, there was
this I guess what they would call it now, was some sort of kundalini experience.”
In a nutshell, active effort helps with purification of our physical, emotional, and mental bodies. And when we are balanced enough to see past these self-created barriers and identifications, meditation, self-inquiry, and self observation(receptive/passive effort) have the means to reveal our true nature.
No amount of explanation can act as a substitute for real experience. So stop reading so much and get to work! Endless experimentation is necessary. Be curious, ask questions (and find the answers yourself). Nobody else can do it for you. Don’t expect it to be easy, be willing to go the distance.
Try out the following practices:
Practice #1:
Start with an active effort meditation–sense your fingertips all the way to the bone. Try to keep continuous awareness of the feeling of your fingers—the surfaces they touch along with more subtle feelings such as your heart beat. This practice can help ground you in your body, minimize mechanical thinking, and increase your level of focus and concentration. Note any energetic developments that come up, particularly if you do the practice for at least a week (recommended). Be adamant, attention gets easily lost…you’ll have to continually pull yourself back into practice when concentration is lost.
Pratice #2:
Self observation. This is what we refer to as “being the witness.” As you go about your daily tasks, watch your emotions, thoughts, and physical body as if you were watching a video tape of somebody else’s life. Watch but do not judge. Try not to “identify” who you are with any of the phenomenon that come up. This helps us to eventually rest in our “true Self,” which we learn to relax into as we allow our lives to be seen as if a movie.
Practice #3:
Meditate every day. 20 minutes to start if you have a short attention span.
