How is doing spiritual practice like a multi-season, international, overthrow the dictatorship, spy thriller? Binge on waking up! A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
Podcast First Words
How many people here have read some stories of other people’s spiritual lives? So then you know that spiritual life has a lot of different stages. There are a lot of different things people go through.
It’s kind of like a long, international detective, conspiracy TV show. There are the episodes that go on from week to week, but then there’s also the bigger story arc. And as you watch, you have to pay attention to the bigger story arc as it develops. You have to piece the story together. Eventually, you have to overthrow the horrible oppressive system, whatever it is. Whether it’s Hydra, or the government, or some secret cabal that has been around since the pre-Christian era. There’s always some system. What is that system? Our karmas that are keeping us limited. It’s all our patterns of body, energy, and mind that are keeping us from expressing ourselves fully, from being free. Overthrow the oppressors!
But as you’re going through from week to week, you have to do two things at once. You have to understand what’s going on in that week, but you also have to keep an eye on the prize, which is the bigger story arc. Sometimes you get very bored because this bigger story arc becomes less visible, or you get frustrated. There are these episodes that don’t seem to have much bigger story in them. It can be frustrating. It can be boring. Sometimes you get sucked into them and you actually forget about the big story arc. Occasionally you can fast forward, and skip over one of the episodes that has a smaller view. You can fast forward through some conversations that people are having about their interpersonal relationships, some little side story.
So what we need more than anything else is to be reconciled to whatever happens. We’re going to feel in love with our practice, and in love with the whole process of waking up. And we’re going to feel frustrated with it. We’re going to feel bored.
