Field entry: Shopping for enlightenment

The seeker only survives if the search doesn't end

Kat Van Oudheusden wrote an interesting piece in her Daily Nonduality publication this week about a seemingly inescapable paradox in spiritual practice, where the seeker is the very thing that prevents the finding.

It brought to mind my seeking days and how obsessed I was. I meditated for hours daily, read all the right books, simplified my life down to near-monk status. After a year of dutifully checking all the spiritual boxes and in spite of a handful of interesting experiences, I still hadn’t “gotten there” yet.

Then I met someone who artfully pointed out that all my efforts aside, I still hadn’t taken the first actual step toward enlightenment.

At first, this blew me away, and was even slightly offensive. But I had to admit she was right. I’d done the practices, the retreats, the contemplation. Sure, I was somewhat less of a mess than I’d been, but nothing truly fundamental had shifted.

I’d been engaging with spirituality the only way I knew how, as another self-improvement initiative. Like a career objective or a new exercise routine. It was the same old software now running the “get enlightened” program.

This gets to the paradox Kat’s piece points at. Enlightenment isn’t a benefit the ego receives. Enlightenment is the dissolution of the ego as an apparently solid reality. There’s no version where the seeker crosses the finish line and collects the prize. It’s only the finish line when the seeker has been recognized as an illusion.

Was all that effort wasted, then? I don’t think so.

The pull toward truth is legitimate; it just gets co-opted and diverted by the ego. Until it doesn’t. So the real practice is not to reach for anything, and see that the freedom you’re shopping for can’t be acquired… because you already have it.

If any of this resonates, read Kat’s work. She writes with a clarity that doesn’t flatter the reader, which is exactly why it’s helpful.