Every seeker wants Enlightenment. Most people perceive that to be a state of ongoing bliss and oneness and believe that after that, life is easy and simple forever after, because of the eternal expansion into the beyond.
While it is true that there is something called “the enlightenment experience” which has all of these characteristics, the true enlightened life is something quite different. The bliss is not the emotional experience we can know through the ego. It is beyond that.
This truth is revealed overtime, bit-by-bit as we grow into who we are and loose our ego identity.
Some parts of the learning are guaranteed; 
We have to first recognize who we are beyond our mind and body to the point that a shift of perspective, of context occurs, but then we have to crash and come down from the enlightenment high. We need the courage to admit that every experience wears off, even after a few years, that clarity can be lost again and that identification with the mind can come back. That nothing is permanent and that to reach higher peaks we need to pass through different valleys.


Failing is an essential part of the path. When we have spiritual success our ego grows side by side, when we fail, it is diminished and is ground down.

Trust is an absolute necessity for our spiritual development. Without it, it is difficult to even enter the path and transformation will be nearly impossible.
Transformation means that something changes into something else. Copper turns to gold. After transformation the copper is not the same anymore and it cannot know the gold until it becomes it. In the same way the butterfly cannot know itself while being a caterpillar.
In other words, we don’t know yet exactly what the new more evolved version of ourselves will be. We have no idea what will happen when we let go of our old familiar ego structure.

I use the word trust here in the sense of basic trust. This is something else than psychological trust, which is based on trustworthiness.
Basic trust means that we have the feeling that our life naturally unfolds and evolves in the right direction.
That whatever happens, it will always be good, even though we don’t know yet what it will be.
Basic trust seems to be a pre condition for us to let go into the unknown and not knowing.
Not knowing is one of the most difficult things for our ego while for the awakened part in us it is the most natural state.

Unconditional inner support.
Who am I without my inner judge?
 
Who am I?
This is the age old question that accompanies every seeker on the path. It is the koan that makes us take risks, jump out of our habitual ways of being and living, challenges the boundaries of our personality and makes us reach for the impossible.
 
We follow different teachings to show us the way back to ourselves.
We may travel to the other side of the globe to be with our master or teacher; no mountain is too high, no valley too low…
Once the question has arisen, the thirst is here and wants to be quenched.
Through all kinds of groups and practices of meditation, inquiry and prayer we reach great openings and experience states of freedom, often only to fall back into old patterns.
 
How come this happens again and again?