The Gate

Let's look at the comparison and expectations. It's pretty much the same mechanism:

They had X experience → they know X → I don't have X → therefore they are above me.

This happens both with skills in the physical world and apparent spiritual capabilities.

X gets various names: self-realization, enlightenment, the other shore, various imagined fetters or stages of enlightenment. These are concepts assembled from books and other people's descriptions, which are then simulated - I imagine what they would look like in practice - and suffer because I don't experience the thing I've imagined.

And expectations are inherently about something other than what is presently happening. 'Awakening should feel like the experiences Osho described' - a memory/image of the past is used to construct an imagined future where I eventually should experience this. The imagined future/past state I'm using as the standard does not exist anywhere except as thought.

So there is a thought about their experience + a thought about my deficiency + a hierarchy established between the two. It's imagined as a ladder, with some people on rungs far above me, and I need to see/solve a series of things to reach their level, eventually climbing all the way to the top.

Then the suffering starts:

'They have it. I don't. They're above me. I need to get there.'

But the ladder itself is assembled from memories, descriptions, images and imagined futures.

In spirituality:

'They experienced enlightenment → therefore they know something → therefore I haven't got it and have to work towards it.'

In work:

'They know distributed systems better → therefore they're smarter → therefore I'm an impostor.'

The difference in knowledge can be completely real. Someone genuinely may know something I don't. But the extra leap is the psychological ladder:

'They have something I fundamentally lack, therefore they are above me and I am below them.'

And then I look at the imagined 'me' standing at the bottom of the ladder. What is actually there? Thoughts, sensations, contractions, images, comparisons, expectations. But no separate person standing there.

So there is a ladder, a 'me' at the bottom, and various 'others' at the top - but when looked at directly, there is no ladder and no-one standing on either rung.

And right now, looking for the imagined 'rung at the top' called enlightenment, there is no rung there. There is only a thought/image of one. The ladder is imagined, the destination is imagined, and the 'me' who is supposed to climb it is imagined too.

:)

Who is the guide now? Is there any impulse to support others in seeing through these illusions?

That arose naturally here… part of what was next.

There is no separate person who is the seeker, so there is no separate person who is the guide either.

The same thing applies here. I can imagine a hierarchy where there is a guide at the top who has seen something, and a seeker below who needs to be guided there. But if the seeker is not actually found, then what exactly would the separate guide be?

There is no impulse right now to support others in seeing through these illusions. If such an impulse arises, it would just arise naturally, rather than becoming 'me, the awakened person' taking on the role of 'the guide.' That could easily become another costume for the same imagined character.

I can also see how easily this could become another expectation:

"After seeing through no-self, I'm supposed to want to guide others. I don't have that impulse → something is missing → I'm not there yet."

That would just be another ladder.

It also makes me look back at the six years of seeking and the feeling that I needed to somehow save myself, and save or heal other people. But who was I trying to save? Was there actually anyone there who needed saving, separate from the thoughts, sensations, fears and stories appearing? It feels like a game or joke I played on myself, despite the egoic insanity that was seen throughout, how incredibly difficult things were at times, and how humbling the whole experience was.

So perhaps 'who is the guide now?' is the same investigation in reverse: not just looking for a separate seeker here or in other seekers, but looking for a separate guide and finding no separate entity there either.

Yes. The word ‘guide’ does carry a thought of one who has a something when there is in fact nothing.
Only a few who cross, guide. There is no expectation of it. I do not own that identity of ‘guide’ but continue to have an impulse to show up here and sit with ‘others’…

Any more ladders to explore here?

No more ladders. Nothing is missing, no sense of seeking.

Thanks for sitting with me through this, I really appreciate it.

Come back anytime something seems ‘sticky’

Abundant love.

💕