Lately, I’ve been thinking about the idea of what it means to be invested in something.
These days, it seems that people are less and less invested in much of anything that they truly care about. For example, in our dating culture, the swiping of profile pictures is a new low in the lack of social investment. How anybody thinks that they’ll find love when they do so little and offer so little information about themselves beyond a picture is beyond me.
And this same mentality is happening on the spiritual path where people invest so little time, energy, focus, and, yes, money on their paths.
How do they expect anything real to shift?
What Does Investment Mean for You?
I can’t tell you if you are or are not fully invested. I just can’t, and no one else can. That’s up to you to figure out.
I certainly can tell when people aren’t invested, and I can tell when people may be partially invested in this path. But ultimately, you have to be honest with yourself. Do you really want spiritual freedom?
Or do you want something else?
And what are you willing to do and give up for realizing spiritual freedom?
Usually people don’t want freedom or to give up stuff; they want something else. Most people want a safer and happier life. This is fine, but it is not freedom. They also don’t seem to be willing to invest much effort into those things. A deep sense of entitlement is part of Western Culture.
Spiritual freedom is surrendering to what Is, and surrender means accepting that life can do whatever it wants to us.
Well, that doesn’t go over well with the ego.
The ego self would much rather invest time, energy, and money towards trying to ensure one’s continued existence along with a sense of well-being (health) and happiness. However, it’s generally through experience that we see both how counterproductive our efforts often are and the reality that we do not control much of anything. No matter how much we pout, complain, blame, or whine (I get a lot of whiners), we end up in a forced retreat to surrender to reality.
And this is where it gets confusing for the ego because you find that investing your time, energy, and money on this path leads to giving up things and not getting any thing for all this work. The typical Western ego has no idea what to do with this concept.
“You’re telling me to invest in having less?!”
Yes.
And no.
No, because ultimately, you don’t have anything anyway. When you realize this, investing in your spiritual path takes on a different meaning. You start to realize that this game of acquiring ideas and experiences is a massive failure, and losing the illusions that drive you to do these things becomes an embrace of sanity.
You also may realize how stuck you are in your delusions and that if you do not make a serious focused effort to break out of them, then you will merely repeat what you already do and think what you already think.
Thus the question becomes: what are you willing to invest to become sane?
When your answer is “everything,” nothing will stand between you and the truth.
If you want more help on the path of realizing spiritual freedom (aka reality) and being sane, you can check out the online spiritual classes that I’m offering.
For more thoughts on being invested in this path, you can check out these posts:
2 Comments
Reading this article was A great way to start my morning. Thank you
Awesome piece