Sat nam, and welcome in!
Spirituality is like a sickness, my teacher, Adyashanti, asserts. The sickness is a yearning to know the truth about oneself, and the cure is awakening. The Seeker spends months, and more likely years, searching for the answer to life's suffering, why are we here, what is the purpose of life, what happens when you die, who am I really, and on and on. Once they have awakened, the sickness gets resolved, like taking antibiotics resolves a bacterial infection. They don't keep taking the antibiotics forever, once they have been restored; they don't light candles to them, meditate on them, or try to get everyone else to take them; the Self moves on.
But that's not always how it works, does it? For the vast majority of us, an awakening is followed by a falling back asleep--much like a junkie, who has decided to quit cold turkey, then starts to get the shakes. They are addicted to the illusion that the drug must be the solution to the problem, and if they stop taking the drug, they'll die. What is the addiction? It's the addiction to thinking. The mind, the organ that speaks for Ego, will try all sorts of clever ways to draw you back into the trance; into the ongoing, ever-dramatic, Story of ME. It will use all of your conditioning, all of your intelligence, all of your wisdom, all of your memories, all of your doubts, fears and emotions to lull you back into the belief that you are What You Think; What you Believe, What you Feel; if you are in pain it will identify itself with the Pain Body, and the suffering will continue, in earnest.
Many people experience an awakening, only to find themselves right back on the spiritual path, making lots of effort and spending a lot of time, money and other resources to get back to the land where their soul was set free. The more intelligent they are, the more books they have read, the better they get at their method of hacking the knowable universe, the more addicted they become. It can become much much harder to re-awaken, to re-remember, the truth of Being, after this falling back into the Trance of Egoic Self.
Why does this happen? Well, it seems that Awareness itself is a dual-edged sword. It will spare no expense in its efforts to wake you up, but once you've awakened, it begins to be drawn, more and more, back into the dream! Perhaps Spirit isn't interested in the dry, lackluster experience that an Ego, dropped out of life and love and passion, is destined for, if they don't re-engage in the Story Line. Spirit wants to be forever fresh, forever surprised, wants to experience all the uniqueness that your Ego is; it just wants to do it from an awakened stance--the awareness that this is all a Dream, and while EVERYTHING matters, so too, NOTHING really matters.
So while you're walking the path towards enlightenment, don't be too drawn away by the rabbit holes you will see, all manner of which are put there to drag your pace, slow your roll, sit you down, and get you to think you are your Ego. Sure, LOOK at the rabbit hole, maybe even put a hand or a foot in it for a bit, then shake yourself awake and Move On.
I have a dream where all beings everywhere awaken over the course of the next 5-10 years. All at once would be pretty amazing, but that would cause a lot of problems as well. Of course this is preposterous, it's just my little self's desire to see things get a little bit better around this planet while I'm still in this form.
When you know your preferences, beliefs, opinions and thoughts are just temporary manifestations of the God-Human experience, you just make some room for it all, and don't fall in love with any of it. Laugh at your self, and just keep moving on. You've got a life to live, and just this one chance with this form (or maybe not! who knows!) so live it up. Spirit is having the time of its life being YOU. Work with reality, not in resistance to it. It's all gonna be okay in the end, I promise.
Thanks for watching,
Sat nam,
Andrea