Spiritual Supermarkets & the Oscars
The Oscars will be arriving this weekend!
Who will win an Oscar? – Spiritual Supermarkets & the Oscars
Each year in Hollywood, California, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominates actors in a vast array of roles for best performances. Movie buffs watch the award ceremonies with various degrees of excitement, anticipation, boredom, and differing opinions of who should win the Oscar. There is great interest in what attendees at the actual ceremony are wearing, what jewelry adorns the women, what cut of tuxedos the men choose, how much cleavage shows on certain actresses. There are comments about hairdos, escorts, the degree of sincerity in any given acceptance speech, and judgments about the quality of acting that did or did not get awarded by an Oscar nomina¬tion or win. People who watch films have very distinct opinions about which stories, actors, directors have “arrived” and which have not.
The spiritual seeker is actually quite similar. He or she looks around at the spiritual supermarket, full of teachers, gurus, books, YouTube videos, and tips on how to “achieve” enlightenment, and makes judgments about which ones are winners and which ones are losers. Of course, a winner to one person seems a loser to another. Indeed, the seeker looks around at the vast array of actors playing various roles in Life and imagines there will be a winner and a loser. Most especially, the seeker makes judgments about what one must do in order to be a winner. He or she looks at a beggar on the street and sees a “person” who has failed, looks at a sage and sees a “person” who has attained spiritual success. Seekers often fail to notice the roles they are playing in the film of their own life, the scripts they have memorized and repeat over and over about a self and the world, and who that self is The focus of the spiritual ego is on how to win the Oscar called enlightenment.
Tell me, in the great movie of Life, who do you imagine will win the Oscar? Perhaps you imagine the prize will go to the one playing the role of Enlightened One, Radiating-Truth-to-the-Masses, with an honorable mention for the I’ve-Been-Meditating-for-Years-When-Will-I-Ever-Wake-Up-Spiritual-Seeker. Perhaps there are a few votes for Ms. Perfection, Has-It-All-Together, or Mr. Righteous, I-Alone-Know-What-Is-Right-for-the-World. What becomes of those playing the roles of Ms. Sad and Lonely, No-One-Will-Ever-Love-Me, or Mr. Important, Horn-Honking-Angry-Victim-of-Other-People’s-Incompetence, or those cast as Fearful-in-a-Dying-Body? Who do you imagine you are? Who do you imagine wakes up? What if all the roles are played by the same One?
The spiritual ego is looking for a prize. And the seeker imagines he can tell who has achieved such an honor and who has not. He can tell by whether the person wears robes or beads or has lots of disciples or can perform great siddhis (powers). The seeker imagines she can tell by whether her own mind goes blank in the person’s presence, or finds herself in bliss. The seeker after enlightenment imagines anyone who has received the “Oscar” will be omniscient or have powerful shakti (energy) or the ability to heal the sick, raise the dead, will never become ill and never react emotionally to any situation.
There is a way in which sages know one another, but it has nothing to do with any of the outward signs mentioned above that the spiritual seeker imagines are indicators of enlightenment. And many of these sages live very quiet lives, tending to a shop, or playing music, working with the dying, or living simple lives in remote areas. There are also sages who are public figures. But not one of those persons imagined to be enlightened, or imagined not to be, is separate from That which is living Itself always and everywhere. And That is also living you.
Excerpted from ENDING THE SEARCH: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness, by Dorothy Hunt. Sounds True, March 2018. Reprinted with permission.
You will also enjoy What It Is To Be A Lightworker and Spiritual Values and The Bhagavad Gita
