The Carrot and the Stick

By Robert Cinque
of Cinqueterra

The ego is born through an emotional recoil from its Origin.  This creates the appearance that God is distant and must be found.  The spiritual traditions of humanity are based on this search , this impulse for re-union with the Divine.  However, the search is based on an illusion of separateness and isolation, which reduces God to a carrot on an ego stick.

Throw away the stick. Eat the Carrot.

Creating the stick is an activity that produces “me” and then the “world”.    Authentic spiritual life is about recognizing this, not “overcoming the ego”, which cannot be done anyway because it does not exist in the first place, except in our imagination.  This practice is about Standing Prior to the birth of ego, not overcoming it after you created it.

Try picking up an imaginary rock, it’s impossible. The disease of egoity is self created and imaginary, too. When recoil is replaced with emotional intimacy, the ego is pre-empted and cannot form.

The spiritual traditions exhort us to overcome this fleshly “ego” and be more “spiritual” by identifying with our non-physical, “inner” being.  This so-called inner being is only yet another spontaneous patterning of this Infinite Consciousness, Whatever That Is altogether, but the inside of me is not the exclusive domain of truth, only That in which the inner being is appearing is the Domain of Truth, the Amphitheatre of the Heart.

I am in awe of This, I surrender in love to It. Ultimately, I am It, or rather, It became “me”.  Once it becomes clear that It is the basis of “me”, all dilemma disappears, all searching, all “other”.

Authentic spiritual life is about recognizing what is already true, not deifying my beliefs about it.  Conventional spiritual practice is like using a really excellent and detailed map of Detroit while you’re trying to find your way around Paris.  Conventional spiritual life places enlightenment at the end of the journey, the search is finally over, but authentic spiritual life places enlightenment at the beginning, middle, and end, as the very foundation of human life. It is based on heartfelt response ability, not belief, not technique, not method, not mythology, not search.

It’s about Discovery.

Jesus is reported to have said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure a man finds buried in his field.”

Authentic spiritual life is about love, which is truth.  Truth, whatever it is altogether, is identical with Reality.  What Is, is True.  Find out What Is, prior to mind, prior to “me”, prior to “world”.  That is the knockout punch and is why “you” won’t survive the “journey” to “God”.

Conventional religious belief, from fundamentalism to New Age metaphysics, is based on this search, on the “great path of return” to God, to Unity and Wholeness. Sounds great, doesn’t it?  It’s exciting, adventurous, and romantic.  The only problem with it is the fact that you’re not actually lost, not actually separate from That which you seek.  The problem with conventional religious belief is that it supports and enables a carrot on a stick.  At best, ordinary religious beliefs prepare us for authentic spiritual life if only by providing an illusion to demolish.

Only God Exists and You are not separate from It.That’s the truth that sets the heart free, not that I need to be saved from Original Sin or that I can have and do and be anything I want, that happiness can be found in the manifestation of my desires. Happiness cannot be found because it is not lost.

Happiness is the nature of Reality already and our spiritual obligation is to realize it, not believe in it, not seek it in pleasure or in the fulfillment of need and desire. Happiness is prior to pleasure and need and desire, and everything else. 

See for yourself.

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