Changing the Movie of Our Life
If I want my spiritual experiences to be meaningful, the first thing I need to realize is that they’re occurring within me. They’re certainly not the result of the Guru standing outside of me, or of another person who is part of this. Those people can be catalysts, and they can truly help me to experience things. But the other side of it is that it’s really happening inside of me. Even though I might perceive the experience with my eyes, it’s really happening inside of me. Take ownership of this notion, realize it in such a way that you can then begin to work with it, and begin to manifest what’s happening. When we collect spiritual experiences, we’re really dealing with things that are outside of ourselves. We’re dealing with things that happen on our exterior. “Oh, he was such a High Lama.” “Oh, the Guru was so sublime that I saw him levitating.” They’re great stories to tell our friends, but there’s a real separation there of, “He’s spiritual, I’m not.”
We’ve talked about this before, but if we think of it in terms of the levels of Bhakti Yoga and the levels of devotion, the spiritual experience storyteller is kind of saying, “I’m part of the inner circle, because I get to see it.” And he’s probably telling the story to somebody who is not part of the inner circle. So they are in the outer realm. I mean, they’re level one, you know? They’re just a groupie. As the spiritual experience storyteller, I’m part of the inner circle because I got to see it. But it’s still separate from me. It’s still not a part of me.
It’s very much like coffee table talk. But we want to get away from that. I’m not at all saying that everybody who talks about their spiritual experiences is doing this. What I am saying is, even in listening, be aware of what’s going on inside of you, because you may feel some resonance. You may feel some soaring that you want to cultivate within you, because there are trillions of experiences.
If we go back in time, my gosh, there are so many different experiences and so many different ways in which we can experience, that we could spend thousands of lifetimes talking about it all. Talking about it can make us feel good, but it doesn’t take us any further. In fact, it becomes just another way of escaping. It becomes just another way of not owning up to what I have inside of me, to what my Divine Heritage is, to finding ways to bring my Divine Heritage into manifestation.
Yogi Sean is the student of Swami Ramananda and the author of Dancing in the Fire of Transformation, The Everyday Sanyasin, and Experiments in Awareness, a workbook for yogis.
