The Source of All Spiritual Knowledge

As an introduction to the spiritual and personal mastery section of this work, I would like to address an important question: where does spiritual knowledge come from? More specifically, where does this individual attain what he (at least) thinks is spiritual knowledge? I believe that there is only one place that every great human spiritual teacher has gone to attain this spiritual knowledge, which is available to each individual at all times regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, time of day, day of the week, and relative level of development. This does not mean that this type of spiritual connection and experience is easy, for we most certainly have to work for it and change a great many things about what we think, believe, and the way that we go about our lives – our habits and behaviors. This singular well of spiritual knowledge is attained for only one place: going directly to source through experiences of Spirit and higher levels of consciousness.

These are states that Muhammad slipped into when he tapped into a source of knowledge and understanding of One Consciousness which became the Quran and gave him the title Messenger of Allah. This is where Yeshua (Jesus) went where he experienced a degree of integration with Spirit which became his teachings that he spread to his followers which ultimately became some of the core gems of the New Testament of the Bible. This is also where Lao Tzu went and brought back his utterly staggering, apparently perpetually relevant teachings and observations of The Way and the psychology necessary to live on that path in that state of balance (who is perhaps my favorite spiritual teacher) as well as the Buddha, and every other spiritual teacher known and unknown.

We all go to the same place when we have spiritual experiences (brought about regularly by meditation) though to varying degrees of depth and clarity, which are dependent upon the individuals state of progress and development. I can almost guarantee you, though, that the most spiritually advanced humans are names that will never be known to history, because oftentimes the people who go furthest and who dedicate themselves more completely to a pursuit have no desire or need to convince others of what they have found and discovered.

The path has been laid out for us by these past masters to some degree, but I must stress that every description of Spirit, of spiritual knowledge, and the spiritual path contains flaws. This is because there is always further to go, and that progress will reveal to us glaring misunderstandings in our previous beliefs, every single time. This is always the case. None of the teachings of any spiritual teacher are without flaw because none have ever reached the pinnacle of understanding, because there is no absolute pinnacle, it is always relative. If Lao Tzu had another 100 years to live, he probably would have gone further in his development and understanding than he did. The same being true with Yeshua, and the Buddha. Thus to go beyond is the work of the next generations of spiritual seekers, in other lifetimes, in other parts of the world, and from other races and cultures.

Another reason why the source of spiritual knowledge is important to discuss, is because I have found that it is a very similar place to where one earns and attains knowledge and understanding of mastery, personal development, growth, and aspects of the psychology of peak performance. I will not discuss with you here the specific practices for spiritual development, attaining spiritual knowledge, or for achieving mastery. Instead we will gravitate more towards the nature of the path and the challenges that one will face.

The Source of Spiritual Knowledge

In the realm of science and history our sources are crystal clear. Physics and science derives its knowledge and understanding from one main source: nature. These secrets being gleaned from nature by the combined work of experimental scientists and theoretical scientists, both of whom are probing nature with their chosen tools: experiment and mathematics, respectively. Likewise, our knowledge of history comes from hands on archaeology – from what we literally find hidden in the Earth – and from the translation, interpretation, and discovery of written sources. Thus it is quite clear where our knowledge comes from.

However, scholarly knowledge is a type of knowledge that can certainly be transmitted through the generations with high fidelity, because all young scholars literally have no choice but to familiarize themselves with, absorb, and ultimately master the accumulated knowledge of their predecessors – literally the discipline itself – in order to become a scientist, historian, physicist, and so on to eventually do their own work. Thus to some degree, a great deal of training in this type of knowledge is necessarily and effectively achieved through an accumulation second-hand knowledge. Though even still, I believe the accumulation of first-hand knowledge (giving students the right opportunities, environments, and time to think critically, creatively, and innovatively to arrive at their own conclusions and solve their own problems) is not stressed enough, especially early on, when it is most crucial.

However, spiritual knowledge and self knowledge cannot be obtained second-hand. We cannot implicitly trust the beliefs of any other person, no matter how authoritative they seem. In regards to spiritual knowledge, only a direct experience of One Consciousness and transcendental states can give us any inkling of what Spirit actually is, and what a human being actually is. Which, generally speaking are revelations that cannot be transmitted well from one person to another.

Furthermore, I have found that the most important type of spiritual knowledge is not that attained from spiritual experiences, but from the results of our experiments, trial and error, to get back to this place time and time again. From this we can essentially carve out a process with specific principles that anyone can use to achieve integration with One Consciousness (Spirit) – which they will know only through experience – that can definitely be transmitted to others with far more power and influence.

Interestingly, nature is also the source of spiritual knowledge and self-knowledge, which is also earned through experimentation and theory together. Though in the case of spiritual knowledge we essentially only have our own perception, emotions, and thoughts as a gauge. Yet with these alone we can achieve life-changing experiencing with the right practices and approach, especially because most do not know the extent of their minds and the possibilities of perception. We don’t even know what consciousness is, or how imagination is possible, or where/how memory is stored. So we have a long way to go in understanding what a human being is, and arriving at a definitive conclusion of the nature of Spirit, Consciousness, and so on.

At this stage I personally feel no relevance to discussion of questions and ideas of the nature (or existence) of God, or any of these topics, because we just don’t have enough intellectual or spiritual knowledge yet to answer these questions. Though we absolutely can cultivate and consciously attain transcendental spiritual experiences. Therefore there is only one place that we can earn spiritual knowledge, and that is from the experience of continually testing and transcending our limitations literally to new levels of being, new levels of understanding, new levels of knowledge and skill, new levels of pain, suffering, adversity, struggle, resolution and triumph, new levels of emotion, consciousness and awareness.

From the very beginning of my process, I knew that genuine spiritual knowledge is only attained through direct experience of Spirit, of the divine, of higher states of consciousness. So one of the most important questions to me from the outset was two-fold: What are the important principles of the process of spiritual awakening and cultivating spiritual experience? and What is the effective training that can get someone to these experiences? More succinctly, what does spiritual practice and spiritual discipline actually entail?

These questions are intimately related to a few of the other topics that I shall very tentatively call “psychology” – namely personal development, personal mastery, mastery in the context of an art or discipline, the art of learning itself, the attainment of peak performance, personal growth, psychological healing, and, essentially, the psychology of spiritual development. Once you get to a certain level, all of these questions become one because they are all literally facets of the same process, defined by so many overlapping challenges and principles. Therefore, when speaking about a human being, ultimately there is only spiritual knowledge.

Spiritual Knowledge From The Process of Mastery

All of my understanding, every single idea that I present here with the words of these articles, I have attained from one specific place: directly through the process of mastery, self-development, and spiritual development. As far as I am concerned, there is no other way to genuinely understand these things. You can equip a psychologist in school over many years of intensive study and training with the tools to genuinely help another person to grow as a human, to grow spiritually, to heal, to improve themselves and their lives, and even to work towards mastery and peak performance in their own ways.

However, they can only actually help another person if the individual psychologist has diligently applied these techniques to themselves, used them to achieve results in personal transformation and growth, and achieved the high quality of life that they are attempting to guide others to achieve, and thus refined their understanding of these techniques and of the process itself to a powerful method tried and tested through their own experience. This is what separates a “good” psychologist from a “bad” psychologist, as well as the good from the great. Otherwise it is like a person who doesn’t know Chinese teaching another Chinese. Literally the blind leading the blind.

I have never wanted to be an armchair theorist. There was a time many years ago when I realized that I was one to some degree, especially in the realm of personal development and spiritual development, because the beginning stages of my spiritual awakening came without my having to earn it. It happened unconsciously and so much of the first layer of understanding and mastery (which at that time I thought was the heights!) emerged from within, thus I did not understand the path as viscerally and tactilely as I do now after having to work, suffer, and bleed for everything I have attained.

Though to my credit the realization that I was on the path to becoming an armchair theorist immediately changed my trajectory because, on the one hand I rebelled against the idea of being a theorist in this sense (because I already required second-hand knowledge for my work in history and physics) but on the other hand because I wanted to work. What I mean is that I wanted to make my personal develop, self mastery, and spiritual development tangible. I wanted them to be things that I did, experienced, and lived, rather than just thought about. I wanted to test my limits and forge myself in fire, and understand this path like I owned it, because I had run, walked, and crawled every inch of it when I was too beat down to do anything but crawl.

Everything I have learned I have learned from trial and error. Which literally is the scientific method: have a theory of how to do/achieve something, try it by installing it as a habit, it fails, then back to the drawing board. Literally thousands of times. I have come to realize that most good ideas don’t actually work. They seem like great ideas in theory, but in practice, they just don’t pan out like you thought. No matter, back to the drawing board to analyze again.

Everything that I know has been forged in the crucible of seeking mastery in everything that I do, but most fundamentally, mastery of myself, which is at its core a spiritual process and the path to spiritual knowledge. If you do not understand the spiritual component of self mastery evident in the process of the Resolution of the Self, then you have not yet reached those stages of mastery. Because these stages are much more challenging than the mastery of an art, discipline or skill (which in itself is the crowning path of human capacity and achievement).

Within the context of spiritual practice there are fundamentally two aspects to personal cultivation: there is the internal penetration, which is embodied by meditation; and then there is the expression, which is the cultivation of ourselves, talents, abilities, and knowledge in alignment with the True Self, in order to become the better  version of ourselves which emerges within as we gradually progress towards an experience of and integration with Spirit in our practice of meditation. Meditation is essentially the practice that sharpens our attention into a razor’s edge, or perhaps a diamond-tipped drill bit which allows us to pierce deep into the core of our being to deeper and deeper places so that we can face ourselves with more clarity, resolve more of our internal blockages, and come to a direct confrontation with Spirit – the same Infinite Awareness that is within all people.

The internal orientation of our attention and the cultivation of our attention is where we earn and learn spiritual knowledge from our paradigm-shifting experiences of ourselves and Spirit. However, of equal value is that which we learn through the expressive aspect. When we discover our True Self, we have to learn and develop so many new skills and knowledge in order to become that person, and in order to transcend our lower self and come into greater alignment with Spirit. In many senses, this is where our greatest gems of character, habit, and undefinable qualities are forged because we have to confront the worst of ourselves, all our limitations, and then rewrite them with new knowledge, skills, and habits, while at the same time learning how to get back to Spirit and to transcendental states of spiritual awareness time and time again, because it feels like we are pushed away.

In a sense, we are pushed away from spirit again and again. We approach and recede, approach and are pushed back again, like playing on the shore against the waves. Though in reality, each transcendental experience is progress that I believe we never lose. However, with each new stage of progress, development of spiritual knowledge, and refinement of our level of awareness, we have to deal with far greater – more subtle and confusing – problems and challenges in order to reach the next stage.

In another sense, it is like digging through some piles of rubbish in a messy room and moving a pile of stuff and discovering an enormous spider, or a big bug, or an alligator (something that terrifies you, because the worst of us always makes us recoil). It pushes us away from these new depths until we can work up the courage to go back into that room and face the fear so that we can continue our work of cleansing and refinement.

The things within us always push us away from depth, at least temporarily. This will absolutely happen to everyone along this path at some point in time. There are very few absolutes, and this is one of them that I know for sure: nobodies path is without both resistance, obstacles, and change, because when we seek to change, resistance and obstacles are what have to be on the way, and nothing ever stays the same. The other side of these obstacles and the apparent repulsive force from within, is that it also pushes us away from Spirit too. Therefore so much of the spiritual path and the process of spiritual development and spiritual discipline is simply our ability and tenacity to find our way back to Spirit time and time again.

Literally working up the courage to look within once more after we have went through a phase of intense struggling, emotional processing, and necessary difficulty, because we know that if we go back to meditation and to spiritual practice that this is just going to happen again. On the one hand the process is absolutely harrowing. However, on the other hand, it is beautiful – and necessary – because it is the only way to change and grow, become better people, and become capable of achieving a true expression of ourselves.

Thus I believe that the truest statement that I can make is that I have acquired my spiritual knowledge by having to climb again and again to soaring states of consciousness and integration with One Consciousness from each trough in my life. These oscillations define the spiritual path for me and the path of learning. They are like waves, and we must go down slightly in order to go up. Just like before we try and jump, we must first squat low to gather elastic potential energy in our legs so that we can jump higher. I believe the true art is in learning how to deal with the peaks and troughs with detachment, with objectivity, grace, enthusiasm, and good humor. But what is most important is that we learn to be consistent, and to keep moving forwards through the difficulty. That is where wisdom comes in, because the difference between wisdom and intelligence (or skill) is that wisdom is what a true master has because they have climbed these peaks so many times, they know how not to be perturbed by the inevitable stumbles along the way, and to go at the right pace without rushing.

“It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop”
– Lao Tzu

Master A Discipline To Understand Mastery

I have found personally that process of the mastery of an art, as well as personal development, is very close to spiritual development. Which makes sense because spiritual development is simply the process of the mastery of the self, literally learning to get yourself out of the way to create internal space for spiritual experiences. More accurately however, it is about resolving the erroneous parts of ourselves in order to remove these blockages, and so come to a new understanding of the depth of our intrinsic integration with One Consciousness. Indeed in my mind there is no personal development without spiritual development.

Personal development without a deeper understanding and experience of the Self is somewhat futile, because without the simultaneously deeper and higher perspectives, without facing ourselves and cutting through the erroneous layers of ourselves towards truth and towards the acceptance of both darkness and light within, that is avoided by most as an unconscious mechanism for the protection of the individual, then personal development is like editing an essay written by an average 7 year old, without drastically changing the level of the ideas or the vocabulary available. In comparison with editing and refining a work with genuine depth, substance, skill, and clarity which is ultimately going to be your masterpiece. That work is your Self. It is the revelation and realization of the full extent of what you are from the constraints of the limited self, the Ego.

The processes are very similar, so I have found that you can learn about mastery in a much more tangible setting by mastering a specific discipline (ideally nothing less than your deepest passion) and then apply that knowledge to the mastery of yourself and to your spiritual training. In this way, mastery of something can give you some of the tools and understanding that you need in order to begin to master yourself, and acquire spiritual knowledge. For example you will build mental toughness in the mastery of an art which is absolutely essential along the path towards spiritual knowledge and experience, because nearly all of your work will be carried out in intense mental-emotional-spiritual situations where you are outside of your comfort zone, because it is within this region that all growth and development takes place.

Thus this is where we gain knowledge of mastery, personal development, and spiritual development: by putting our shoulders into our limitations and pushing, testing ourselves. Finding the next challenge. Addressing our strengths and weaknesses within our discipline and ourselves so that we can seek to improve both. Addressing my strengths and weakness in my knowledge and skill as a scholar, linguistic, athlete, and as a musician helped me enormously to do so as a person. My development and progression towards mastery in those fields taught me everything about what it takes to grow, to become better, at to accomplish great things. Furthermore, the mentality I developed in seeking mastery, always pushing the boundaries of my skill, knowledge, and capacity, helped me enormously to do the same within my spiritual practice. More generally it made this literally a way of life for me in everything that I do.

I have cultivated most of the qualities of mind, character, and habit necessary to achieve mastery and spiritual knowledge (at least to the level I am at) just by learning to live in this place of discomfort. Imagine for a moment what it must feel like to, for almost two decades, always be in a state of confusion and a state of failure, because you are literally never able to do what you are attempting to do. Each song, every movement in physical arts, every physics concept or mathematical equation, each new piece of history, and literally every new word and sentence in a language – they are all unknown quantities. You literally cannot do them at first, you can’t remember them, you don’t understand them, and you have to fail, and fail, and fail, and genuinely feel like an idiot regardless of how smart you actually may be, because you are constantly working in a place just beyond your level of ability. It’s like I am constantly reinforcing the fact that I know nothing, and that no matter how hard I work, I will never rectify that. Which is absolutely true for every human being relative to the entire corpus of all extant acquired human knowledge and skill.

Nonetheless, this feels good to me now, because I now know that this feeling means that I am learning and developing quickly, and because I have figured out the right attitude to live on this forefront, as well as the right process so that you don’t drive yourself crazy (which succinctly is to Finish What You Start and seek to learn and master only Once Small Piece At A Time). This is the way to learn mastery, to grow as a human, and it the only way to develop yourself spiritually and claim spiritual knowledge from experiences of Spirit.

Cultivate Spiritual Knowledge, Walk The Razor’s Edge

If there is one thing to take from this, it is this: don’t be an armchair theorist in your life. Don’t think about spiritual development, personal growth, and mastery as some abstract concepts, because they definitely are not. They are very specific and tangible practices, so go after them. It took me many years of learning to arrive at that conclusion, so please learn from my mistakes. (Though, if you are anything like me, you won’t. You’ll have to make the mistakes for yourself and earn your own knowledge and power. I respect that. But make no mistake, that makes us both a little bit dumb, and stubborn. But with great potential to be wise and powerful.)

Your greatest spiritual advances will come from the daily discipline of meditation, because meditation is the spiritual practice. Though as I touched on above, the equally important stages of spiritual development and the cultivation of spiritual knowledge from spiritual experiences will require you to refine yourself as a human being. You will have to overcome the Ego and develop new habits, skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking to deal with the challenges that will appear in your life at every stage. By resolving parts of the Ego and becoming a better representation of your True Self, as you make progress towards that ideal, you will find that you have periodic but regular transcendental experiences of Spirit, because moving in the direction of the True Self in thought, emotion, and in the literal actions of our lives and what we achieve, is also a movement towards Spirit.

Through the consistent effort of trying to become a better, stronger, smarter, kinder, more loving, powerful and influential person, and doing everything in your power to cultivate the knowledge and skills of that person (maybe it will be physics, or music, or dance, or accounting, or business, scuba diving or event planning – everyone is different) then you will grow as a person, and you will cultivate mastery, as well as your own spiritual knowledge.