The Road to Enlightenment

Greetings all,

One of the concepts that has always stuck on my mind was in How to Know Higher Worlds by Rudolf Steiner, was his imagery if we are on a spiritual path, we will hit a fork in the road and we will have to choose between the black path, which is egoism, and the white path, which is the good path and path of creativity and love. I have mentioned before that the root of all evil boils down to egoism or selfishness and in Steiner's lecture book called Evil, he mentions this concept. Frequently people will say money is the root of all evil but it isn't. Saying that hides the truth that it's egoism and selfishness. People can be responsible with their power but there must be proper structures to keep people's egos in check and to keep people accountable. It can happen to us all because part of being human means having an ego. No one is exempt from this.

One of the things as well that I have read about is the Buddhist concept of a Bodhisattva, where a Bodhisattva chooses to attain enlightenment for helping all humans liberate. There are many variations on this concept. For example in Mahayana Buddhism, some groups believe that a Bodhisattva can achieve this through several paths and they are: (this is from wiki. buddhahood means one who has attained full enlightenment)

1. King-like Bodhisattva - one who aspires to become buddha as soon as possible and then help sentient beings in full fledge;
2. Boatman-like Bodhisattva - one who aspires to achieve buddhahood along with other sentient beings and
3. Shepherd-like Bodhisattva - one who aspires to delay buddhahood until all other sentient beings achieve buddhahood.

This Bodhisattva concept relates to Steiner's concept of the choosing the black or white path. In essence, choosing the black path means you are still driven by ego and thus are not ready for enlightenment. The key concept Steiner points out is that due to the way the ego is made up and its nature, if it is allowed to be in charge, then that will lead to its own destruction. So basically when people act egotistically, they are creating karma that will lead to their own fall and will hurt them in the long run.

Being that humans have a dual nature, we need to use our ego for positive things as Steiner has mentioned that ascending in the spiritual world requires ego but at the same time you must forget and 'lose' your ego.

I have been going to a yoga ashram in Toronto as they hold a few monthly meditations. I went to a few and I have been to a full moon meditation a couple of times. I think when I went for a second time, there was a different person running it and I think he was the 'sub' for it, I am not sure.

I'm not sure how hard core yogi he was but usually people will chant in a group and direct it to help their loved ones or for the world in general. I thought he was a bit flaky but it was my first time being around him and sometimes I just don't like people right away because I only see a piece of their personality so it might take a bit to get an overall better sense of their personality.

We wanted to send some positive, healing energy for the earth and he mentioned that because he was a vegetarian and relied on public transportation, he wasn't really contributing to the problem. The way I saw that statement was that he wasn't concerned about this issue and only seemed concerned that since he's not really 'the problem'. I mean, it doesn't matter if you are vegetarian or not. It's great that an individual makes choices that are positive but in the long run, it is short sighted because the environment issue is much more bigger then that and just because you may not be directly involved in this problem, doesn't mean in some indirect way you may not be. In other words, his statement I felt was not enlightened nor compassionate.

It's a political issue. It's an economic issue. We all have to do our part and some of us may make bigger contributions like tackling big business. Some of us may only look at our own consumerism and reduce what garbage we produce. There's just so many things to be done and it will take time but to have some airy fairy idea that well because I don't have a car and eat vegetables, I'm not part of the problem is quite ignorant.

So obviously this relates to what I was mentioning earlier because if we are on a spiritual path then really we need to acknowledge that we are always choosing what path we are on. You are either choosing things that hurt you in the long run or choose things that are good for you in the long run. I just don't think this meditation leader was enlightened enough and needs to revise his mental concepts.