Notice every genuine spiritual tradition echoes the right of passage. Each tradition offers stories, symbols and metaphors that are understood differently based on level of consciousness. Of course, we can misunderstand a message, resist deeper truths or, only allow ourselves to be taken part way along a specific journey. The thing is, partial success does not yield a rite of passage. One either passes the test or, clings to what holds one back until ready to make a leap.
One metaphor is the idea there is no going back to the previous level of ignorance (and "levels" exist). Another metaphor is the need to endure 1 or several ego deaths, so to experience rebirth at a higher level. Letting go here is key to clarity and access to "higher" reality. And then, the metaphor of alchemy, a refinement process, a gradual extraction of who you are from a false construct. You might surmise this is worse than a quick ego death, as it involves many processes--burning, distilling, simmering. This said, clinging to ideas about suffering is problematic. Its made complex or simple.
Funny- the ancient yogic view echoes 'rite of passage' is not at all a "passage" or "ordeal". It is simply awareness of one's own mistaken perception. In the metaphor of a rope for a snake, the snake never exists, only a rope. Rather than a rite of passage as is so often assumed, the key is to realize (see) things as they are. The truth is that no snake exists and thus, it has no need to be feared, killed, controlled, avoided, alchemically transformed or burned. So why not take the easy way? Why turn self-realisation into an ordeal? The "ordeal" is only attachment. Ego resists letting go of its suffering, narrative, or belief it is/is becoming what its not. The ego resists giving up mental ideas, defenses, those things that are creating its problems and tearing it apart. No snake then needs attention. No rescuer is required either. Seeing energy as it is never happens in the future, only now.
In a nutshell--Samsara is Nirvana. There is no nirvana other than samsara seen as it truly is. To see clearly, simply remove the scales, veils, delusions, projections, false beliefs, all of those qualities that have ego think its unique and special. Simply tune into silence, dissolve into absolute consciouness, in which one is never differentiated from infinite intelligence and never born. No metaphor captures the truth of supreme reality. And yet, it is what one is and one cannot be anything but that. One is yoga.
Once one attaches to the imagined process, one splits into self and others and the prospect of disappointment, betrayal, sense of dependency unfold. "We" get caught in that double bind that begins to replicate itself in every situation: it cannot know what it wants for it always wants and wants the opposite of what it wants, because the one consciousness is torn and split. At times, it seems one never left the infantile state for one was too attached to being cared for by the other. The illusory adult is simply a strategizing construct that struggles to separate itself from its attachments and codependency and its inability to gain real power and real freedom. So long as any construct whatsoever exists, any system of belief or any projection of a world, so that there is any illusion you have a name and a form, so long as any hallucinations and delusions infest the mind, there cannot be realisation of the Oneself as the Absolute. What happens, that samskara, predisposition once the physical verhicle dies, creates another and another, in attempts to liberate itself from suffering. Nothing heroic about it. Only suffering must be sacrificed. This happens at any moment as nothing really happens.
The Zen koan everyone is facing is the attachment to their baggage. As Ramana said, "you are on the train, holding your suitcase on your head as if you are convinced it will not come with you." You can leave Samsara for Nirvana, but samsara will never go away. Turning this into some long-term process is not a rational path to self-realization, but it is common. Why extend suffering? To end it now, use your power of reason and love. Together they guide you to liberation. Being free opens you to the beauty and bliss of a reality you can choose over the unreality and never return to unhappiness.
May your third eye open to see the real, such that all illusions fall away. May you know freedom from all attachments, attitudes and judgments that consciousness hides within (including highest hopes and worst fears). Liberation is now or never. May you choose the Truth Now. May you choose peace that comes with the realisation that inner and outer are one. May you choose the knowing of self-created illusions, realize you are never born, never changed and you have never left mirvana. You have always realized the paradoxical nature of the real for that is what you are. May you know the supreme bliss of getting the joke in the wonderful sense of humor of the Divine Source who abides as the ultimate knower in your heart.
Friday, September 23, 2022 at 6:22AM 
(Visionary art by Ivan Blažetić Šumski)
