[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by paragon

Hi everyone, thank you for clicking.

There is a concept in Catholicism where certain souls receive absolutely no consolation/signs/feedback from God, and when they seek any sort of spiritual reassurance they face nothing but an empty void. It's supposedly a higher path because the person is learning trust/faith in God without having any evidence whatsoever to back up their faith.

Does this concept exist in non-religious spiritual thinking? The only person I have ever heard mention it is Matt Kahn, but he doesn't say a lot about it. I ask because it feels like this is my path. I was born into a completely atheist family and had a brief, frightening spiritual experience at age 13 which was just enough to make me aware that a spiritual world existed and set me on this path. But before and since then, I've had absolutely nothing.

I've seen other people convert from atheism years and years after me, then have full-on apparitions and profound spiritual ecstasies, but still nothing for me. Of course, I don't seek apparitions nor any sort of spiritual experience for its own sake, but simply to get answers/guidance for my own life's purpose. I couldn't care less if I never have an apparition, I just want to move forward in my physical and spiritual life and hopefully attain some degree of peace. If I pray for something it gets ignored, but I've known others who can pray for something then have it parachute into their backyard the following day, probably with one of those little red gift ribbons attached to it. And a little card signed "lol, here's your washing machine - love God." They can even pray for me with some degree of success, and certainly more success than I have praying for myself.

All avenues of spiritual progress seem to be blocked off, too. Meditation is impossible for me because of my ADHD brain (yes I know we all feel like that, but for me it REALLY is impossible. I have a serious concentration problem.) Energy healing modalities that claim a near 100% success rate have a literal success rate of 0% on me. Sometimes they help, but the healing never lasts. Strangely enough, I do healings on others and get great results - but the same healing does not work on me. Self-muscle testing never works for me, and pendulums do give me yes and no answers, but the answers to the same questions change on a daily basis and can never be relied upon - hence another potential avenue of great spiritual insight is blocked off.

Anyone else feel like this? Anyone else heard of this concept in a non-religious context?

I would love to think this concept is merely a self-imposed limiting belief, but here I am years after beginning my spiritual journey and all of the metrics by which anyone would measure their progress in life - happiness, peace, love, finance etc. are exactly where they were at the beginning of my journey or worse. Even at the times when I felt somewhat confident with my spiritual trajectory, I did not make even an inch of progress and I ended up back where I started. One energy healer thought I had some sort ancestral curse, but no intuitives I've ever asked have been able to find any such thing.

Thank you very much for reading, I appreciate your time. I hope someone out there has some useful thoughts.

Very simply, in spiritual practice there are periods of preparation and assimilation that are often unconscious while they are happening, but become clarified as to significance in retrospect. Every experience in life - and especially spiritual life which is presumably a more conscious version or at least going in that direction - - cannot be, or be perceived to be a “peak” experience - or the fulfillment of what amounts to ignorant expectation based on the past, which by definition has already happened. The attachment to such is what prevents being “present in the moment“ which by nature is always new. That would be foolish but yet it is tempting to do this and is normal for mind which divides reality as such.

Often Spirit/Highest Self offers “big” experiences to novice seekers in order to awaken and make clear:

This is real; These are true possibilities; Life is deeper than the superficial material existence.

That must increasingly become the guiding orientation vs. give me what I want, how I want it - the form - e.g., my expectation of more "spiritual" (e.g. big occult-y experiences). It is really the subjective content that is important in spiritual practice - not objective form. Having these kinds of salutory or peak experiences is not really the goal, but they orient to it.

Many problems which may have their origin in these kinds of mixed orientations of the residuals of ego life vs. serving Spirit on the path, disappear when relinquishing ego-mind attachments/expectations to getting something (old way) - by letting go, seeking truth, devoting to and serving God's Will - not one's own desires (actual & disguised).

And if you understand this conceptually as some posts subsequent to the OP indicate, then the issue my be one of developing a cheerful patience and persistence without expectation, which is essential in practice.

~ J