There are two traps (not one: two!) on the road to Personal Realization and almost everyone falls into them.
They're as slippery as quicksand, and once you've fallen into them... good luck! (It takes all your heroism to pull yourself out of it, a tremendous effort and some good karma too).
The "Spirit of Realization" (i.e., basically: getting the Happiness you desire) is expressed in Three main Dimensions: Personal, Social and Spiritual.
The Personal Dimension ("Personal Realization") is nothing more than realizing in this world what you truly desire, your true aspirations.
In practice, Personal Realization is your degree of Freedom: freedom from the limitations of external Things, People and Situations to achieve what you truly desire.
Personal Realization is not an "event", something that happens to you as a reward for your efforts, after a few months, years or decades of effort. Instead, it is a "process", a path, a lifelong road (and, of course, often a lifetime is not enough to reach the "final destination", if any).
Along this road, there are...
...the two traps that almost everyone falls into
The first trap is called the "Spirit of Resignation."
It is the immense swamp, slimy and stagnant, in which the "Conformist Majority" struggles.
The "Spirit of Resignation" is the opposite of the "Spirit of Realization", and it means that in your life you have lost the Joy, the Courage, the Passion, the Vitality and the Curiosity for new things.
You have lost the sense of improvement (the main feature of a healthy human mind) and you start thinking that the best part of your life is in the past (i.e. that the future will get worse and worse) and this - I can assure you - is a serious mental disorder, a "health emergency".
When you are infected by the "Spirit of Resignation", you fall victim to a serious hallucination: you start thinking that your Happiness does not depend on you, but on external Things, People and Situations.
You also fall victim to a sense of emptiness: you can no longer find meaning in the activities and circumstances of your daily life.
To make matters worse, you become fearful, unable to make decisions and changes, conformist (you worry about what others think) and amnesiac (you have forgotten who you are).
The second trap is reserved for the lucky few, those who manage to rebel against the Conformist Majority's "spirit of resignation", pull themselves out of the swamp (with the strength of their own arms), escape the First Trap and continue on the road to Personal Realization...
...Only to run into an even more insidious trap (because it is difficult to recognize): "personal development".
Personal development" seems to be the same as "Personal Realization", but it's actually something different.
With "personal development" you question yourself, recognize your limitations, work to improve yourself, correct your flaws, acquire new skills, let go of old ballasts and limiting beliefs...
...All these efforts are very beautiful, honorable, virtuous and positive!
However, they translate (from a practical point of view) into a new trap: now that you have become strong, balanced, "developed" and "motivated", you can finally go back to living (with your head held high)... the life that others expect from you!
The job, the career, the money, the social conventions, the forced life paths followed by the "conformist Majority"...
...all these things, out the door, back in the window!
Result: personal development has "changed" you, "strengthened" you and "readapted" you... in the normal world (!?!).
In fact, I call this Second Trap the "Spirit of Adaptation": it's a little better than the "Spirit of Resignation", but light years away from "Personal Realization".
True "Personal Realization" rejects all compromises.
You don't "adapt" to external circumstances: it is your entire Reality that is transformed by your Decisions and Actions.
There is nothing you cannot accomplish, nothing you have to "adapt" to. If you don't like your job, you create your own. If you don't like where you live, you move somewhere else. If you no longer like the friends you hang out with, you look for (or create) a new company. And so on.
This is what I call the "Hacker Spirit": your ability to "crack the code" (the so-called rules of the game) and change them at will, without asking anyone's permission, as you did a thousand times when you were small and vibrant with life.
Suddenly you remember that, in life, you are not obliged to choose from a fixed menu, nor to submit to the rules dictated by someone else.
And you remember your spirit of Discovery and Adventure, your innate ability to choose your own path.
True "Personal Realization" expands your Freedom and unleashes a positive "domino effect" that infects all areas of your life!
The first step is to get started.
Greetings to all.
The photo in this post is released under a free licence (Pixabay Licence).
