A reality-based truth about life is that it is always at square 1 all the time, no matter what relative changes are perceived. When you deeply realize this truth about life it will unequivocally burst any bubble of extraordinariness that you might be holding onto about yourself, about others, about a future event or about life in general. All growth is relative while maintaining the absolute state of always being at square 1. So why grow? Because it is what you feel like moving towards, that is all. You are inherently always at square 1 irrespective of your growth – your level of awareness may change which can change the way you experience life (compared to your past), but ultimately you now deal with the challenges/growth-potential of your present level of awareness – growth is never-ending, thus you always feel/know that you are at square 1.
It is very similar to going up the levels in a video-game. Playing pac-man at level-1 the speed of the game is slow, but since you are new to playing the game your expertise is also “low”, and so it is all a match. After playing level-1 for a while you start getting good at it & you finally win it. When you win level-1 you can enjoy a deluded sense of joy imagining that some end-point has been achieved, but soon you see that you now desire to play level-2, as level-1 is no longer interesting. Now at level-2 the game is slightly faster – you feel challenged again & there is a need for “growth” in your expertise – you are back to square 1. You play level-2 for a while, gain expertise in it & win it, only to be graduated to level-3 where the speed is higher & challenges are stronger than level-2 but your expertise is such that you can deal with it, but you need to “grow” in order to win it, only to be graduated to level-4. This is how it continues, so you see that you are always at square 1 even if you have moved into higher levels. The only reason you move up the levels is that, the lower level is no longer interesting to you – no longer challenging enough – that is all. In essence, you are not better off than someone playing at level-1.
This realization will happen at some point, and it is a realization that will remove any sense of deluded joy that you associated with winning (which is similar to graduating a level), but that does not prevent you from wanting to win & grow, that is the deal of life – period.
Inevitable growth
You cannot avoid/deny/suppress growth – it is totally inevitable. At 1 point your understanding of life reaches that clarity where you know that growth is inherently our nature, and it is going to be unending & eternal. The leveling point however, is that, to have this realization, you need to have a deeper awareness of life, and this realization is needed for you to be mature enough to handle life at this level of awareness – so basically you are at square 1, not becoming superior in any sense, ever, like in the example above of the game of pac-man – no matter what level you reach, you are not better off than someone at level-1, in essence. If you have a sense of superiority, it is just naïve thinking – plain & simple. This is a pretty staggering realization when you really get it, and it can burst a lot of deluded ideas you might have been holding about extraordinariness of some form, either about yourself or about some person, event or situation. This realization is a great leveler, and it does indeed take you to a new level of maturity with respect to life (and this level obviously is just a new level of experience with its own challenges).
Let’s say you have reached a certain level of awareness where you are no longer fearful of the mind. Now you look back at your past, and recall how deeply lost you were in the mind, how you lived rooted in fear – and from a relative perspective you realize that you have grown to a better level. But if you look deeper you will sense that in your past, your level of awareness was low, and fear of the mind was the challenge you faced at that point – and your desire was for a growth towards being fearless of the mind – that, then, was your level of play.
Now, with your higher awareness, you have reached that desire & you are no longer fearful of the mind, but you now have the challenges/ responsibilities that come with this higher level of awareness – as they say, with greater power comes greater responsibility, but the term “greater” does not mean you have become “superior” – you sense that inherently that you are always at square 1. This is the paradox of life, however it is not really a paradox – it is simply that since life is all there is, it cannot ever become more than it is – so all forms of life are always at square 1, nothing is more or less than anything.
You can see this in the structure of creation – the smallest is the replica of the largest, the micro & the macro are inherently the same structure – just a difference in levels of magnitude. This understanding will keep you humble (grounded) – it will prevent you from becoming arrogant or a fanatic. You do not look at yourself as being more superior to others, neither do you scorn someone for being at a lower level of awareness, neither do you have a deluded imagination that you are beating them at a race to reach some destination where you will be handed more goodies. If this realization feels a bit depressing, it would just indicate that your motivation towards growth was rooted in some form of delusion, and not rooted in the reality of life. The simple truth is that growth is inevitable but it is always relative – the only reason you grow is that you feel the desire for it as your very nature. If at any point you feel that you are “better off” than someone else, you are already entering the state of deluded thinking – it is like thinking that just because you are at level-10 of pac-man you are better than someone who is playing at level-1 – you have your growth to deal with at level-10, and that person has his/her growth to deal with at level-1, inherently no-one is better off.
A growth towards inner wholeness
The process of moving towards an inner wholeness/balance & a deeper understanding of life as a human being are a growth process that some (or many) are going through at this point, and the pointers are towards assisting with that growth.
If you are going through this growth phase you can relate to these pointers, and they may assist in getting you up to the required understanding to allow this growth. However, the only reason you even feel like reading these pointers is that it is what you feel impelled toward at this point in your growth – this is not something extraordinary – it is just a phase of growth that you are presently dealing with. This growth towards inner wholeness will shift your reality & your personality, but it would be similar to moving up a level – and this level will have its own challenges – it is just that you now have the level of awareness, understanding, and thus ability, to handle this new level of reality, and you inherently would not want to go back to a past level of living.
You can see this play of ordinariness in your desires too. When a desire feels too extraordinary to you, it does not manifest in your reality, as you are not at a level on which you can handle the manifestation – it will overwhelm you if it had manifested at this current level in your maturity. As you grow in your understanding/ maturity, you will reach a point where you become a match to this desire, in that the desire simply feels like the ordinary next step. Just like when your expertise reaches a point where you can navigate level-1 of a game comfortably, and it feels ordinary for you to win it – that is when you are ready to graduate to level-2. A desire that feels important to you is usually just an invitation to the next level, and to reach that level you need to grow to match that level. Of course, when you reach that level there will be another level waiting for you – so let go of this deluded sense of reaching an endpoint. This realization of the ordinariness of life removes any sense of deluded excitement. Read the post the resistance of over-excitement – this maturity is needed to deal with the realities you will be privy to in this higher awareness. When you sense the bursting of the bubble of imagination you had about some extraordinary state, it can leave you feeling a little cheated or starkly disappointed, but what has been removed is just a delusion that was never part of reality of life, and as you allow these feelings of disappointment you will sense the freedom of this ordinariness – it liberates you of this idea that you have to get to some endpoint.
You may no longer be able to experience the states of over-excitement or deluded joy that you experienced before, as you have seen through it but now you have graduated into a new level of living, with a new experience/expression of life awaiting you – there is no need to be disappointed about saying good-bye to a past level that was so much a part of you which you had been playing for so long, and there is no need to be over-elated about this new level that you are entering – you are always at square 1 – that is the inherent balance of life, its natural wholeness.