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Square Peg, Round Hole

It has become clear to me that in the field of spirituality two mutually exclusive areas of development often become hopelessly confused. These two aspects of development are both equally important, both comprise the totality of our existence, and have absolutely nothing helpful to contribute to each other.

On the one hand there is the clearing up of misidentification. Using the language of self-inquiry it is the simple course of getting clear on who and what you truly are. By asking some version of the two main questions, "What am I?" and "Who am I?" one can become, overtime, disavowed of the false idea that we are just these lives. At the base of experience of any sentient being is the simple conviction, and feeling, of being. All the rest may be subject to doubt and interpretation, but on this one point all agree. That simple truth, stripped of all coloration, story and embellishment is what we truly are, and that raw truth is the same from any beings point of reference. We are simply that we are, and that we know it. That is the unchanging, faceless, unborn, uncreated, absolute which you are.

On the other hand we have our day to day selves. These individual instances of existence with all their vigor, voluptuousness, trial, tribulations, tragedies and triumphs. It only makes fair sense that untangling the mistakes in understanding and structure that creep in to all our complexity should be untangled, or refined, or developed. To live good lives, working toward clearer understanding of the phenomenal world and working on ourselves in that arena is the appropriate thing to do.

But, they are not the same. Categorically.

No amount of fixing your mind, or beliefs, or moral integrity will tell you a single thing about what you really are as long as you believe yourself to be that mind. It's simply not possible. Likewise, no amount of realization about your own true unmanifest being will make you deal with your negative tendencies any better.

These are two completely separate streams of research. They may be complimentary, and in truth it may not be possible to get terribly far along one line without feeling a need to address an imbalance in the other, but they are not the same. And, it seems to me that a great deal of misunderstanding and strife is caused by mixing the two up.

You can't fit a square peg into a round hole, no matter how much you try. The wonderful thing is we have all been given ample amounts of both square and round pegs.

The other difficulty I think comes up is in applying the methods of one front to the issue of the other. Bad business. Both aspects of this paradoxical self need their own methods, and it has been my experience that they are complete opposites of each other. What has been working for me on one front is a disaster if applied to the other. The richness in a spiritual life, in my opinion, comes from the divinely schizophrenic balancing act of working on what seem to be diametrically opposed issues. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

You are the one truth of the one this-here-now ever created occasion, and you have bills to pay. Get to work. ;-)

Learn more about this author, Travis Eneix.
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