Hi All:
There is a certain irony here.
Is is less realistic to imagine a better future and work in incremental steps toward it than to attempt to unwind our strategies of non-relationship to reality in the present? Is there really a difference? Both will take time. Both are being unrealistic if they claim instant results. Both will be avoidance (non-relational) if engaged in for their own sake.
Expectations for either the future or the now are still expectations. And what is so bad about that? Without some vision and enthusiasm, whether it be for now or for later (which is also now), we will not be inclined to be doing much to transcend our perception of objects to
Oneness.
Obviously, it is not a good idea to proclaim an enlightened age (or "the end") is just around the corner, unless we happen to be wearing a sandwich board sign. Promises of individual enlightenment by such-and-such a time are not a good idea either. It is equally unrealistic to promise that enlightenment is here with us already, even if it seems to be so for the person who is proclaiming it. Each person has their own experience to contend with, their own reality, their own time line, and that is the truth for each of us. It certainly can be unwound and opened with the aid of systematic means, but not in an instant. The prospect of instant enlightenment is one of the greater illusions along the path, causing many people all sorts of trouble.
Rather than go on empty promises about now or later, much better we all do the best we can in practices each day, and what will happen will happen. There is a progression we can go through, with identifiable milestones along the way. Here we call it the process of
human spiritual transformation.
I don't share the treadmill view of the future (or the past) that Adyshanti seems to have. It is pretty obvious that humanity is advancing in spiritual knowledge and experience, especially over the past century. It has been going on for much longer than that. The dark ages ended around 1000 AD and we have been slowly climbing ever since, albeit not without big setbacks from time to time. It is also clear that progress is accelerating, concurrent with the growth of the practical application of knowledge of all kinds, including spiritual. So what's not to be optimistic about? Is this progress irrelevant to individual enlightenment? I think not, since it bodes well for many millions of individuals who want to live the truth that is constantly tingling inside.
It all comes back to what we are doing to better ourselves today, and that is a function of what inspires us from the past, present or future. Why should we care from where our inspiration comes? It is all in the heart and mind anyway, and ultimately transcended. Any stairway of desire used for that purpose will do. It's a personal choice.
As long as we are not setting ourselves up for a fall with unrealistic expectations. That is a risk in all of this, no matter what ideal or teaching we are using. A major setback in motivation can happen when considering the now just as easily as when considering the then and the when. And, as we well know, a setback can happen when fixating on a "who" too.
It is about taking personal responsibility, using whatever motivation and tools we have, and doing whatever is necessary to fulfill our destiny. It is both spectacular and ordinary. In the Self-Inquiry book, it is called
spectacular ordinariness.
We will know all aspects of it as we move along, and can describe it in our own words. No need to focus too much on teachers who ramble on about their own experience. Each person's process of unfoldment is much more important than that. Anyone who has a handle on it will agree.
For the record, and if it matters, I don't think Adyashanti and I are very far apart on any of these points. It is only a matter of individual background and perspective on the very same thing. If it is the same thing, how could it be different?
All the best!
The guru is in you.