If our practice is going to be experiential, if it is concerned with true awakening, with a true encounter with reality, we can’t work on the cognitive delusions without also dealing with the emotional obstacles. It is important to be aware of this dimension and to feel it arising in our experience because this is part of the practice, part of how true nature is revealing itself. So even though I am only mentioning in passing some specific issues—such as the possible narcissism that can arise in recognizing ourselves as the majesty of true nature—it is important to acknowledge and work with these kinds of emotional obstacles as they arise. – The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers’ Stone and the Secrets of Existence, Ch. 6
To establish a particular realization or awakening or dimension basically means to be free from the obstacles that hinder our being in that condition and to integrate the support of true nature for that condition of realization. We don’t establish realization by thinking about it, concentrating on it, or doing practices that always evoke it. Our work is more about seeing the obstacles to realization, making them transparent by recognizing and understanding each one of them. And because the individual consciousness does not have the inner support to allow itself to be present in a way that can recognize realization for what it is, we also work to integrate the support for the realization.
So establishing a realization or a dimension of awakening means that it becomes a station, it becomes permanently available to us. But this does not mean that we need to be in that condition all the time, or that any condition is the final abode. When we awaken in one or another of these conditions, it seems so miraculous, so pure, so real, and so comprehensive—explaining everything we’ve ever wondered about—that it is easy for us to feel that it is the ultimate truth. I have made that mistake too. At a number of points along the way, as different realizations became established and became stations, I thought, “Oh yes, this is it. This is the ultimate condition.” But because this teaching never adopted practices oriented toward realizing any particular condition, each realization always led to further openings and awakenings. – The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers’ Stone and the Secrets of Existence, Ch. 10
If our practice is going to be experiential, if it is concerned with true awakening, with a true encounter with reality, we can’t work on the cognitive delusions without also dealing with the emotional obstacles. It is important to be aware of this dimension and to feel it arising in our experience because this is part of the practice, part of how true nature is revealing itself. So even though I am only mentioning in passing some specific issues—such as the possible narcissism that can arise in recognizing ourselves as the majesty of true nature— it is important to acknowledge and work with these kinds of emotional obstacles as they arise. – The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers’ Stone and the Secrets of Existence, Ch. 6