Categories: Spiritual Expectations
May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you all!
Today, I wish to share some guidance for those of you who are exploring the spiritual life in a practical way. One of the very first things we emphasize when beginning a spiritual journey is this: start without expecting anything. This is the secret to developing your meditation practice, which in the Buddhist tradition we call Bhavana.
Simply put, the emptier your mind becomes, the more space you create to understand the true nature of this world and the reality of the spiritual path. This is how genuine understanding arises.
However, if a person is filled with various desires, hopes, and goals what I will call ulterior motives in meditation they will never achieve real results, no matter how hard they try. If you are already on the path, these hidden agendas will prevent you from moving forward from your current stage.
These ulterior motives can cause your spiritual life to deteriorate, distance you from your practice, and lead you to a place where you feel you’ve never received any benefit from meditation at all. Eventually, you might even forget you ever practiced. As we explore the examples in this teaching, you will begin to see these truths for yourself.
The Trap of Seeking Spiritual Powers
So what do I mean by these ulterior motives in meditation? I have met many people like this in my life. A common reason people begin to meditate is to acquire special spiritual abilities. For instance, we offer a practical meditation on the ‘Third Eye.’ Many people come to this practice with the primary expectation of awakening it.
This desire is a form of spiritual greed or spiritual craving. It doesn’t matter if you are a professor, a highly educated person, or someone with no formal education; this trap is the same for all ages.
When you practice with the fierce determination that your ‘Third Eye’ must awaken so you can perform certain feats, uncover secrets of the universe, or fulfill worldly desires, you have already created a barrier. If you approach meditation with the narrow aim of simply increasing your knowledge, you will never attain a state of deep meditative absorption, known as a Jhana, let alone true spiritual insight.
\You might experience a fleeting sense of calm, but even that is not guaranteed. You will find your practice stagnating, always stuck in the same place. After some time, you will become disillusioned, frustrated, and inevitably give up.
The Professor’s Dilemma: When Knowledge Becomes a Hindrance
This brings us to the nature of defilements, or unwholesome mental states, which in Buddhism we call Kilesa. In calm-abiding meditation, or Samatha Bhavana, the goal is to suppress these defilements. This requires consistent practice.
For someone practicing insight meditation, or Vipassana Bhavana, the goal is to completely uproot the defilements to reach the ultimate liberation of Nibbana. Your initial thought, your ulterior motive, is a defilement. It must either be suppressed through calm or completely removed through insight. There is no other way.
This is why it is often very difficult for highly intelligent or knowledgeable people, like professors, to concentrate their minds. Their knowledge, ironically, becomes a barrier. I don’t mean this for everyone, as some grasp the technique, but for the majority, it is a significant hurdle.
This is why we have previously taught, ‘Do not let your knowledge become your own inner demon,’ or Mara. When such a person experiences something in meditation, like a flash of light, they immediately try to analyze it using their existing knowledge.
A scientist will approach it from a physics perspective, a biologist from another. They try to understand how it was born, how it works. In the process of this analysis, the light vanishes, and the stillness is lost.
They try to hold onto the experience to use for their research, but this childish mentality will never allow you to develop spiritual calm or concentration. You must put your knowledge aside throw it away, even kick it away, and sit down to meditate with an empty mind. Only then can you progress.
From Inner Peace to Buried Treasure: A Grave Misunderstanding
There is another group in society who meditate with a very specific ulterior motive: to find buried treasure. They approach meditation with the hidden agenda of treasure hunting. I have personally met people who came to learn meditation from me with the secret intention of using it for this purpose.
They hoped to awaken their wife’s ‘Third Eye’ or their own to locate a treasure and take it. There are plenty of such people, and they think I am unaware of their intentions. I even receive WhatsApp messages from people associated with our spiritual channel proposing, ‘Venerable Sir, there is a treasure. Let’s use your ‘Third Eye’ or awaken one of ours to get it, and then we can split it.’
Look at this cunning and deceit. Their meditation is not for their liberation, not to understand the universal suffering of existence, known as Dukkha, by seeing their past lives or the suffering of beings in unseen realms. It is not an attempt to comprehend the cycle of rebirth, or Samsara, and attain Nibbana. It is purely for worldly gain. No matter how much they try to ‘boil’ me with their schemes, they cannot. They are only boiling themselves. It is a futile effort, and they will receive no guidance from me for such things.
Even if they follow our publicly shared teachings, which we offer with universal loving-kindness (Metta) and compassion, their meditation will not develop. This is why so many people with these ulterior motives in meditation are stuck, complaining, ‘Venerable Sir, I still haven’t seen a light,’ or ‘I haven’t reached a Jhana,’ or ‘My Third Eye hasn’t awakened.’ Look into your own heart and see if these hidden agendas are there. This is a major reason for the lack of progress.
Meditating for Love, Profit, and Power
Another group comes from the culture surrounding shrines dedicated to deities, which we call devalas. Some people in this sphere try to meditate with the goal of awakening the ‘Third Eye’ to attract more people to their shrine, to make more money, or to use these powers to deal with spirits. To them, I say the same: if you meditate with such objectives, you will not awaken any ‘Third Eye,’ gain any spiritual abilities, or attain any Jhanas.
First, focus on developing your meditation for your own well-being, for your own mental peace, and for your liberation from the cycle of suffering. Any other abilities that may arise are side effects. We know this from our own experience; such things can happen. But they are not the goal.
Then there are those with even more personal, painful motives. I have met people who meditate to change the mind of a lover who has left them. I have seen advertisements on the internet and television from so-called spiritualists who make blatant lies, promising to ‘bring back your lost lover in seven days.’
People fall for this because of their emotional vulnerability. Some people begin meditating with this very hope: to bring back a lost partner or to read their mind. These are narrow, pathetic, and childish ulterior motives.
You will never get results this way. Honestly, it would be better to be deceived by one of those advertisers and lose some money than to corrupt your spiritual practice. A person who is truly advanced spiritually might possess such abilities as a by-product of their pure practice, but they would see using them for such ends as empty and meaningless. They would not do it. But you, starting with these goals, will achieve nothing.
The ancient sages, or Rishis, who gained profound abilities did not do so by meditating with these expectations. They simply practiced with an empty mind, and as a result, these spiritual side-effects arose. If you start with the desire for the side-effect, you will never get it.
The Authentic Path: True Progress and Its Natural By-Products
To put it simply, the message of this teaching is this: do not meditate with any childish, foolish, or hidden ulterior motive. If you do, you will get no results. Your practice will stagnate forever. You won’t develop concentration, enter a Jhana, gain spiritual abilities, or even succeed in Samatha Bhavana. You cannot awaken your Kundalini Chakras this way. Not a single one.
Many people are afraid of practices like Kundalini, and some so-called ‘gurus’ who have not awakened a single chakra themselves spread this fear, puffing themselves up with grand stories. We can see through them instantly. Some of these teachers even make awakening all seven chakras their primary goal. This is unnecessary.
We teach you about these concepts, like the chakras, not so you can hold them in your head while you meditate, but so that if you have an experience, such as a chakra awakening, you will not be afraid. The knowledge gives you a framework for understanding, allowing you to face the experience without fear. But we tell you to meditate without these ideas in your mind.
Never hold onto any ulterior motive. Practice directly and lightly. When you do this, any worldly talents you have, writing novels, playing sports, public speaking, academic learning will naturally improve as a side-effect. They will be enhanced. But do not meditate with the intention of enhancing them. This is what I have been repeating. Simply focus on developing the meditation itself. If you proceed this way, you will surely find success.
Final Warnings: The Poison of Revenge and Ill Will
Before I conclude, there are a few more points to mention. Some people meditate with thoughts of revenge. Please do not do this. You will get no results. You may be a good person who has been treated unjustly, but do not meditate with the intention of taking revenge on that person. It would be ‘better’ to go to a shrine for that, though I do not endorse such actions either. But people are drawn to such things when they feel they have no other options. Do not bring these intentions to your practice.
Furthermore, if you are a person who works against your own country, nation, or religion if you are part of the army of Mara, the tempter, that we have spoken of before you will never get results from meditation.
If you have the intention of harming people, if you are a character who slanders colleagues at work and brings others down, your practice is corrupted. I know many people with such characteristics listen to these teachings. They cannot bear to see others succeed; they dig pits for them, they hide the notebooks of fellow students.
Whether you are a child, a teenager, or an adult, if you engage in jealous, malicious, or spiteful acts, you must try to eliminate these traits as you meditate.
Then your meditation will develop. But if you hope to use meditation to become better at these spiteful acts, you will never progress. If you hope to enter politics or a position of power with such intentions, those endeavors may succeed in the worldly sense, but your meditation will not advance one bit.
In short, you cannot develop your meditation with any evil ulterior motive. This is the nature of the spiritual path. In the worldly realm, you might succeed through corruption, deception, and bribes. But you can never conquer the spiritual world with bribes or underhanded tactics. This is a universal law. Please remember this.
A Call to Authentic Reflection and Practice
I hope you now understand what these ulterior motives in meditation are. There are many more variations. If you recognize that you held such a motive and have now decided to let it go, please consider sharing this authentically in a reflection. Stating, ‘I had this hidden agenda, but now I have let it go and am practicing purely,’ can help others and strengthen your own spiritual development.
For those new to our teachings, I recommend exploring them from the very beginning to build a solid, practical foundation. This will help you understand these concepts more deeply.
Now, I will conclude this teaching. Through the power and blessings of the Buddha, the Dhamma (His teachings), and the Sangha (the community of the enlightened), may you all be able to clearly understand this teaching and put it into practice in your lives. I conclude today’s teaching with this blessing.
We invite you to walk this path with us. Read our teachings, and most importantly, apply them practically in your own life. as you practice, questions will naturally arise. Please feel free to share your experiences and questions in the comments below, via email or contact form. I will do my best to offer guidance in future talks based on your progress. For now, begin this practice with an open heart and a mind free from expectation. Cultivate it correctly, and may you find the clarity and peace you seek.
Thank you for joining us. We hope this blog will be of great benefit to your spiritual journey.
May you all be well and happy.
May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you all!.
