Categories: Cosmic Messengers
May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you all!
Welcome. Today, we will explore a topic relevant to everyone on a spiritual journey: universal representatives and spiritual people. In truth, anyone we might call a ‘universal representative’ is inherently a spiritual person. However, many of us may not think of ourselves in such grand terms. You might be someone who consciously reflects on this, or someone who has never considered it. Regardless, if you are a spiritual person living in this world, this teaching is for you.
Whether you see yourself as a universal representative or not, what matters is that you are walking a spiritual path. When you begin this journey, perhaps by following teachings online, learning from a teacher, or even on your own, your life starts to move in a new direction. You may begin practicing meditation, such as Samatha (calmness) or Vipassanā (insight) meditation.
But this path isn’t limited to meditators. You might be someone who focuses on performing meritorious deeds, known as puñña, through acts of generosity and offerings. Perhaps you practice by giving donations (dāna) or making pilgrimages to sacred sites like the Ruwanwelisaya stupa, the Atamasthana (eight sacred places), or the Solosmasthana (sixteen sacred places). Others may dedicate themselves to supporting monasteries and temples.
Still others might focus solely on upholding ethical conduct, or Sīla. You might be practicing one of these, or a combination of them all, merit, virtue, and meditation. Your spiritual journey is unique, and this teaching applies to every one of you.
The Unexpected Emergence of Worldly Problems
As you embark on this path, you could be from any walk of life, poor, middle-class, or wealthy. There are no distinctions of ethnicity, caste, or religion here. At some point in your life, be it in your youth, middle age, or even later, you may have reached a turning point and chosen to walk this different path.
After you start, you may notice certain worldly, or laukika, problems arising. I want to offer some answers and introduce a method of making a strong determination, known as adhiṭṭhāna, to help you navigate these challenges. For those who regularly explore these teachings, you may have encountered discussions about Mara (the tempter) and other spiritual topics that touch upon this. This article, however, will explore it from a new perspective. If you engage with this teaching fully, you will surely be able to achieve good results.
As you begin your spiritual journey, it’s important not to assume that the experiences described here will happen to everyone. They happen to some, but not to others. However, in this current era of decline, there is a higher tendency for more people to face these kinds of spiritual obstacles. The good news is that there is a method to overcome them, which I will explain towards the end. But first, let’s understand what these events are.
Recognizing the Signs of Spiritual Obstacles
After you have been on your spiritual journey for some time, you may begin to experience a negative impact on your worldly life. Here are some of the common forms these spiritual obstacles take:
- Financial Hardship: You might face more economic problems than before. A sudden lack of money can become a recurring issue.
- Educational Setbacks: If you are a student, you may find it difficult to pursue your studies properly as new barriers appear.
- Relationship Conflicts: Problems may begin to surface in your family life. Conflicts can arise between spouses, parents and children, relatives, neighbors, and even close friends. You may notice a new, contentious energy in your relationships.
- Social and Personal Decline: In a public setting, like a temple you support or a community you are part of, you might see its progress falter. You may experience feelings of discouragement or fall into negative thinking. Your self-confidence could diminish, and you might find it hard to take on leadership roles.
- Inner Spiritual Blocks: Your sensual desires might intensify, creating spiritual obstacles to your progress. You may feel your ‘third eye’ or inner vision becoming blocked, preventing you from perceiving subtle realities. Your path to deeper meditative states, like the Jhānas (states of deep absorption) and Abhiññā (higher knowledges), can feel completely obstructed.
- Loss of Harmony and Health: If you are a person who values harmony, you may find it constantly disrupted. Procrastination might become a significant issue, delaying your progress. Furthermore, existing illnesses may fail to heal.
These are just some of the many problems that can arise.
Understanding the True Cause of Your Struggles
It is crucial that you do not create a misunderstanding in your mind that ‘meditation causes problems.’ That is not what is happening. As mentioned in previous teachings, these issues can arise from two primary sources that often work together:
These two factors, past kamma and present interference, can combine, manifesting as events orchestrated by invisible forces. Let’s consider a scenario where you don’t have a significant store of heavy negative kamma due to ripen. You have a history of meritorious deeds, and your business or career was thriving. Suddenly, after you commit to a spiritual path, you notice a decline. Business slows down. Customers become scarce.
People who were once friendly now seem argumentative and distant. Even when someone tries to help you, with money, a kind word, or even a supportive thought, they too face some misfortune. This is a sign of something more than just bad luck.
The primary reason for these spiritual obstacles is this: by starting a spiritual life and seeking to shorten your journey through saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth) by cultivating Jhānas, Abhiññā, and insights leading to liberation, you become an obstruction to the agenda of certain unseen beings. These include non-human entities (amanussā), Mara’s forces, deities with wrong views (micchā-diṭṭhika devas), asuras, and other malevolent entities from this world and even other realms. To these forces, who thrive on delusion and suffering, your spiritual progress is a threat.
The Tactics of Malevolent Forces
These unseen beings, either alone or in groups, will actively try to create spiritual obstacles for you. Their nature is to obstruct. They will try to make you fall, to break you mentally, and to completely halt your spiritual journey. Their methods are insidious:
- Creating Family Discord: They directly interfere with the minds of your loved ones, like your spouse. They send messages to their minds, distorting their thinking and creating misunderstandings. A small flicker of anger in your partner towards you is fanned into a raging fire. A thought that they would normally let go of is held onto and amplified, breeding resentment and hatred. They do the same with lust, unnaturally increasing sensual desires to create chaos. This same tactic is used to stir trouble between you and your children, parents, and neighbors.
- Causing Financial Ruin: They attack your finances to make you draw a false conclusion. They want you to think: “All these financial problems started only after I began this spiritual journey. Therefore, I must give up my practice. I should stop making merit, abandon my ethical precepts, and just wander aimlessly through saṃsāra like everyone else.”
This is the false thought they want to plant in your mind. Sadly, foolish and ignorant people fall for this trick. Lacking understanding, they abandon the path. And afterward, there is no miraculous improvement; some continue to struggle, while others fall even deeper into despair. A few might see a slight worldly improvement, which reinforces the wrong conclusion: “See, if I start the spiritual path, bad things happen; if I stop, things get better.” Focusing only on the fleeting pleasures of this life, they, to put it in plain terms you’ll understand, completely ruin their entire journey through saṃsāra.
The Two Goals of Obstruction and a Stern Warning
Understand that these forces have two main goals. The first is to delay your spiritual journey. For them, this is a great victory. The second goal is to stop your spiritual journey entirely. To cripple you and make you give up completely. This is what they hope to achieve.
Therefore, you must not be a foolish, ignorant person who thinks, “Well, if meditation brings problems, I should just stop.” If you think this way, you destroy your own journey through saṃsāra. If the great beings of the past had thought like that, there would be no Gautama Buddha today. They would never have been able to complete their long journey of perfecting themselves. There would be no great disciples like Sariputta and Moggallana, nor the eighty great disciples. No one would ever attain Nibbana.
To trade your entire journey through saṃsāra for the temporary comforts of this single life is to prove that there is no one more foolish and ignorant than you. This is due to your own delusion, or moha, which is simply ignorance. Because of it, you bring about your own ruin. I am using direct language so you will understand the gravity of this.
The Way Forward: A Resolute Determination
So, how do we face this? How do we move forward when these forces create problems to fulfill their two objectives of delaying or stopping our journey? There is a way we must face this, a way we must make a powerful determination, an adhiṭṭhāna. We will do this through our meditation practice.
You can start to practice this now. It doesn’t matter if you identify as a ‘universal representative’ or not. If you are a spiritual person, one who is inclined towards merit-making, who tries to protect your virtue (sīla), or who practices Samatha-Vipassanā meditation to attain Jhānas and Abhiññā, this is for you.
If you know very well what your specific problem is, for example, a worldly financial issue, you must hold that issue in your mind and make a determination. You might feel, “I used to earn money easily, but now I don’t. Before, people would lend me money without hesitation, but now they refuse. Everything is blocked. There is some kind of friction.” If this clicks for you, if you have a strong sense that this is what’s happening, there is something you must do.
Close your eyes and sit for meditation as you normally would. Allow your mind to settle and reach its usual level of concentration, or samādhi. When the mind is in samādhi, it is pure and powerful. From within that strength born of purity, you must make a specific determination.
The Declaration of Power Against All Obstacles
What is the determination you should make? You should resolve with this powerful declaration:
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!.
