The Path has an Intelligence of its own
Since I’ve begun practicing mettā, I had a couple of major breakthroughs. The most striking ones were the arousal of Agni (internal fire energy) and disidentification with the objects of the senses. Both experiences had an intense opening phase, as if a lightning had strike—a “Wow” moment of first experiencing something. But then the Path moved in it’s own way, leaving me to patiently await the next phase of spiritual progression.
After some time I came across the same stages on my spiritual progress, but now enriched with new experience. The second arousal of Agni was more refined and internal, as if the whole experience has been integrated after my initial revelation. Same with projected consciousness; I’ve had a dozen of smaller insight into the state of my identification, which immediately ceased to exist. With the help of my spiritual mentor, I came to understand that the Path moves in a cyclical and spiral way—the same experiences are visited again and again, but each time with more experience, until we completely realize our new experience.
Not only that; the Path unfolds in it’s own way. It has an spiritual intelligence of its own, which chooses it’s direction of progression. We can’t force our spiritual progress to move in our desired way. We cannot expect to obtain certain realizations just because we want them. The Path is a conscious living entity—Dharma—and it blesses us with realizations, and purifies the mirror of our mind. All I did to make spiritual progress in my life was chanting the mettā mantra, Sabbe sattā bhavantu sukhitattā (May all beings be happy!) and the Path unfolded and gave me blessings: purification of the mind, reduction of ego, reduction of suffering, experiences and understanding, etc.
So the spiritual progress is not mechanical. We don’t have to control our spiritual progress. All we need to do is observe ourselves and silently cooperate with the Path in a state of surrender and trust.
May you make a lot of spiritual progress in your lifetime!