Ending the Self Torture of Seeking and Self-hatred
by Kosi 

Seeking freedom is in vogue. The spiritual subculture around the world is in hot pursuit of the all-illusive state of bliss known as enlightenment—the golden carrot that keeps you seeking, but never really finding the freedom you seek. Esoteric conversations about enlightenment and the lasting happiness it promises are buzzing in coffee shops and tearooms around the world—fueling an almost frantic search for the miraculous. 

To crack this esoteric sky—the endless, and mostly fruitless, discussions about freedom, states of consciousness, teachers, and teachings that fuels the endless search for states of consciousness—requires the willingness to call off the search and be ruthlessly honest with yourself. What is the real reason you are looking for freedom or enlightenment? Do you secretly think it will give you magical powers? Or maybe provide you with notoriety or fame? Or maybe simply you are looking for freedom in the hope that it will end your deep sense of self-hatred? But what does your search for freedom actually avoid? 

Initially, the search is essential. You have to begin the search in order to discover the teaching and teacher that supports your spiritual evolution. Yet, if you continue to jump from teacher to teacher, and lineage to lineage, it keeps you trapped in superficial realizations or passing states of consciousness. If you continue looking for freedom there is no real opportunity for deepening or the evolution of spiritual maturity. 

The process of seeking, and never finding, is simply an avoidance of the naked intimacy of the bliss of freedom that is alive in your heart right now. Constantly looking and never really finding is a form of self-torture that lives in the promise that you will find freedom somewhere else, which keeps you searching for what you hope will give you the happiness you are seeking. Sooner of later the endless process of seeking transforms into spiritual suffering. Or you might read these words and find yourself wondering how bliss can be inside of you when mostly your feel sad or deep down you feel worthless and unlovable.

It is simply essential to stop seeking in order to give yourself the opportunity to discover what is really going on inside of you. This stop can be uncomfortable. When you call of the search, the deeper unwanted emotions can come to the surface. Often, self-hatred, or the deep sense that there is something wrong with you, is lurking just underneath the constant distraction of seeking happiness or freedom. 

Once you stop, you can cut through the deep root of self-hatred by noticing that it is fed by your own internal conversation and deep belief that you are worthless. This internal conversation can often be traced back to something that happened in your childhood—a moment frozen and time—the source of the deep sense that there is something wrong with you, which was the beginning or root of your story of self-hatred.

Often this long forgotten memory remains as kind of immaturity, or shadow child, that has been abandoned in your subconscious.  On examination, you can discover a deep feeling of being a child that is still present even though you are an adult. The moment you fully meet this shadow child—and consciously invite this long abandoned aspect of yourself to rest in the infinite safety and love of your heart—the deep root of self-hatred simply vaporizes.

Seeing through the shadow of self-hatred is an immediate relief. It represents the end of years of self-torture and immaturity. It is the beginning of the natural maturation process essential for true freedom and lasting happiness to take root in your consciousness.

When you are willing to stop postponing freedom—you can discover directly, intimately, the lasting happiness and freedom you are, which is simply always here and now.