You Are Not Better Than Anyone Else(And Your Self Importance Wants You to Forget It!)

Greetings & welcome,

Anaam here.

Today I want to talk about what I honestly believe is the single greatest danger for the initiate warrior or the apprentice on the spiritual path.

That danger is self importance, and specifically the way it sneaks back in after you’ve started to see it clearly.

Here’s how it goes. When you start deepening your practice of inner silence, your self importance begins to show up more and more clearly. First you see other people’s self importance. Then, sometimes in parallel, you start seeing your own, very clearly.

It’s from that point on that this danger begins. I’ve personally witnessed some real ‘spiritual’ heavyweights go down because of it. Big shots, spiritual gurus, masters. I don’t know what they’re masters of, but they’re happy to be called masters and be handed millions of dollars for nothing really.

Almost all of them start out with good intentions. They want to serve humanity, hearts are opening, followers and devotees start showing up, the poor are being fed, eventually, schools and hospitals are being opened. The whole shenanigans. And somewhere along the line it turns. To me, even though they appear special to the world, these people fall into the category of the average man. Not one hundred percent all of them, there are a few special cases for sure, but I’d say 99 percent.

Here’s what your self importance will try. As you practice becoming an expert hunter of your own self importance, clarity starts to come. People become more transparent to you, and so do systems. You start seeing the real fuckery of the world and right there, self importance whispers that you’re better than everyone else. I can virtually guarantee it will happen, because it’s one of the last master strokes of the inner adversary. You’ll be convinced, because you really are seeing with such clarity. At that stage, clarity itself becomes your enemy and your greatest challenge. (From clarity you have to evolve to the next stage, but that’s another article.)

Soon, without realizing it, you start behaving differently. Someone puts you on a pedestal, even a tiny one, and you accept it. Why? Because it feels good. It makes you feel validated and valued. Then a few years go by. Before you know it, flowers are being laid on the ground for you, a hundred Rolls Royce’s are being gifted, free labour consisting of adoring acolytes is building temples and mansions for you, and you never noticed you were the victim of your own self importance. You said yes. You became available to other people’s pedestals.

And then, when some pushback happens, comes the classic justification: “What can I do if people insist on seeing me like this?” What you can do is step off that pedestal. But you won’t, because it’s very addictive, and deep inside, self importance has already convinced you that you’re better than everyone else.

Self importance is the best adversary you will ever have, within you and outside of you, by far. It works slowly and it works when it suits its purpose. I’ve seen it recede completely. The person says, “I’m ego less, I’m one with cosmic consciousness, I’m constantly testing myself, I have no ego left.” And self importance just melts back into the shadows and waits. Sometimes for years, sometimes decades. Then it starts creeping out gradually, and in the end it gets you.

So what’s the antidote? Do not think you are better than anyone else. Get very clear - any gains you make as a warrior - clarity, knowledge, power, and you get tons of this stuff on the path, do not qualify you as better than anyone else. If you can hold on to that one thing, that nothing you can ever do, say, think or become will make you better than anyone else, you will have won a crucial war within yourself. You will have permanently crippled your self importance.

This is as much for all you wannabe gurus too. Make no mistake, guruism is a career, like any other. In the corporate (look up the meaning of that word) world, you climb the ladder from assistant manager to manager to CEO to CFO to whatever. A guru is doing exactly the same thing. It’s a business.

Nothing you do will make you better than anyone else, and I’ll tell you why. There’s something called death. Actually, there’s only your death, because death in general is just a word. Your death is a reality, and it has a great way of cutting everyone down to size. If you’re living like you’ll live forever, you’re already a slave to your own self importance.

Think of it this way. One lion hunts two deer in the forest, and another lion hunts five. Nature doesn’t treat the second lion any more kindly or mercifully. Mercy and justice are illusory concepts that don’t exist in actual reality. Reality won’t start favouring the successful lion over the unsuccessful one. As far as the workings of nature are concerned, they’re in exactly the same situation.

Awareness is the battle half won. Once you’re aware of something, you can’t really become unaware of it. I hope it helps you see the inner workings of your own self importance, how unaware it makes you, and how it keeps you trapped in “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.” And here’s something I’ve noticed. I’ve never met a person who really wanted to know something and didn’t get to know it. If you really want something, by hook or by crook, you’ll find the means to get it.

This is by far the greatest danger you’ll ever face along the path: becoming convinced you’re better than others. Keep that in mind.

Walk in freedom,

Anaam