If any spiritual attainment in the end still ends in disappointment, in the inevitable emptiness of self-aggrandizement-- or better, ego-aggrandizement-- it's not that which we seek. Attainment is a matter of securing the ego's place in the world as if it has finally "got it." Attainment amounts to simply seeking an experience of oneself as a better and therefore more acceptable self, i.e., ego. But it is only a 'place,' only an experience. It seduces consciousness and traps it in attending to the things, the idols, of the world. Such attainments give the impression that one is now unaffected by the seductions of the world as if they are now in our control. Attainments in the world are trophies for the ego. In fact we are more deeply subjected to the vulnerability of expectation that this 'experience' is now ours. We are more out of "control." The world and life become fixed and fastened to the pursuit of holding one's ground, like the alcoholic who's only satisfaction is not feeling bad, not feeling the empty craving for another drink. The 'high' is gone; now all there is is to avoid the lows.
The desperate ego substitutes spiritual seeking of "true self" in place of the things of the world and succeeds in turning the Self into another thing of the world, deluding itself that the true Self it seeks is attainable as if it were just another object, seeking it just as it seeks other objects as they occur in the world. But this Self cannot be possessed since it is self-possession itself. It is the "I AM" that I cannot be outside of nor inside. It is self-possession that cannot and need not hold on to itself. It does not take hold nor need to let go since it has never grasped. Why attain when it itself is the gift which no attainment, achievement or aggrandizement can accomplish?
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