Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

When Plato talked about knowing one’s self, it was
through reason and rationality, questioning accepted
beliefs through use of thinking and the mind. His was
not ‘knowing’ oneself as Ramana or Robert Adams
talked about, as a direct experience of foundational
states of consciousness.
Thus the first spiritual breakout for most of us is
almost entirely of the mind. We explore Vedanta,
Buddhism, mystical Christianity, Taoism, Sufism, depth
psychology, psychoanalysis, bioenergetics, hatha yoga,
and vegetarianism, in a vain attempt to cut an original
path for our own truth.
But if we are smart enough and self-aware enough,
after a while we recognize we are still following our
mind; seeking freedom from the known by opening
doors to new conceptual schemes: new behaviors, new
religions, new spiritual teachers, and new politics. We
become aware that we are not gaining freedom, but
just changing our jail cells’ furniture. We recognize
that the mind is not the tool by which we can find
freedom. The mind can only find novelty and
excitement, which gives an appearance of “new,” but
there is no real living-transformation by adopting new
sets of concepts. Indeed, there has only been a move
to different rooms in the same conceptual prison, or
even just changing the furniture.