Stop Reading Success Stories And Seeking "Perfect Techniques"

Your Journey Belongs To You

Understanding is a good thing, and you’re right to seek it out. I have an entire bookshelf full of spiritual content, all of which I got my hands on in pursuit of more wisdom. And eventually, my studies paid off. I don’t regret a single second of my spiritual searching, as it led me to find the peace and happiness I’d been seeking my entire life.

The irony of what I’m about to say isn’t lost on me. More so than anybody, I’m guilty of overintellectualizing Neville’s teachings, as well as spiritual teachings more generally. But still, this needs to be said.

Your journey belongs to you. Neville or any other teacher whose ideas resonate with you can serve to provide guidance in your investigation, but nobody is coming to save you. Someone else’s understanding isn’t your understanding; nobody can “transmit” their mastery to you. You have to be the one to understand or you’ll never make any progress.

I know this can be incredibly difficult, as I myself spent many years as a complete victim of the “seeking clarity" trap. And again, I am in no way, shape, or form advising you to stop trying to come to a better intellectual understanding of these ideas. If you’re a naturally intellectual person, then intellectual understanding will guide you on your way.

But make sure you remain aware of the texture of your seeking. Are you seeking to better understand the nature of your experiences? Or are you seeking because you feel bad, stumbled upon a supposed magic solution to your feeling bad, and despite not actually believing in the magic solution you’re trying to hunt down a “Do X, Y, and Z” instructional that’ll solve all your problems and make you believe at the same time?

The first type of seeking is an inward seeking — it’s the good kind. Every idea you encounter gets cross-checked against your own experience. If something doesn’t make sense to you (if it doesn’t align with your experience) you’ll either throw it out or you’ll spend time thinking it over until you see the connection between the teaching and your life.

You’ll be kept on the path by moments of genuine insight — moments where you say, “Yes! That has been exactly my experience.” And in these moments, you won’t feel compelled to seek further “proof” of the insightful ideas. Their truth will be clear as crystal, because your own life experience will serve as the evidence for their truth.

The second kind of seeking, though, is an outward seeking. It’s a disingenuous seeking — not because you’re a disingenuous person, but because you’re vesting all power outside of yourself. Because you want to believe that what you’re reading is true (you likely feel backed into a corner where it has to be true for you to make improvements in your life) you refuse to analyze your experience and see if it actually is true. Your continued study is hopeful, but it’s blind — you accept information without checking to see if there’s evidence of its truth.

This brings me to my second point:

Reading too many success stories can be a serious, serious hindrance to your progress.

It’s awesome to celebrate each other’s successes, and I’m glad forums exist where we can do so. But be wary of how much “juice” you get out of reading about other’s successes. If you feel electrified and excited while reading about someone else manifesting the thing you’re trying to manifest — if the feelings go beyond being excited about another’s success and maybe feeling some comfort that you’re on the right path — then you’re probably giving your power away.

I’ve had a bunch of people write to me and say they’re worried they’re going to discover manifestation isn’t real — that all these teachings don’t work. When you’re driven by insight, this isn’t a problem. It’s only when you go in blind that you have to stress about “accidentally” stumbling on some evidence that destroys any hope of believing in the thing that you already don’t believe in, but really wish were true.

My practical advice is to stop reading success stories, stop seeking understanding, and go look at your entire life right now to see if Neville’s teachings are an accurate explanation of how things have played out. You don’t have to feel pressure to prove everything in 5 minutes, as it can take some thinking to connect all the dots, but you have to be looking inside always.

Once you have some moments of genuine insight, you can always go studying. But if you’ve been taking everything Neville says for granted because it’s a nice idea that you’d love to believe, then further study isn’t going to do you any good.

As always, good luck.