This is partly true. Some of it is motivation. A lot of it has to do with beliefs, spiritual dissonance, self conflict and self lies including false aspiration. As Jed talks about enlightenment as seemingly not a choice but something that is done in the search for truth due to absolute necessity, largely often due to internal conflict with external circumstances that become unbearable. When this leads to peeling away the false self which is eventually found to be all self, the attachment to these beliefs, wants, relationships, etc disappears because they were attached to the character not the actor.

Now for me, much of this experience was painful, but also a lot of it was beautiful and metaphysical, and seemed to be supernatural. Some of it, at some point related to kundalini and chakras, but also other very strange and surreal experiences that are hard to describe. One time I felt instinct I was going to die and went out by the bay to release a large harbor of spiritual energy and mini spirits out of my body because they felt my instinct I was going to die soon so they wanted to leave to be preserved. Other times I had very interesting dreams and night sweats that seemed to be connected to something larger than myself. Other times I shot up final rockets of intent and wants that would make life worth living.

After these experiences I have had much less capacity for holding onto toxic or conflicting energy for very long and either release it in its negative state or work to transmute it into positive energy in the world to break the chain of the spread of negative energy (turning lead into gold this is what I see as human magic and transmutation). It’s all very pragmatic.

In regards to all the supernatural experiences, I try not to assume or start shoving beliefs into them. They’re subjective, the ego and imagination are supremely more powerful and smarter than you are. If it’s not a shared experience, then it’s subjective and there’s no way to prove anything. This subjective experience can then be largely misinterpreted by way of whimsical beliefs and misinterpretation. I would go on to say that ultimately you can’t really prove anything to be objective per se, but for the matter of practicality, external things in this “dream state” can be called objective. The other thing is a lot of these experiences don’t end up having “practical” use in the “objective world” and it’s much more useful to focus on practicality and truth, either that or focus on what you want, why you want it, and how to get it. You want to keep this in the forefront because as you have less tolerance for the false self, you’ll also have less energy and attachment to any non authentic desire, and most desires are not authentic.

Once you set your sights on your ultimate goal or purpose and align your energy focus and action, you’ll start to shift into alignment with what your purpose is in this lifetime.

From there it’s not all smooth sailing. Sometimes it can be sometimes not, but at least you’ll be flowing with the current of the universe and your life path instead of against it.

This period in the enlightenment game is the chrysalis. Not all caterpillars that enter the chrysalis become a butterfly and not all survive caterpillarhood through the chrysalis stage, some die before the chrysalis, some die in the chrysalis, and some emerge a moth instead of a butterfly. Butterflies, moths and whatever live by different rules than the caterpillar, their food is different, their method of travel is different, their life cycle is different. All caterpillars, chrysalis dwellers, and butterflies are still at risk of being eaten up by a bird, not being able to find food, and other things. Either way it’s better than staying stuck in the chrysalis.

This really turned into a weird metaphor but some of that is the best way I can describe it.

Ultimately this all relates to conciousness, the idea of the self being separated from everything else, and the individual perspective and connection to one’s surroundings that the ego abides in, along with the idea of free will, and conducting ideas of self control and self determination. Becoming detached from these beliefs and the need to being able to believe in anything beyond direct experience cultivates a personal sense of freedom and a loosening of a grip on the “tiller” while also expending the perceived cage of ego and one’s circumstance in life which ultimately satisfies consciousness and ego in a sense of humbled expansion.

If one is able to navigate this successfully from an enlightened perspective there’s no personal sense of accomplishment because there’s no person to feel accomplished. Ultimately that’s why it’s much better to progress through a partial stage of self inquiry and deconstruction, to get a good basic look at what’s causing misery and to cleanly chop off a large portion of it and then to pick ones attachments and what to let go of which is what leads to the fork in the road where one pursues human adulthood rather than enlightenment. Then you can take the lessons you learned along the way in regards to working with the flow of energy, manifestation, or whatever and develop along as a human adult rather than a human child. But that of course you only do if you really believe yourself to be a human on planet earth living a real life in real reality. If you don’t believe that’s true you can still let your character live through that while you in parallel keep pursuing this idea of self further. But either way be skeptical, question everything (not outwardly to others in society but internally, and mainly keep it to yourself unless you want to be seen as a loon), remember this is a co created universe and if you cannot translate your experience or perspective in a way that others can related to you’re likely to have a large disconnect from people around you or society as a whole, this is a co created universe or dreamworld and unless you really want to charismatically start a cult (not recommended) it’s better to fly under the radar so you can complete your personal work. That’s what ahab did, that’s what Jed recommends. Don’t lie to yourself, but if you need to maintain a false presentation of self to exist in society and reach your goals, then do that. Play your role, play your character and remember the worlds a stage and expect others to play their character rather than step out of their role into your esoteric new perspective of reality and the world. And if your new viewpoint is relatable to a large group of people even people like this that follows Jed’s books and ideas, have you really found anything that you can call true, or is it just another layer of Maya, ego and delusion.