05/31/2026
The older I get, the less interested I am in enlightenment experiences.
Spiritual teachers often speak of bliss, freedom, awakening, and extraordinary states of consciousness. They describe deep stillness, our true nature, and a happiness that exists beyond circumstances.
But after all these years, after meeting teachers, healers, gurus, seekers, therapists, and every kind of spiritual traveller, I find myself caring less and less about the “states” people claim to experience, and more and more about the lives they actually live.
How do they treat the people closest to them?
Can they admit when they’re wrong?
Can they receive criticism without becoming defensive?
Do they keep their word?
Are they willing to look honestly at their own blind spots and shadows?
Can they sustain real intimacy and vulnerability?
How do they behave when life doesn’t go their way?
Because eventually the retreat ends. The workshop ends. The satsang ends. The followers go home. The cameras switch off. The curtains come down.
And then, perhaps only then, do we discover who somebody really is.
I’ve met people who could speak beautifully about “Our True Nature” and “Pure Unconditioned Awareness” while leaving confusion, pain, and heartbreak in their wake. I’ve met people who spoke endlessly of Love and Truth while lying to their families and loved ones. And I’ve met ordinary people who never once spoke about awakening, yet embodied kindness, humility, honesty, courage, and love in ways that truly changed lives.
These days, I’m far less interested in somebody’s claimed “highest state” than in the life they are actually living.
I’m far less interested in transcendence than in deep humanity. And I’m far less interested in what happens on stage than in what happens behind closed doors, long after the paying customers have gone home.
I don’t care if you claim to have found the key to eternal happiness.
I care whether you’re willing to keep learning.
I care how you treat your wife, your husband, your children, your friends, waitresses, shopkeepers, and strangers in the street.
I care whether you can repair relationships when you know you’ve caused harm.
I care how you show up when life, as it inevitably does, breaks your damn heart.
- Jeff Foster
