Seekers, renunciates, and others who seek Truth with a big T

 

Seekers are (as far as this site is concerned, anyway) those people who have become aware that there may be more meaning, value, truth (or something like that) available in life than living in the modern culture has led them to believe.

Often, they go through a time of feeling opposed to the culture, or oppressed by it. A principal challenge of this time is to become a rebel, not a reactionary. One realisation that can help with this is that the culture is not necessarily the enemy. It's just the social structure that most people give their (admittedly uninformed and unconsidered) consent to. The general directive to meditators at this stage is to "be in the world, but not of it".

At a fairly early point, a satori (peak experience, glimpse of the divine, self-realisation, flash of lightning in the darkness) can occur, or be induced. It's actually more a matter of being freed enough from constant pre-conception to notice the satori.

An urge to live truthfully and authentically arises. The small, common, often socially expected lies are dropped, at least with friends, and agreements are kept. More accurately, attempts are made to drop lies, keep agreements and to discern what lies, truth and agreements actually are. That's the ladder. The snake, particularly with an induced satori is that the memory of the experience is not the experience. It (the memory) can become entangled, mentally associated with irrelevant things such as teachings in the current area of study, a particular person, place or object, loyalty to a cause or society, and, especially treacherously, to a drug – if the experience was believed to be drug induced.

The nearest thing to a causative factor for satori is awareness, and so awareness as such, which is meditation, has been taught by masters as a major or even the only worthwhile spiritual pursuit.