06/06/2026
There is a difference between seeking elevation and seeking vision.
Most people who pursue achievement, status, spiritual development or any form of ascent are doing so, at least in part, to be witnessed. To be recognized as someone who has climbed higher than others. To be seen as wise, awakened, successful, evolved. The mountain becomes a stage. The ascent becomes a performance. And the view from the top is wasted because the person who arrived there is still looking downward to check who noticed they made it.
This is not a modern problem. The Tibetan teachers observed it centuries ago because it is a permanent feature of the human condition. The ego does not disappear when you begin a spiritual path. Often it simply finds a more refined way to assert itself. The spiritual ego is perhaps the most difficult to see clearly because it is dressed in the language of humility, growth and seeking.
The few who climb to see are after something different entirely. They are not interested in the mountain as proof of anything. They want the view. They want the expanded perspective that comes from genuine elevation, the ability to see further, to understand more, to perceive what is invisible from lower ground. The recognition of others is irrelevant to them because what they are looking for cannot be given by another person.
These two motivations can look identical from the outside. Both climb. Both arrive. But what they find at the top is completely different, because what they were looking for was completely different from the beginning.
