Locks, Keys, and the Mind

Not so long ago a book that I'm sure most people have heard about was brought to my attention called, "The Game". The book, honestly, is of so/so importance to me. What caught my attention were the comments on Amazon(http://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-Society-Artists/product-re...)

When you get into some of the criticism of the book it is said more than once that the people who are reading and using "The Game" should do some "good old fashioned soul searching" and then they will be able to have sex, happiness, whatever.

The first question I asked myself is "what is 'good old fashioned soul searching' ?" Is it vision quests? Therapy? Religious practice? And if one were to do any(or all) of these, would it really lead you to sex, happiness, whatever?

Let's look at it antecdotally. How many people do you know that are or were in therapy? Of those how many of them are really happy? How about people who delved into their religious practice? Or participated in some variation of the psychedelic experience? In my experience one of those things or a combination of those things works for some people some times. Unfortunately there is a much wider segment for which none of those things work either because they don't want to do the work or can't do the work.

In Buddhism it is said that there are 84,000 paths of the Dharma. Where this is cited it goes on to say that the reason for this is that there are many manifestations of mind and therefore many different methods are required to be able to assist all people.

I think that the challenge we have can best be explained like this.

Everyone's mind is like a lock. Spiritual paths are like keys. Some locks perfectly fit some keys. Some locks almost fit some keys but not quite(think of when you stick your key into a lock and it goes in but doesn't turn). Some locks have some keys that just won't work at all(think about when you have a key that doesn't even go into the lock, much less turn).

I think that we as a society only think certain keys are acceptable. This will inevitably lead to a lot of unopened locks.