The Enlightened Coach. Raimon Samsó

      THE COACH THAT DID NOT WANT TO IMPROVE

      Let us clear things up as soon as possible, in this book, you will not find guidelines to improve.

      If you have had enough of reading about personal improvement, then you already have the resources, and I am sure that you are not looking for more of the same. You already have a “tuned self,” but now you want a “real self.” I would like to think that you are arriving at this book with a good part of the tasks already performed and, in consequence, expect much more than fancy words and grandiose promises.

      We are not going to embellish your world, we are going to turn it upside down.

      I will be radical: the personal improvement and empowering techniques start from an unreal point. They fundamentally need someone who is, supposedly, imperfect, and seeking to find the path which will lead them to perfection. With that epic end in mind, the individual will search and search, lost in a thousand pathways to nowhere. They will try to give form (personal) to that which has no form (impersonal), in an attempt to improve themselves.

      The answers you seek are in another level of consciousness. There is no solution to the problems created within that same level of perception. A higher, or more elevated, perspective is required. This book will provide you with a 360° vision of yourself. Moreover: you will gain an overhead vision of yourself.

      Here, the error is double. When the ego manifests the will to pass to something better, on the one hand it is assuming its impossible perfection; and on the other, it invents a “process” to try to maintain control. It will call it a Sadhana process, and be happy about it. This is known as “spiritual ego” in the “spiritual bypass,” a very mental posture that rationalizes everything: it invites you to search, so that you may find nothing. It is a “pointless search,” so that you will need it forever.

      There is a “self” that appears to need great improvement, but the good news is that such a “self” is not real.

      The enlightened coach arrives at the conclusion that every single one of these concepts...

      ... are bullshit. That is why the enlightened coach does not want to improve. Improve who?

      For him or her, these notions make no sense. All of this confuses people who believe that by rebuilding or strengthening their ego, they will stop having certain problems... when, in fact, these problems are created, precisely, by their own ego! In fact: ego is the source of all their problems!

      And their grand idea is to strengthen that ego! It would be like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

      Only a human being who does not know their “self” perceives it as weak, and attempts to empower it.

      Ego will decide to search for an ally or a necessary accomplice: a conventional coach that inflates the bubble of your fantasies. What will happen with conventional coaching is that your ego will redesign itself, it will change its aspect, it will embellish or tune itself as a race car. It is all conceptual cosmetics, spiritual junk. A self-deception to think that you are going somewhere, when in fact the only thing you are doing is going around in circles around the same thing (albeit with enormous effort).

      The huge problem of humanity is, precisely, that people have invented an illusory identity which they protect and nurture. They spend their whole lives trying to generate something constructive from that humongous mountain of intertwined concepts.

      So the whole process of improvement, reinvention, purification, perfectionism... is only an illusion that is seated in another illusion (the one of the nonexistent small self). Let us clarify that there is a single “Self,” and that it does not need to be perfected. God created it in a determined way, and it continues to be as such despite everything that may have happened to it.

      The slumbering, or conventional, coach distinguishes individualities. He calls them clients. But when the coach is enlightened, he sees One in all those who reach out to him or her, without exception. The slumbering coach believes in fragmentation; he believes that the world is an immense puzzle, and that his work is to join the pieces. The unconscious coach wants to make changes in the world, and a few personal adjustments or tweaks.

       The enlightened, or conscious, coach, instead, resolves to discover himself, renouncing to change anything or anyone; not even himself (and much less anyone else). When he understands this, then he no longer needs for anything to be different, to change, or to improve. The coach who understands this has awoken, and is an “enlightened coach.” He is a point of light shining on his surroundings and on those who, being ready, contact him. His changes come from not changing. His success consists in not chasing success.

      Many of us have images of Buddha at home or in our gardens. It is neither devout nor religious; it does not necessarily imply that we are Buddhists... It is a symbolic act, having to do with the fact that the image of Buddha evokes feelings of peace and calm in the observer. That is why the image of Buddha is so popular in the decoration of so many homes. It is a point of light, illuminating with its mere presence.

      Keep reading because, further along, I enumerate 32 characteristics of the “enlightened coach.” This is not a book for coaches... anyone can read it; because we all have an “internal coach” that is always with us. I dedicate this work to him.

      If you have read my book, “Supercoaching,” (published by Editorial Conecta), you will know that I already taken a step in this direction. Now, with this book, I take a step further.

      In my case, one day I simply stopped being a coach, and abandoned the peregrine idea of improving myself... and also that of being complacent in the embellishment of my clients’ ego. I told myself: enough with trying to be better. But who wished to be better? Exactly: ego, in its illusion to advance when there is nowhere to advance to, nor anyone greater to become.

      In my eyes, it became evident that everything was a huge misunderstanding.

      I came to the conclusion that there had to be something more enriching than struggling for success. What is more, there had to be something better than the mere achievement of success. What I found are the revelations which I make in this book. I finally understood that what I needed to do was recognize myself, for the first time, instead of trying to reinvent myself for the hundredth time.

      Suddenly, and definitively, I felt that there was nothing to improve. What a load off my shoulders! How did I arrive at that conclusion? Guided by the extemporal truth that I read in a sacred text, which impacted me greatly: “That which is subject to change is not real.” So I deduced that if I was able to change myself it was simply because the “self” that I was modifying was a fantasy.

      You, as well as me, do not need a better “self,” you need