Lets get one thing straight, there’s nothing in enlightenment for you!
If you’re searching for enlightenment for what it can give you, you are on the wrong path. If that’s the case, you are better off doing something else, take up weight lifting it will give you big muscles, or take up cooking; it will give you a big belly. But enlightenment will give you nothing.
Zilch …zero …nix …nothing!
Enlightenment, will not only give you nothing, it will take away everything you believe in. It will leave you empty. All your hopes and dreams gone! Kazzam! Just like that.
Are you sure that’s what you want?
Its not what most people want. Most people want big muscles, or a big belly, and all their hopes and dreams fulfilled, including their hopes and dreams of what enlightenment is. They want a candy store full of delicious wonderful experiences.
If that’s what you want, then forget this enlightenment gig. If that’s what you want, then forget all the meditating, and koans, and dharma stuff because enlightenment is not for you. Just go watch a movie instead, I’ve heard the Simsons movie is easy to relate too!
Enlightenment won’t give you anything! The only thing enlightenment does is take away, and I don’t mean Pizzas, so don’t any of you big belly people get any ideas!
“Well if that the case why do people make such a big deal about enlightenment?”
I will tell you why! …because it is the “End of Suffering”.
Did that get your attention?
Sounds interesting doesn’t it!
“The end of suffering, wow, I could use that!
You mean I will be happy, joyful and blissed out all the time!
Now you are talking!
Sign me up!”
Sorry wrong again!
I didn’t say you would be happy, joyful and blissed out all the time.
Only party drugs can make you blissed out all the time, at least until you become a burnt out zombie, and then you die.
Well then how does enlightenment end suffering?
It does it by taking you away from what you believe is true!
It takes you away from the movies your mind is constantly playing!
It takes you away from obsessive thinking.
It does this by leaving you naked, like the emperor who had no clothes
Imagine if every belief you ever accumulated in your life was an article of clothing you put on. You would be wearing a lot of clothes right now wouldn’t you!
The belief for example that daddy doesn’t love me, or mummy doesn’t want me may be a pair of socks you put on as a child. The belief that you are not beautiful or smart enough is the undershirt you put on when you were young. The belief that other races can’t be trusted, or other religions will go to hell, is the pullover you put on long ago. The pants you are wearing may be the belief that happiness is found in getting more things, or that you always need to hide and protect yourself.
Inside you are wearing many different beliefs, like layers of different old clothes, and you keep adding more and more layers, more and more beliefs as the years go by.
Do you want to get the feeling of what its like carrying all those accumulated beliefs?
To see what it feels like on the inside, just go to the wardrobe and put on as many layers of clothes as you can. Don’t worry about will this match with that because your beliefs are often contradictory! Just put anything on at all. You may be wearing gloves and mittens, five pairs of pants or skirts, ten shirts or tops, 3 pullovers, 2 jackets 10 pairs of undies, 20 pairs of socks, hats , beanies, everything. Just put on anything and everything you can, until you can’t possibly fit another thing on.
Ok. You done!
Now waddle over to a mirror and take a look at yourself. Quite a sight isn’t it!
These layers of accumulated beliefs is the cause of your suffering!
This is how you are on the inside, wearing layers and layers of beliefs, ideas, judgments, prejudice and so on. In the end you may have so many clothes on that you find it hard to move, bending over may be impossible. Climbing the path up the mountain of enlightenment is impossible, its not an option, you will not make it. You have too big a burden to carry. You are rigid and stiff with your beliefs and judgments. Its not easy to feel free wearing all that baggage inside. Its hard work just wearing and carrying all that internal baggage. It’s difficult even to feel what’s going on around you, or really touch someone with all those layers between you and them.
This is how people meet each, other this is how they embrace, through layers of stuff! Through beliefs accumulated over a lifetime, layers and layers deep.
Well, enlightenment strips all that away and leaves you standing naked unprotected and free. On the inside, you will again be as naked as the day you were born, with nothing at all between you and the world. All the scratchy, heavy, old, baggage, gone! When you meet someone you really meet someone!
This is what enlightenment does, it takes away. It takes away your obsession with the egoic, thinking mind, and all its beliefs, judgements and commentary. it takes away the burden you have accumulated. It shows you an empty awareness that was once filled with thoughts, where peace, and stillness now reign. It shows you your true self.
It brings you home to what you have always been …under all those layers!
peace
1 comment:
So it brings peace, and removal of thoughts and obsessive thinking. Maybe there is something in it for me, after all! I know I won't be tripping out on happiness all the time, but peace is something I want. Question is, is it my ego that wants this peace, or my true self?
When I was reading your part about the stripping of beliefs, I was reminded of the parable about the Master and the student, in which the Master tells the student that he must first empty his cup.
Yes, I used to think that enlightenment meant I'd have more mystical experiences, but I've come to learn the truth about what it really is. I still want it!
Thanks for the post.
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