The mind stalks enlightenment in a very serious way, as if it is real. It is no more real than a unicorn. Having been told that, we hunt for it in the strangest places.

We start out looking for it in books. This stage can be quite expensive, but addictive. We begin harmlessly enough, reading “The Autobiography of a Yogi.” Soon we are haunting used bookstores for esoteric titles that send a thrill through our system.

Some people end up stalking people that claim to have found it, because people love to feel superior in this department.

Online gurus are everywhere, aren’t they? Some stick “ji” onto the end of their names. Others are more intellectual and can declaim for hours about how to become enlightened. Because there is no proof.

I am making my own confession here. I, too, was an enlightenment wannabe. I boned up on it for decades, thinking the next book would do it.

But enlightenment is not something you can find or attain by your own effort.

You can’t even attain it by letting go of effort.

So how do you GET it, you ask, irritable by now.

Like you get anything made out of nothing, by seeing how ridiculous all of your efforts to attain enlightenment are.

There are jokes about people bragging on their nothingness. They become smug in their knowledge.

All it takes is hutzpah with a dash of gall.

So why am I writing all this?

To put off washing the dishes.

Vicki Woodyard