I want to say something about enlightenment. It is simply a concept. All of us human beings (and we all are) have to deal with the particulars of our lives. We go grocery shopping, pay bills, relate with people, etc. None of this is about enlightenment.
The subject used to lead me into dead ends as I devoured books about saints and sages. But I was neither; I was just a person with a lot of baggage. But so is everyone else.
My writing is about my daily life and my studies that involve teachings I can relate to. But they don’t lead me to enlightenment. I feel that is beyond human control. Our hands can reach only so far and they cannot open heaven’s gate.
The internet has allowed people to talk about enlightenment as if they had it. And I don’t believe that it is a “get.”
There have been a few now and then that have accomplished some spiritual things that others prompted them to enlarge on. Ramana Maharshi is one. Perhaps Nisargadatta as well, but those of us online are not enlightened. Enlightenment, as I said, is just another human concept.
We strive to become better but we fall short of perfection. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
So my life is a simple one. I watch Vicki behaving crazily but I cannot change her. I am her witness; I am her scribe. She is beyond my control.
So the days and years roll on and everyday someone says they are enlightened and yet how can they be? I just do not believe in it anymore. Love is who we are, though, and that is as good as it gets. Who could ask for anything more?
Over the years I have met several so-called enlightened people and off-stage they aren’t anything like they appear/act onstage, and of the ones I have had corresponded via email after a while are, quite obviously, just as messed up as the next guy.
Especially, irritating are those that insist on putting other enlightened people into a ranking system: oh, well, he was only self-realised and hadn’t reached the level of so and so who had reached cosmic consciousness and then, of course, there was such and such who had reached God-consciousness and don’t forget the great masters who went beyond all of that.
And then they go on to tell us how they are exceptionally rare beings who have transcended all of the above and I can show you how to get there if only you would follow me for the next fifty-years of so…on and on and on…
None of anything I’ve read or heard or seen as helped in any way to make daily living more helpful.
Thank you, Vicki, for another of your down to earth and helpful articles, much appreciated. 🙂
We are always being “fooled again.” The media knows this. Everything is a travesty of justice if done by human beings!
Yes, Vicki, fooling myself, again and again: perhaps, this is the one from whom I will get that which I think I need.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve been asked to leave a forum or website because the owner says I’m not in sync with the other readers. It’s like a form of brainwashing— to get us synchronized to their particular ‘brand’ of enlightenment.
They (the enlightened ones) are especially disturbed if you dare to say things like— OK, that guy has had a few insights into this or that but so what, what about my broken down car, my low paid job, my debts, and so on, what can they do about any of those things, nothing, ‘it’ll all turn out right in the end’, the end of what, exactly, my life!
A side note:- why do so many of them give themselves different names after their so-called enlightenment, I mean, imagine Ramana Maharshi renaming himself something like Steven Gray, or Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones. 🙂
Some scorn their own language and choose Indian names and they use Indian words. Vernon poked a hole in that right away. Does no good to change words if a more fundamental change is needed.