Waking Up to Enlightenment

There’s a peace-filled state; it shows up when our minds are in the right place. What is that place? It’s the place where the mind stops serving fear and lives from the heart. It’s the heart zone. Unfortunately, we tend to prefer entertainment over enlightenment. We choose to be zoned out rather than zoned in. Give me some sugar, a phone, a movie, a fight – anything to stave off my imagined enemy. We place protective belief systems around us for insulation. Rather than dismantle the armor of the past, we build prisons to keep us safe. We lock ourselves in, then go on a journey for a locksmith. No matter the door isn’t locked! We settle for a scenario we call our lives and fidget endlessly around familiar thoughts and beliefs. Even our arguments are recycled. We are transfixed, decorating and redecorating our prison cell with new thoughts and beliefs. There are infinite ways to improve ourselves and fix our situation. We may place a few affirmations on the wall and, since we never run out of self-doubt, the sky is the limit.

To belabor the point: we cry for freedom whilst constructing and reconstructing mind trap after mind trap. Every time we move or improve, we step on a mind trap and our lives explode. Life’s no longer boring; now it’s tolerable. There’s plenty of drama and intensity. This is the life!

Consider the alternative. What does it take to wake up from the dream? There’s an old story about a person who asked her teacher what it would take to awaken. He took her to the lake and held her under the water for several minutes. When he let her go, she popped up, grasping for air. “When you want to wake up as much as you wanted air, you will find what you seek.”

Some wake up slowly; they follow an inner urge, while others need a kick in the butt, a calamity; yet many never wake up. They go from birth to dirt, filling their days with busyness. It takes intense focus and great desire, but then, again, there’s always grace.

Once a young woman had a protective brother. He would not allow her to pursue her spiritual inclinations. So each night she climbed through her window and quietly made her way to her guru’s home. She was captivated by the truth he spoke. She excelled in meditation and spiritual disciplines and was told that on her next visit, she would receive enlightenment.

A nosy neighbor ran into her brother at the market. “You think your sister is so chaste. She leaves your house at night, when you sleep, and goes to meet her lover.”

The brother didn’t believe his neighbor, so the next night he followed his sister. She approached a strange house and entered. His heart was heavy; he felt betrayed. He peered in the window and saw his sister approach the master. At that very moment the master uttered the words that would bring ultimate peace and enlightenment to his sister. The guru heard a rattle at the window and turned and saw the brother. The brother heard the words and fell to the ground in supreme bliss. He made his way inside to the master and, through tears of ecstasy, thanked him. He fell to his sister’s feet in gratitude. Just one or two words, spoken with power and authority, awakened the highest in the brother. He had done no practices and no preparation, but the words pierced his heart. (Story excerpted from Words Make a Difference.

Maybe there is no path to follow on the road to awakening, but rather than hope we win the lottery of enlightenment through grace, my advice would be to do spiritual practice. It is called sadhana. Sadhana can be structured, such as through daily meditation and yoga, or unstructured. Everything becomes a tool of enlightenment. We grow our awareness when stepping in dog poop, from being fully present as we listen to someone, or from sweating on a hot day. Gangaji says there are two things that keep us from enlightenment. 1) The belief that enlightenment only happens to gurus and masters, but not to me. Someone like me, an incompetent, striving seeker, will never be at this level. 2) The belief that enlightenment or awaking can happen to me, but it will happen some time in the future. It can’t happen now, and, with this logic, the future never arrives.

Waking up to our true selves is enlightenment. It’s not an end to seek; it’s just the movement in consciousness that makes the most sense. Knowing who we are should be the first order of business when we come into the world. But we live in a society that believes the world of things and accomplishments is the pinnacle of human existence, but, fortunately, there is a deep call that never leaves us alone. It is mistaken as a call for more: when we’ve done more, obtained more, and tried to be more, the pristine call of the self awakens. The seminal question: how will we respond? And, like the road less traveled, the way we choose will make all the difference. Good luck!