Sunday is Message Day on the blog. Monday through Friday we look at contemporary events and day-to-day occurrences at the intersection of Life and the New Spirituality…but on Sunday, we reserve this space for a specific teaching derived from the material in Conversations with God
Through the years I have given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around this material. Every seven days we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of one of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal a collection of contemporary and uplifting spiritual thought which you may reference at any time. We hope you will find this a constant source of insight and inspiration.
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I’ve decided tonight to talk about Enlightenment—this elusive magical mystical experience for which everyone seems to be reaching and for which everyone seems to have a yearning, and for which every one seems to be searching. And I understand the reasons for the search, because if we all were enlightened one presumes that our lives would be better than they are now, when we are presumably unenlightened.
In addition, it occurs to me that if all of us were enlightened relatively quickly, the whole world would be different and we would experience life in another way. Presumably with less turmoil, with less stress, with less conflict, for sure, I would imagine, with less sadness and anger and less violence and much less of all the things that make our lives sad and disjointed and unhappy in these days and times.
So humanity searches for Enlightenment and we have been searching for Enlightenment from the beginning of time, ever since we became consciously aware of the fact that it was possible to be Enlightened—whatever that is.
We have not only been searching for Enlightenment, we have been searching as well for a definition of Enlightenment, because we can’t get to that destination until we know where we are going. And so the first step for most human beings has been to try to define what
Enlightenment is, or what it looks like, or feels like, or tastes like, or what it is like to experience that. And then, after we have that clear, after we know what our destination is, then we can try to figure out what would it take to get from where we are to where we want to be.
And there is this rush to Enlightenment that I observe that humanity, or a portion of humanity, is engaged in. And many say that they know how to get there and they know how to get you there. And so we see many, many “Paths to Enlightenment” that are suggested, recommended, created, expressed, experienced, shared, and put into the space of our collective lives. Masters of every shape and size and color have been creating a way to be enlightened for millennia.
Paramahansa Yogananda said that he knew a way to Enlightenment. The Buddha said that he knew a way to Enlightenment. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says that he knows a way to Enlightenment. Sai Baba says that he knows a way to Enlightenment. In their own way, Jesus the Christ and Abu Al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abd Al-Muttalib ibn Hashim—Muhammad—said that they knew the way to Enlightenment.
Now the interesting thing here is that the followers of all of these Masters have insisted that their Master was right about that, that their way was the best way and the fastest way. Maybe not the only way, but the fastest way and, therefore, you needed to take that way. There was a great urgency. You needed to become Catholic or you needed to take Transcendental
Meditation or you needed to learn Tai Chi, or you needed to raise your vibrational rate, or your needed to change your brain, or, for heaven sake, change something. And not some time, but right now, immediately, this month.
You needed to join this group or do that process or read this book or be baptized or be un-baptized or do whatever it is that you have been told by your particular master or monk is the fastest, quickest way for you to get to where all of us want to go—which is the place called “enlightenment,” “awareness,” “higher consciousness,” or “vibrational harmony.”
The brain is now the latest path, the latest route, everyone is talking about. It is about moving your energy, your focus, your awareness, your presence, your essence, the vibration of Who You Are, from the brain stem to the frontal lobe. Many people are teaching this now. Many people are talking about actual science, physical science, brain chemistry, as a path to this thing we call Enlightenment.
All of that is wonderful. That is just terrific, and it gives me great hope for humanity. But there is something we have to look at here. There is a pitfall here, a detour, a time-waster. And even a danger, if we choose to damage others with it. The danger of this business of Enlightenment is two-fold. The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order to get there, and that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there. The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, best way to do it.
A few years ago—now I guess it’s about 15 or 20 ears ago—I was approached by people in the est movement. Werner Erhard created the Erhard Seminar Trainings, which was a huge movement in the new thought community in the U.S. and around the world around 25 years ago or so.
The people who were involved in the est movement were absolutely convinced that this was the fastest way to Enlightenment. So they began recruiting people to take est, and they became very engaged in that process. It was almost urgent, an urgent matter with them. And they couldn’t understand why you didn’t get the urgency, if you didn’t get it. They would look at you and say, “You just don’t get it, do you?”
This was natural, because they had found something that changed their whole life virtually over night and they wanted to give that to you and they knew that this was The Way. There were many ways. This wasn’t the only way, but this was probably the fastest way.
And I enrolled in the est program and I, too, became enlightened. In fact, I became so enlightened that I realized that I did not need est to be enlightened—which really upset the est people, because they wanted me to take the next level and the next level and the next level of the training.
est was a program that had multitudinous levels. You could take level one, level two, level three—they had very fancy names for them. And once you got in the program you could virtually never get out of it. You had to almost extract yourself from it. And if you did get out of it, you were made to feel by those who were inside of it that you had done something desperately sad. Not wrong, just very sad. Because you just didn’t “get it.”
Many years ago Paramahansa Yogananda started the Self-Realization Fellowship. Yogananda taught in the West from 1920 until his death in 1952. He published his life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, in 1946. It went far in introducing vedic philosophy to the West.
When Yogananda, or Master, as he was called, came to America he brought a technique for “self-realization,” which was his phrase meaning Enlightenment. When you realize who the Self is, you become enlightened. You are more aware. You are more at peace with the world. You are internally serene, content, and thus, wonderful empowered, in a quiet, gentle sort of way, to move through life, to create outcomes, to experience Divine Presence in you, as you.
I want you to understand, I want you to be clear, that I am not making fun of any of this. I am not putting this down or making this “wrong” or in any way denigrating or belittling any of this.
This is all very real, very real. Every person who has ever achieved mastery in her or his life has wanted to share it with others; share the experience, share the path, give it away. Why? Because if they are truly enlightened, truly aware, they come to know at a deep level, they experience at a deep level, that most human beings are operating from a place of pain, extreme suffering, emotional turmoil, physical dis-ease – and that these people are, as a result, creating an entire world like that.
(Next Sunday – Part II in this series.)
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