By Seamus Anthony
You will never, ever achieve enlightenment.
I will never, ever achieve enlightenment.
The Buddha did not achieve it.
Nor did Jesus.
Nor did Mohamed.
Nor did Lao Tzu.
Nor did Osho.
Nor did Alan Watts, Thomas Merton, Krishnamurti, Chogyam Trungpa, The Maharashi, Rudolf Steiner, Douglas Harding, Mother Theresa, Brad Warner, Deepack Chopra or Eckhart Tolle.
In fact nobody in the history of the world has ever achieved enlightenment.
And nobody ever will.
How can I say this?
Because enlightenment is not something you achieve, it’s something that you realise.
That might just be a little nit-picky matter of one word, but I believe it makes a lot of difference. Why? Because it changes your whole focus. My advice (not that you asked for it) is stop trying to achieve enlightenment (whatever that means to you anyway) and just let that shit go.
Enlightenment isn’t “out there”. You don’t have to become a ’seeker’ and go on a ’spiritual journey’
to find it. Nor do you need to go on some kind of Jules Verne type mission to centre of your being to find it either.
Enlightenment is right here in front of your nose. It is something innate. It is everything everywhere.
You realise your inherent enlightenment by accepting what is here now.
Click here to get the first Rebel Zen e-book – free. It contains a powerful trick to realising your inherent enlightenment – and what’s more it’ll help you kick butt in more pragmatic areas of life too (like career etc.). Go on – click already (it’s free).
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That is nit-picking. You don’t achieve enlightenment, you achieve the overcoming of your barriers to enlightenment. So it is an achievement. Of course it’s there all the time.
And there aren’t any tricks to finding reality. The only barrier is yourself. There’s no short cut to escaping that.
Alexs last blog post..Green campaigners quote
Yes, overcoming your barriers to realising enlightenment is an achievement, you’re right, so we agree. But you don’t achieve enlightenment, you are already inherently enlightened. So my point stands.
Part of what is here now is frustration and desire.
Evans last blog post..Surprise!
Yes, for example Alex’s frustration at my nit-picking and desire that I would shut up and go away
Wow, spoken or rather typed, like someone who knows nothing.
Believing there is nothing to achieve is no realisation
and realising you have achieved Nothing
is quite an achievement.
Lobsters last blog post..2008-06-24 12:12:58
Unlike our very consumer oriented society where Time is Money and You Are What You Can Buy, enlightenment just IS. It’s not a location to be found but an essence to be experiencced. Thank you for a really great post.
Harmonys last blog post..The Power Broker Bust (pt 2 of 4)
@Harmony – thank YOU for your insights also.
@Meiliken and Lobster – forgive me but I am not sure if you were both being sarcastic or too clever for me (woosh – the sound of comments going right over my head!)
I’m not sure you went as far as I would, and looking at the reader responses then you were lucky you didn’t, but I will step in and push it further.
You can not achieve, or even realize, enlightenment because when you are one, then by definition there can be no other – especially no you!
Enlightenment has no doer and no done so anyone seeking it is failing as a person stepping forward to achieve standing still.
If the ego wants enlightenment then it will want it forever, this can not be achieved or realized. Enlightenment is right there as you say, but not there as opposed to your here, not in space not in time, just …”"
It comes to the non-you as you un-look and as soon as you realize, it goes. Luckily from that perspective the fact of ego being nothing but fabrication is strikingly apparent and can be dissolved with absolute conviction.
No method obtains it as a method requires a doer. No I achieves is as that is precisely what is lost.
yawn….and give me a break! How do you KNOW this is true? You make these claims as if you know and all you are doing is guessing at best….how tiring, how predictable….and, may I say…it all sounds like a flurry of words saying nothing.
Hi Mike,
Yes you are right, I don’t KNOW anything for certain but rather than just “guessing”, this is what I have found to be true enough within the limited realm of my experiences to feel pretty certain that I am on to something here at least. I came to these conclusions by doing lots of meditation, reading and contemplation.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to leave such a positive and constructive comment; thanks to you I’ve really woken up to myself and the error of my ways. (Now get the hell out of my blog.)