Archive for the ‘Enlightenment’ Category

I may be completely unenlightened, and therefore have no idea what I am talking about, but to me enlightenment is not an event but rather, it’s a place.

By this I mean it’s not (in my opinion, unqualified by any particular dogma) something that just happens and then that’s it – you’re enlightened for the rest of your life.

For me it’s somewhere you have to make the effort to go (although sometimes you stumble upon it without trying, like walking out of the trees into an unexpected clearing in a forest).

And like all visits, you sit, maybe drink some tea, enjoy – but then you have to leave, already looking forward to your next visit.

Usually, I travel to this delightful place by meditation, and it can be a bumpy ride getting there. Sometimes I run out of time and steam and have to turn back without reaching the destination. Usually, if I keep steadfastly on, I get there eventually.

I used to go to this place a lot but over the last year or two I have rarely made the effort or found the time to visit this place.

By Steve Mills

Our mind constantly narrows the stream of input it receives down to definitions,  conceptions and categories.

It makes it easy for our brain to manage the wide complexity of modern life, and make predictive decisions and inferences about what is currently happening. I am sure that we have evolved this way with good reason, and I bet we were doing it back when we all lived in caves or the wild grassland of prehistory.

Our minds treat objects not as they are, but as abstract categories of things. Men are treated with a certain subset of behaviours, women with another. We treat all physical objects as if they are the idea and not the thing. Bowls are treated all the same, as are knives, or fridges, or televisions.

But really I think that life is ultimately unquantifiable. Everything always seeks to transcend its definition, and concrete descriptions break down when you turn up the resolution. The harder you study what defines a certain thing, the more you see the diversity within the category.

It’s a hard concept to grasp, or get our minds around, which is always a good indicator that further thought and study would be worthwhile.

By Steve Mills

This is part two of a series about “Going With the Flow”

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and also that you must always listen to the messages the Universe is giving you.

There is so much confusing information around these ideas in personal development writing. You get one Guru that says that no matter how many times you fail, perseverence will always pay off. They would say that should chase your dreams no matter what happens along the way.

This is good advice in most circumstances, especially if you follow Curly’s Law and have found your ONE TRUE THING. But it can also lead to going down the wrong river for a long time, and plunging over a metaphysical waterfall.

On the other hand, there are other experts which tell you to listen to what the Universe is saying. If you constantly get the message that your current course of action is not going to work out, then it is time to change course, abandon ship and start something new.

By Steve Mills

This is part one of a series about “Going With the Flow”

There is a lot written on personal development blogs about the concept of “going with the flow.” I am sure most Rebel Zen readers have encountered this term many times during their internet wanderings, and that you have heard many different takes on what it means. Here at Rebel Zen, we aren’t ones to get too hung up on definitions. What I am more interested on is different perspectives on the one idea. So in that spirit, here is one take on the idea of “Going with the Flow”

BIG FLOW : Life Flow

We quite often get to a point in our lives where things get out of control. This can be a major source of anxiety and stress for a lot of people, as they feel that they are constantly fighting against the world for control of their situation in life and circumstances.

Others however, learn to “go with the flow.” They realise that you can NEVER have 100% control of your life circumstances, and anything could happen in the next 5 years, weeks, days or minutes which could completely change things.

By Seamus Anthony

“Aggh! What’s Wrong With Me?”

Ever asked yourself that? I know I have…

But look – the answer to that question is NOTHING! There is nothing wrong with you dude!
You are a human and humans don’t just feel great all the time – humans feel all kinds of emotions including the unpleasant ones.

Humans make mistakes, they regret their actions, they lose their temper, they get drunk, they spend too much money on stupid things, they hurt themselves and the ones they love.

Normal.

All of this is completely normal and I want you to know right now that you don’t need to be a super-disciplined self-help guru to be happy! You don’t need to try and be perfect – YOU ALREADY ARE PERFECT! Even your so-called flaws, even those things that you want to change about yourself – these things are all perfect. That doesn’t mean you can’t implement positive change in your life – but meanwhile stop giving yourself a hard time, TODAY!

By Steve Mills

For most of our daily life, we are completely saturated with ideas and messages that do not originate from ourselves. Walk down the street and you are bombarded with advertisements, sit down on the internet and you are quickly mind boggled by the sheer amount of content available. The modern world has provided us with access to information that would be beyond the wildest dreams of someone even 20 years ago.

The paradox is with access to so much information about other things; we have become detached from a large amount of knowledge and wisdom about ourselves. There are so many distractions available, and so many different types of media to consume. The very fact that we may have to sit alone, with our own thoughts for even 30 minutes fills most people with a small sense of dread.

I am sure that this is not the natural state of human consciousness. In the past, you would assume that there were vast stretches of time, once food and shelter had been looked after, that men and women would be able to sit around and think. In this time they would have the power to consciously address the contents of their minds, rather than let themselves run on autopilot, never really exploring the depths of their inner life.

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.

By Steve Mills

Many eastern spiritual texts put forward the idea that you must learn to have a full awareness of your whole self. While our self looks like it is an integrated whole from one level, scratch the surface (via meditation or other methods of self-enquiry) and you will find a whole heap of different parts of your personality, all striving to express themselves. The one that stands out the most initially is the Ego, the self-important, self-centric aspect of our personality . The ego (which is a modern western psychological term I might add) has been given a fairly bad rap in the modern “new age” scene.

image by Swiss Bones

Somewhere along the way, our Western minds have turned this into the ridiculous notion that to be happy you must get rid of, or even completely destroy the ego.

My own personal experience has brought me to a different understanding. I believe that there is no reason to destroy what is essentially a part of yourself. The real power is in learning to integrate this and all of the other interesting and unique parts of your personality into a functioning whole.

By Steve Mills

Mystery makes the world go around. The only reason you are reading this article, and not checking your facebook or twitter profiles is that you don’t know how it is going to end. When things get predictable people tend to lose interest and look elsewhere.

When you get down to the fine detail and study life closely, Mystery is the animating force of the world, the reason why every man and woman gets up in the morning, has breakfast and steps out into the wild crazy world.

The search for meaning and answers behind the events of your life is fueled by your innate curiosity. Curiosity is a force so powerful that it sets the direction of our civilization and species, fills the wallets of gossip magazine publishers and drives people to continue to search for answers against great odds.

Or How to Achieve Liberation Without Joining a Cult

By Seamus Anthony

The Age of Do-It-Yourself Enlightenment has arrived. Here’s social proof (check out the comments).

But what does this actually mean? Well, in our welcome post Steve and I explained this concept quite well. No real need to go visit that post, here is what we wrote:

“DIY Enlightenment is about finding your own version of truth, peace and happiness. It’s about learning to go with the flow and really experience life free from other people’s rules and dogma. It’s about recognising that ‘enlightenment’ is a concept that you are free to research, define, and achieve on your own – you DON’T need a guru to tell you what to do or to decide when you have achieved enlightenment…

“The Guru (or in the west, the Hermit) used to have the monopoly on the enlightenment niche because information about ‘enlightenment’ was not readily accessible and so it had to be transfered by direct verbal instruction.