Enlightenment? Is there an outlined path towards it?

incremental-changes-trimtabbingGreat stuff I want you to read. I found this on Quora

When you read all the comments (there are tons of them) you can see how much tree of knowledge there is out there, wishful thinking, hoping that there is no work in becoming enlightened.

I think that if you are hoping to lighten your load, and start soaring, you have come to the right place.

‘If I don’t manage to fly someone else will.
The Spirit wants only there be flying.
And for who happens to do it,
In that he has only a passing interest.’

Here is another quote, this time from a commentary of some Landmark Education and Werner Erhard stuff at here:

The spirit (‘the human spirit’) wants only that there be flying. What is ‘flying’? The spirit wants only that we break through what’s commonly and erroneously taken for granted about our limitations i.e. what’s commonly and erroneously taken for granted as impossible.

By our limitations I mean our limitations of our ways of being, our limitations of what’s possible for our ways of being, our limitations of what’s possible for how we are for ourselves, our limitations of what’s possible for how we are for each other.

By flying I mean being in a way which soars above the commonplace. By flying I mean the triumph of transformation over resignation.

So, without further ado, here is the quote from Quora:

What is the definition of enlightenment? What is an outlined path towards achieving it?

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Imagine that you’ve spent years and years carrying around a bag of rocks. It serves no purpose at all, it just makes everything heavier. Then somehow someday you put down that bag of rocks, and go about your business without it. Suddenly, whatever you do is lighter. You’ve been ‘enlightened.’

Likewise, the word/idea of ‘enlightenment’ is used to encourage people to put down the dead ideas, assumptions, concepts they’ve carried around all their lives, and return to the reality of just now. There’s no path towards achieving it, because it’s already right in front of you, in this very moment.

b0d53918df7046b3f41f8b39c1bfc914Although this is a simplification, it works, and it is as close to the truth in a few sentences as we can get to it.

Now, with that said: you do not carry a beg full of rocks… your bag is not visible, your rocks are not physical, and you are, for the most part, are not aware that they are there. Life is just the way it is, you are just the way you are, you see what you see, and that’s that…

Except… most of what you know, most of what you think, most of what you decide, most of what you think is happening is unreality.

Unreality, what is that? Right? Who am I kidding? They ARE jerks, and I WAS abused, and it IS wrong, etc. etc. etc.

In the Playground, our kindergarten level program, the program for people who will want to graduate with masters of life, that are smart enough to attend to the whole idea of carrying around a bag of invisible rocks, we do this ‘enlightening’ you.

But there is no bag, there is no bag of rocks, and you can’t just put it down anyway: You need to look at each ‘rock’ and glean the truth from it, glean the layers and layers on unreality…

It’s work, but it’s fun. Each time a pebble is dropped, and a lot of pebbles consciously dropped beat a bag of rocks unexamined, any time.

Why? Because what you have seen cannot become unseen, but you haven’t seen, haven’t examined, has a way of sneaking back into your life, into your bag of rocks.

And that, my friend, sucks.

And that, my friend, happens when someone else does ‘the work’ for you, thought shifting, chakra healing, blockage cleansing. And with the whole bag of tricks the gurus offer to do for you.

Oh, and just one more quote from Quora:

training-wiselyThere is an old story about two Greek islanders vying to become the strongest man on the island.

One trainee bought a newborn calf. The other laughed at him. How could a calf help his rival train?

But every day the wise trainee lifted it. Every day the calf got a little bigger and heavier but he could still lift it because it was only a little bit heavier than the previous day.

After a year the wise trainee saw the calf was now a bull but he could still lift it.

In the meantime the unwise trainee had tried every day to lift a bull.

He had failed every time.

Author: Sophie Benshitta Maven

True empath, award winning architect, magazine publisher, transformational and spiritual coach and teacher, self declared Avatar