Unsent Letter #4: Enlightenment

Dear Friend,

The so-called “enlightenment” or “Self-realization” has significance only to the spiritual seeker, the one who imagines himself or herself bound and who is in need of liberation. The actual event or change known as enlightenment is really a non-event. It involves the disappearance of the wrong assumption that there is somebody there who has something to gain. Spiritual seeking ends when it is understood that you are the one you were seeking. You are already yourself. When that dawns on you, naturally you give up the pointless pursuit of looking for yourself.

Enlightenment gets built up in the mind of a seeker so that it seems like something great and wonderful. That is the nature of “two.” It imagines separation and then longs for oneness. Oneness becomes “the goal.” But that’s OK. It is part of the natural process by which oneness, having become two, becomes one again. It is part of the play that it is not understood that oneness is all. Only after the famous “awakening” takes place does the understanding finally come and twoness finally goes away. Then “enlightenment” is seen as something of a joke. There never was any seeker! Then you understand how Maharaj tricked you. He was never there either!

Well, so it goes.. Everything is still perfect, just the way it is. How can that be so? Because whatever happens, happens as a result of everything else that has already happened and cannot be otherwise. Isn't that a perfect, flawless system? It all follows the natural law, like water running downhill, or fruit ripening on a tree. The mind may torment itself with thoughts like “why don’t I fall off the tree?” but things remain always just the way they have to be.

Shanti..

A.