Have you heard the one about the guy who got conked on the head and was instantly enlightened? How about the gal who received an instant transmission of enlightenment from a master? What about all the times an alleged master (or even I) said that you can wake up right now at the snap of a finger? If you have heard such assertions, or taken to heart the immediacy of being able to wake up that I and others have espoused, you might be inclined to ask, “If I can wake up in an instant, then why haven’t I?”
I know we like to put ourselves on pedestals, but forget that noise. Forget greater than/less than; forget success/failure. This isn’t a race to the top and there’s nothing to be proud of. There’s nothing to regret. These are defense mechanisms of the very self that needs to relax. Relax into oblivion, if you’re lucky, but for now, at least, relax into heart.
Think of yourself as a blockage in the brain. This blockage needs to be undone. Since the blockage is literally you, you can do nothing about it. The undoing must be the brain’s spontaneous release of self. However, the way the brain usually grasps its need to let go of the self is through the self. This is why it is necessary to undo as much mental clutter as possible through actions like mediation, psychotherapy, yoga, prayer, and, my favorite, positive negation. (More on that in the next post.) A healthy self is like a clean window letting light shine through, only in this case the goal is for enough light to come in to burn away the window.
Yes, you can wake up into heart right now. However, odds are against it because odds are you have a lot of knowledge, learning habits, and unconscious forces of memory that are already in the way. Easier to clean a dusty mansion in an hour than one full of clutter and grime.
Also, saying, “You can wake up right now” becomes an ego trap. The fact that you haven’t done so may lead you to ask, “What’s wrong with me that I haven’t?” Perhaps you then go searching for that quick fix solution (someone else’s untruth). Or maybe you feel inadequate and cover that over by saying you have awoken when you haven’t (your own untruth). Looking for the magic words that dissolve you is like looking for the magic numbers to win the lottery: they occur, but rarely, and when you’re not looking at all. Fortunately, working out our own psychology—unravelling ourselves until there is no more personal I—is akin to the wealth it takes to play every lottery number at once.
Now, having read that, watch your reaction. Do you deny it? Does it sound impossible? Or does it fill you with hope that you can make it if you stick with it?
Truth Acts. Self Reacts.
If you react you’re trapped. Reaction is often habitual and is a trap sprung from memory. Psychological reaction emulates reflexive reaction, which is necessary to keep the body safe. You are, at your core, mind projected by and imitating body. To see the fact of this is to strip away the self. If this happens all at once, great. If it happens layer at a time, you will become more and more a transparency through which Truth shines as insight and compassion. That is action.
Those who react and capture Truth to feel powerful, to claim enlightenment, have already lost it in newly reinforced layers of self. This new delusion is even harder to let go precisely because you believe you already have let go. Loosening your grip is not letting go. Loosening it, feeling comfort, and then tightening it again to capture that comfort leaves you with a fistful of air and the will to believe that it is so much more. Forget capturing Truth. Playing lottery is a safer bet.
And forget instant enlightenment. Moving to heart, although a necessary action, is not that. Heart-self, like brain-self, can become its own blockage when we rest there and call that the new ground of being or base of culture.
Oh. I probably should have mentioned that at the beginning. Yeah. Heart transcends and includes brain and so it’s often confused with enlightenment. It isn’t. It is necessary for us brain people to migrate to heart to be a healthier expression of humanity, but that isn’t enlightenment.
Ah, well—More to come!