The Open Secret
Thursday, December 24th, 2009“One of the things I came to see is that enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved.
Doctrines, processes and progressive paths which seek enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the self can find something that it presumes it has lost. It is that very effort, that investment in self-identity that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness. This is the veil that we believe exists. It is the dream of individuality.
It is like someone who imagines that they are in a deep hole in the earth, and in order to escape they dig deeper and deeper, throwing the earth behind them and covering up the light that is already there.
The only likely effect of extreme effort to become that which I already am, is that eventually I will drop to the ground exhausted and let go. In that letting go another possibility may arise. But the temptation to avoid freedom through the sanctification of struggle is very attractive. Struggle in time does not invite liberation.
Life is not a task. There is absolutely nothing to attain except the realisation that there is absolutely nothing to attain.
No amount of effort will ever persuade oneness to appear. All that is needed is a leap in perception, a different seeing, already inherent but unrecognised.”
