The Pathway to Enlightenment By Scott Shaw

By Scott Shaw

 

            I frequently write and speak about enlightenment.  I explain that we all ARE enlightened, we simply have to embrace this consciousness and remember this fact.  From this, I receive an untold number of questions about just what do I mean.  Many people come up to me with the statements,  “I’m not enlightened, but I want to be.”  “I have practiced meditation for many years and I still don’t feel enlightened.  Or, “I can never be as enlightened as my guru.”

            To hopefully clear a few things up for those who walk the spiritual path it must initially be detailed that first of all enlightenment is not about desire.  If you desire enlightenment you will never know enlightenment.  Secondarily, meditation is not a pathway to enlightenment—though many teachers throughout the centuries have claimed that it is.  Meditation is a “Mind Thing.”  It is a great tool to calm the mind and bring you into communion with your inner self and the god that resides in you.  But, it will not provide you with enlightenment. And finally, you can not find enlightenment by following a teacher. Though teachers may guide you to higher consciousness, ultimately, “Following” keeps you from enlightenment—as you are defining your own cosmic understanding by that of your teachers.

            Okay, you say, “Then just what is the pathway to enlightenment if you can’t want it, practice for it, or study to obtain it?”  Well first of all to comprehend the answer, the essence of enlightenment must to be understood.

            Most people, those who are unenlightened, depict enlightenment as a mystical abstract thing that can be HAD.  But, anyone who believes this incorrect ideology is entirely missing the point.  Enlightenment can not be HAD.  Because if it can be HAD, that means it is missing in you.  If it is missing in you, then it is not a natural occurrence and should not be sought after anyway.

            Enlightenment IS.  Thus, it is never something to gain.

            Many teachers also detail that you must possess a certain level of high incarnation to gain enlightenment.  Teachers who detail this fact, also state that it will take you many incarnations to even come close to embracing enlightenment.  By stating this, they immediately prove that they do not understand enlightenment and are, in fact, completely keeping their students from ever embracing the naturalness of enlightenment.

            Now certainly, it is much easier for a person to embrace the total-ness of enlightenment if they are walking the spiritual path—because those who walk the spiritual path have a rudimentary understanding of enlightenment and what to expect.  This is not to say, however, that anyone EVERYONE can not know enlightenment.  Because, if it was only available to those who walked the spiritual path, who embrace this sense of pure consciousness, then one would have to be spiritual to know.

            But, being spiritual is not the defining factor of enlightenment.  Being WHOLE is.

            This is all very ZEN, I understand.  But, let me make it more understandable.  When I first heard Ram Dass detailing that his guru Neem Karoli Baba had gone eye-to-eye with him and asked him, “Don’t you see everything is perfect,” it really touched a place in me.  Yes, all the good and even all of the bad in this life is perfect.  It all happens in accordance with its own perfection.  Now a Christian may say the good is a gift from god and the bad is a test.  But, they are really missing the point.  Good and Bad are all a point of view.  If you love Hell, then it becomes Heaven.

            What I am saying is that you cannot gage life. You cannot say that one particular expedience that you felt was very negative may not lead you onto a very NEW and positive place of growth and personal understanding.

            Life is Life and things are going to happen that we do not like.  But, if you can step back long enough to embrace a divine understanding, they you can see that this action leads to the next and the next and the next.

            If you lay a positive pathway for your life—not hurting, criticizing, or demeaning others, then from the nature of this universe, you attract positive energy.  Additional, just the opposite is true if you live in space of unhappiness, where you place yourself at constant odds against the world around you—if you embrace negativity, no matter how subtle, then negativity will find you and bad things will occur.

            What does this have to do with enlightenment you ask? It has everything to do with enlightenment.  Enlightenment is about you accepting the perfection of the moment.  If you are criticizing, judging, (be it good or bad), or measuring your amount of “Feel Good-ness” in an particular moment of life, then you are setting yourself at odds with the perfection of the universe and you are keeping yourself from enlightenment.

            Life is life.  We like what we like.  We don’t like what we don’t like. But, you cannot allow this to define you. It just is what it is.

            Accept what you like as what you like, what you don’t like as what you don’t like.  Know it, but do not allow it to control you, define you, or hold you back.

            Understanding the perfection of the universe is not saying that God, Allah, or Buddha, is waving some controlling hand and making all of the elements occur.  Understanding perfection is simple settling into the perfection and knowing that it all is as it is.  This is, also, not to say that some Supreme Being made it that way.  It just IS.

            When things just ARE, that is the root of enlightenment.

            It is often detailed when a person dies that their life flashes before their eyes.  Having been a person who has come very close to physical death a couple of times in my LIFE TIME, I can categorically state that this statement is not true.  What occurs is that when you are at the gates of leaving your physical body, you immediately embrace the perfection.  You see how this thought lead to that desire—how that desire lead to this choice—how this choice lead to that action—how this action lead to this outcome.  Ultimately, you see how all of life was perfect.  How everything falls into its own space of perfection and you lived exactly what you were suppose to live—whether you liked every moment of it or not.

            This is the source point for enlightenment.  Initially understanding, then accepting, and finally embracing THE PERFECTION.

            Embrace THE PERFECTION and know enlightenment. 

 

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The Pathway to Enlightenment @ Scott Shaw.com

Scott Shaw Writings on Zen, Yoga, and Human Consciousness

Buying Into Their Own B.S. By Scott Shaw

By Scott Shaw

 

            As I have often stated, for whatever karmic reason, I have walked the spiritual path for most of my life. And, I use the term, “Spiritual Path,” for lack of a better term. But, I am referring to those of us who have decided to make the evolution of human consciousness and tuning into and understanding of the great-beyond their primary focus.

            As someone who has been on this road for a lot of years I have witnessed many things about people on the path. Perhaps most disconcerting is those who buy into their own bullshit. But, I’ll get into that in a moment.

            People are drawn to spirituality for an untold number of reasons. Some enter the path at a young age and some much later. Most, when they decided to, “Get Spiritual,” find their pathway in organized religion—which is very pervasive and universally accepted in all cultures. So, it is easily at hand. Then, there are the more abstract realms of spiritually which call out to people like me. In either case, the person who has newly found the path is generally the most fervent about it.

            I remember when I was a young boy of about eleven or twelve and I was sent to summer camp. One of my campmates was a young boy who used to love to make flavored toothpicks and chew on them. He brought his little bottle of liquid cinnamon spice and he would daily dip a few toothpicks into it to keep in his mouth throughout the day. Though this seemed a bit strange and bizarre to me, what was more curious about the boy was that he had already decided what he wanted to do with his life. He was going to be a minister. While most children of this age group have little idea of what they want to become, he had decided. Me, I wanted to grow up and be like Neil Young or Jimi Hendrix. In any case, he had set upon his path very early in life. Whether or not he ever became a minster, I don’t know. But, what I do know is that youth who enter the spiritual path possess a deep belief in the possibilities of what it has to offer.

            In fact, this is not only true for youth but for others who enter the path at whatever stage of their life. Once upon the path, the first step is generally to seek out a teacher to guide you down the road to your ultimate end-goal. This is where the problems begin.  I have seen it so many times. A person new to the path is full of anticipation, promises, and belief. Thus, they are quick to believe whatever they hear and are easily taken advantage of.

            The reality is, when a person is new to the path they are full of exuberance. Belief equals exuberance. But, what comes next?

            In this state of exuberance many desire to go out and spread this emotion to the world. They want others to be as full of joy as they are. Me too… When I was young I wanted to tell all my friends and family about what I was experiences and guide them to experience the same. This, even though most people do not desire to walk down this road.

            As time progress, however, and a person’s knowledge becomes deeper, they generally no longer need to go out and spill it onto people who are not of the same mindset and do not desire to walk down the path.  They simply become who they are and embrace their cosmic understandings in a more pure and personal space. But then, there are the others. Those, who as they get older decided that they have something unique to give. They have found their calling. They possess something; a deeper knowledge that others do not hold. Thus, they decide to become teachers. And, oh yeah, that usually equals them getting paid for what they teach or, at least, being provided with other various favors.

            In formalized religious, there are generally schools that a person must attend to rise to the level of a teacher. On the spiritual path, this is generally not the case. So, anybody can go out there and claim that they have had a particular revelatory experienced and that experience is what makes them so all knowing and the one that other people should follow.  But, their experience is generally not real. It is simply something that they have read about; something that they have projected as something deep and meaningful, or simply they have realized this is a good way to attract people to follow them to feed their pocketbooks and their ego.

            Mostly, what I have seen is that the people who do this spout knowledge that they have read from books written by other people or have heard at lectures. But, whatever it is, their knowledge is based upon, “Borrowed knowledge.” It does not rise from a pure, personal source—though they will, of course, argue that this is not the case till the end of their days. These are the people who buy into their own bullshit.

            Spirituality is an organic, uniquely individual space of consciousness. Even though two people may be following the same teachings, their interpretation and internal understandings are uniquely their own. People believe they need a teacher because people seek interaction and they seek affirmation that what they are thinking is okay.  But, is what you are thinking, what you are thinking, or have you been guided to think that way? This is the ultimate understanding of consciousness. Are you, you? Or, are you the creation of someone else’s belief system?

            Being you, you are free. That is nirvana. Being what someone else tells you to be is maya. That is illusion.

            Here are a couple of simply rules so you don’t step into someone else’s bullshit.

            Have you heard what they are saying before; from another source, perhaps said in a slightly different way?

            Are they charging you for their knowledge?  Knowledge is free. It doesn’t cost a dime.

            Are they calling you, “My child, my loved-one, my dead-one?” If they are, they are projecting that they are more than you. No one is more than you. You are the source of your own spirituality and enlightenment. Be you. Not a student of someone who buys into their own bullshit.

 

Copyright © 2012—All Rights Reserved

Scott Shaw Writings on Zen, Yoga, and Human Consciousness