--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > [...]
> > > > But you have/had expectations of what it is NOT like...
> > >
> > > Yes, Lawson. That's what I said to start with
> > > and what I've been saying all along.
> > >
> > > The folks who try to convince us we're already
> > > enlightened are fond of suggesting that we have
> > > some elaborate, exalted, flashy intellectual
> > > notions of what enlightenment is like.
> > >
> > > I'm simply saying that isn't the case with me.
> > > I have no idea what enlightenment is like; I
> > > only know it isn't what *ignorance* is like.
> > >
> > So you define enlightenment by exclusion...
>
> My single criterion is one of exclusion, yes. I
> don't claim it amounts to anything like a
> complete definition.
Beautifully put. This single criterion by definition excludes the a
priori perfection ("enlightenment") in this present state
("ignorance"). By deciding that "it" is other-than-this, one
makes "it" so.
The joke is, we then forget that we a priori decided that this isn't
it; we forget that we have withheld our unconditional love and
blessings from the appreciation of this moment, and so we think that
we are bound into something more profound than our own not-this
decision, somehow at the mercy of our perceptions, something
external to us, more powerful than we are.
By denying the innate criterionless perfection of this moment, we
deny recognizing the subtle unity of this perfect moment "in here"
and ourSelf "out there," and believe ourself to be immersed in pure
duality, a tiny being trapped within the otherness of not-now -- of
desire, memory and spacetime!
I am not saying that merely reading these lines will necessarily be
sufficient for realizing the true nature and equivalence of Self
and "this" -- the realization of Unity or Brahman is (or can be)
immensely profound and powerful but also is supremely subtle, and
though omnipresent and eternal it is very easily overlooked by more
concrete aspects of our mind (attachments, ideations, etc.), until
they cease to entrance us and fall away.
:-)
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