When we are young and the great mystery of our life is unfolding around us, we are confronted by many tantalizing opportunities. For a variety of reasons, certain of these things that we encounter generate an especially appealing affection in us. Because they are so tantalizingly alluring, they draw us into believing that they are something special that we need to pursue. We cannot turn away from them because the allure they present is a perfect fit to what we think we want at that time.
These seeming opportunities are really just the innumerable things that we perceive to exist in this physical reality that is surrounding us. Very early on, it might be a special blanket or stuffed animal toy that helps us go to sleep, but over time, our fond attachment might be focused on an addictive drug. Our obsession with these things around us only grows more intense until eventually we see the folly in that obsession.
The radical difference between these two extremes of a sleeping blanket contrasting with an addictive drug may on the surface seem irreconcilably different, but that difference underscores the extreme scope of our capacity to be enamored with the things around us. As radically different as these two types of attachments are, they can both be based on some sort of different variations of the same underlying appeal.
For some reason, certain items in this dazzling array of trinkets have a special appeal that is able to engage our sensory experience and incorporate themselves into our elusive lifelong quest to be happy. These ever-changing physical things have no real enduring qualities, but it is so difficult for us to see through the folly of that illusion especially when we are actively engaged with one of these alluring physical things.
The attachment of fond regard is a very powerful influence. It grabs our attention, and holds it fast to the object of that regard drawing us into various life situations in our never-ending pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. It is the force that binds us into our life circumstance, and interaction with these highly regarded things generally sets off various narratives in our lives many of which we frequently don't even want to pursue.
These things themselves transform when we interact with them to become things we don't even recognize when their initial appeal wears off. The pleasure from them typically comes with considerable other baggage that over time becomes a burden to bear. There is no lasting sense of contentment with any of these temporal things. Instead of the contentment that we were expecting, they just bring a heightened sense of longing.
In my youth, I chased my share of this excitement from these encounters with these physical trinkets. I was enamored with the thrill and exhilaration that they enabled until I came to realize the folly in all those adrenaline rushes. Before, my life was a frenetic experience of one pleasure adventure after another.
Try as I might to comfort myself with them, these physical trinkets could not give me the sense of satisfaction that I was really seeking. Eventually, I began to see the danger inherent in some of these appealing trinkets that made them so enticingly exciting. Some of these attachments are way more debilitating making them more dangerous than the others. Having a favorite blanket is a fairly innocuous attachment, but a debilitating drug addiction is a much more serious matter.
We get so caught up in the allure of these trinkets that we lose sight of the things that really matter in our frivolous pursuit of them. For many of us, this realization comes too late for us to deal with them in this lifetime. Some few others of us are fortunate enough to find a better way to pursue fullness of life.
I was one of those lucky ones. Finally, I realized that I was going in a wrong direction in my pursuit of these trivial, transient trinkets. At that point, I had pretty much run the gambit of my pleasure seeking, and I started looking for something a little bit more unorthodox to satisfy my seemingly insatiable wander-lust. I was ready for something different and that something different just fell into my lap.
That realization came to me in the form of a wise old man informing me about some ancient spiritual guidance that advocates taking the time to be silent and pay attention to those things that are going on inside us. My knowledge of these things was passed to me in the form of a package of spiritual tools and a practice methodology based on some ancient traditions that counsel us to regularly pursue and savor those moments of silence and experience the peace they afford.
At first, this advice seemed to be borderline ridiculous until I was actually able to experience the glory of that silence in a fleeting moment of transcendental immersion in this inner pool of silence. That experience was generated by my first experiential contact with an ancient conscious technique of true meditation. My initiation into this meaningful silence came in the form of an instruction about a science of consciousness that arises from a process of a mantra driven meditation and a collection of other conscious exploration technologies from some ancient traditions.
These tools when set into action for an extended period of time transition our life focus away from the transient effect of our ever-changing physical reality into the higher permanence of conscious experience. It eases the effect of the attachment glue that binds us into our physical life narrative to give us some measure of distance from the binding things going on around us.
These moments of silence have added up over the years enriching my life in more ways than I could have ever imagined at there onset. They have filled me with a peace and contentment that overtime quieted my wander-lust and made my life seem full and complete. In that time, they have exposed for me the possibility of a great spiritual enlightenment that brings with it a full sense of the duty, honor, and purpose required to make our lives meaningful and complete.
The value of these moments of silence have been recognized since ancient times by geographically isolated Eastern cultures who had developed very specific methodologies for which there were no direct parallels in the distant Western culture. These methodologies were based on an assertion of the existence of a particular state of human consciousness that transcends all suffering and longing. It thus enables the liberation from the cycle of rebirth and death for the individual who attains it. This state of human consciousness is the door that opens to a treasure trove of knowledge about the inner workings of the universe and the human conscious experience in the form of a Universal Truth.
Access to this treasure trove of knowledge that is available to all via a practice of various techniques that opens our experience of consciousness to a special kind of silence that connects us with a world beyond the physical. A conscious world wherein there are only two recognized self-discovery paths to enlightenment. One path is the traditionally understood way of the ascetic, but the other path is structured around a typical householder who is simultaneously engaged in the pursuit of both spiritual and regular worldly activities.
Those who choose the path of the ascetic withdraw from the world to contemplate and meditate as they aspire for their one and only goal of attaining a state of enlightenment. The ascetic renounces all worldly things at the onset of their search. They live their lives withdrawn in seclusion denying all worldly things beyond the bare minimum required to survive. It is a hard and difficult path that is right only for the very select few who are so inclined to pursue it.
Most of us simply don't have the time and resources required to go off into the mountains and pursue this enlightenment as a recluse. For them, there is another avenue to pursue in the pursuit of this enlightenment. This other path of householders engaged in worldly activities is reputed to be the more noble of the two paths because the householder seeker is a productive member of society in addition to being a spiritual aspirant.
The alternate path of the householder is in fact called out in the classic tale of enlightenment in the Bhagavad Gita which describes the enlightenment of Arjuna who is at the time of his enlightenment a man actively engaged in the pursuit of war. The warrior Arjuna received his enlightenment from Krishna as he is surveying his impending enemy and the battlefield that he is about to engage. Instead of the ascetic who withdraws from the world, Arjuna actually received his enlightenment just prior to going to war.
On the path of action, the seeker does not withdraw from the world to pursue enlightenment. Seekers on the path of action create a balanced lifestyle that integrates a system of regular contemplation and meditation into their ongoing activities of living a life and contributing to society. Those on the path of action renounce worldly things by internally eliminating over time their tendencies to become attached to worldly things. As they progress, they can own worldly things without developing binding attachments to them.
All seekers soon come to realize that no matter whether they have chosen the path of the ascetic or to actively be engaged in life, their actual pursuit of this enlightenment is a path that can only be tread alone. On the path of action, they might find themselves in the company of many other people. Some of the other people may actually be sympathetic to their spiritual journey, but none of them can actually directly engage one’s solitary spiritual journey because it is a path of self-discovery that can only be traversed alone.
In effect, these moments of structured silence became for me my personal homegrown enlightenment experiment. Over the years, this experiment has been the guiding light in my personal experience of self-discovery to find fullness and meaning in life. We all have an ongoing personal homegrown enlightenment experiment, but for most, it is something that quietly goes on unnoticed behind the experience of being conscious where they don’t know how to make effective use of it. In spite of this near complete lack of attention, it persists without making substantial progress.
Enlightenment is that special conscious realization that enables one having a conscious experience to avoid all the bondage that comes from all these physical experiences of attachment thus liberating the spirit from being bound into their conscious experience. This liberated spirit can rise to its highest level of achievement.
This Enlightenment also has a profound impact on the physical body that is now freed of all its attachment bondage. Such an unbounded physical body is able to achieve an optimum level of performance that enables the possibility of perfect health.
No one can give someone else this experience of enlightenment. Others can assist in this process of enlightenment, but the actual attainment of this enlightenment is only possible for an individual acting on behalf of themselves to acquire this understanding of enlightenment.
This series of podcasts will attempt to convey the knowledge and understanding that my personal, ongoing homegrown enlightenment experiment has revealed to me. Maybe others will find this knowledge helpful in the same manner that they have been in assisting me.
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