“Enlightenment” is not what you think

Un-self yourself. Until you see yourself as a speck of dust, you cannot possibly reach that place. Self could never breathe that air, so wind your way there without self.

-Hakim Sanai

We’re all here looking for the same thing: freedom, enlightenment, peace, bliss, abiding love, true happiness, God…call it whatever you like. The word is simply a name we apply to that which is unnameable, unconceptualizable. That which lies forever beyond expression.

How many of us will spend our entire lives searching? Touching, in moments, that thing we seek, only to once again come up empty-handed as over and over it slips right through our fingers?

Climbing the corporate ladder. Getting a raise, a promotion. Finding a partner. Getting married. Having kids. Buying a house. Holding onto hope that maybe, just maybe, the next thing, the next step in life, will be the one which finally puts our heart fully at peace, finally fills the longing in our chest, only to find that the hole in the core of our being, the yearning for that which we seek, is ever-present.

A moment of peace turned to angst. Love to discontent. Joy to fear. Excitement to disillusionment. Freedom to imprisonment. Happiness to suffering. On and on the cycle goes.

Where are we falling short? What secret have the ancient Masters and Sages unlocked which we continually fail to grasp? Is “enlightenment” (perpetual oneness with God, peace, lasting happiness, etc.) forever out of reach?

The problem is not our inability to find this thing we seek. In truth, we have already found it. The problem, if you can call it such, is one’s mind — the incessant internal chatter which creates one’s idea, one’s definition, one’s belief of what it is we’re seeking.

There is no constant heightened state of bliss, no ideal. It doesn’t exist, and for anyone to imply that it does is bullshit. The mind, however, loves to seek this unending state of peace and bliss, and this keeps us trapped. Trapped in a cycle of suffering which we cannot escape by means of the mind which itself is the creator of the cycle. Trapped in hell. 

The Kingdom is right here, right now. And it always has been. 

It’s one’s mind, one’s personality, one’s belief system, which keeps one from that which is sought. We worship a false God: the self. The “me”.

Everything you do is an attempt to satisfy the thing you call “me”. But if I asked you to pinpoint exactly where your “me” lies, could you? You might point a finger toward your body…after all, it’s obvious, right?

But is it, really? 

How would you describe your “me” to somebody? The thing we call “me” typically includes our likes, our dislikes, our personality traits, our past experiences, our opinions, our political leanings, our music taste, our food preferences, the knowledge and information we have amassed over our lifetime which forms our belief system.

And what are all of these things that make up this “me”, this self, but a conglomeration of what you call memories (echos of experiences from the past which no longer exist here and now) and hopes and desires for the future (things which have not yet come to be and so, too, have no real existence here and now)? 

Your “me” is a book bag in which you carry that which does not exist here and now. The “me” is the incessant chatter in your mind. The “me” is the false God, the devil if you’d like to call it such, which we all worship.

You may think that your “me” does, in fact, exist. That it is, in actuality, the truest, most real thing there is. So I ask you: who (or what) is it who observes your “me”? After all, an observer must exist for there to be an observed. A subject must exist for an object to be perceived. So who is it who is aware of your “me”, your self, the chatter in your mind? Who is it who is aware of this “me”?

Pause. Consider the question. Who is it who observes?

Has not your “me” changed throughout your life? Have not your likes, your preferences, your body, your opinions, your likes, your dislikes, your beliefs, your ideas, your behaviors, your personality changed and transformed over your lifetime? Is your “me” today the same “me” that was present at 10 years old? 15? 20? Are they not each entirely different “me”s?

So then, if this “me” does in fact exist, which “me” is the truth? Which “me” is the real one? Is today’s “me” really more “me” than yesterday’s? Or just different?

Who is it who has observed all of these different “me”s? Has not the observer of your “me” remained entirely unchanging? Who is it who observes?

This question is where the path to freedom truly begins.

The illusory “me” which our observer observes is what drives our lives. That “me” is what creates our suffering, what prevents us from realizing that we are always already free, always already enlightened, always already one with God. We have always already arrived. It’s your false “me” which makes you believe otherwise.

You breathe when the body needs air. You drink water when the body is thirsty. You laugh fully and heartily when the moment calls for it. The mind is fully still and silent as awe washes over you at the sight of a magnificent sunset. You lose yourself in a beautiful moment. You find states of “flow” when you and everything around you seem to disappear. In those moments of wu wei, pure effortless action as Taoists call it, your “me” ceases to exist. You are at peace. You are the Buddha.

That is enlightenment. That is nirvana. That is the Kingdom. And it is always present.

The path to bliss, to nirvana, to enlightenment, to God, to peace, to Truth, begins at the realization and recognition that this “me” is a complete fabrication, an illusion. It has no reality. It is not the truth of you. Who is it who observes?

This is what the Masters and Sages — Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, and others attempted to instill.

And this “me” is precisely where we falter in our search for perfection. Because enlightenment, oneness with God, nirvana, peace, bliss, cannot coexist with this “me”. And this false “me” protects itself at all costs.

But it is precisely our belief in this “me” which must be dissolved to find that which we seek as human beings.

This “me” is the gateless gate of Zen. It is the beam, the log, in your eye of Christianity. The only barrier to enlightenment. The thing that keeps us from the Kingdom. And, in reality, it has never existed.

Now I ask you: what would it look like to live a life without this “me” running the show? Without the incessant chatter inside your mind? Without even the seeking, the searching for this peace, bliss, nirvana, God, enlightenment that is driven by this “me”? What would it look like to give up everything you think you are to find that which you truly are: the pure observer? 

Who is it who observes?

That is the real path, if a path can be said to exist at all (since a path cannot go from point A to point A). We will all realize this freedom whether we like it or not. Perhaps not in life, but certainly when death kisses us with her tender lips and forces our “me”, our identity, what we think we are, to dissolve back into the nothingness from which it came. 

We will realize freedom one way or another. It is every human being’s destiny. The question is: do you have the courage to realize freedom while you’re still alive? To realize that you were, are, and always will be always already enlightened?

My friend, you have already arrived.