Enlightenment is not a Goal

 

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Enlightenment is not a Goal

Enlightenment is not a goal to be achieved. We will become enlightened only when we have forgotten all about it - otherwise, never. This is not a question to be asked. Even if the Guru says that we have become enlightened, that won’t help.

There is a lovely anecdote which explains this situation. It goes like this….. There was a patient in an asylum who was being treated by one of the doctors. The doctor slapped the asylum patient on the back and said, “Well, old man, you’re completely cured. Run along and write to your family and tell them you’ll be back home in a couple of weeks, as good as new.”

The patient went off to write his letter. When he was licking the stamp, it slipped through his fingers and fell onto the back of a cockroach which happened to be passing at the time. Amazed, the patient watched the stamp zig-zagging across the floor, up the wall and right around the skirting-board and then under the door. After a while he tore up the letter. “Two weeks!” he said. “Hell!” I won’t be out of here for two lives.”

That stamp is our desire, and if we look behind the desire, we will find the cockroach of our ego. And if we don’t look behind the stamp at the cockroach, even two lives won’t help - we will remain unenlightened. Enlightenment is not something that we have to achieve. It is our very nature; we have just to remember it. Look into the games which the ego plays – these games are very subtle. Just watch. Nothing else has to be done, just see how the ego goes on creating ambitions. And once we have seen all the ways of the ego the cockroach dies, the ego disappears, and we are there - as enlightened as we have always been. Enlightenment is our nature. It is not something to be achieved, it is already the case.

All we have to do is forego our desires and finally our ego along with all its tricks and we will see the light. We will be forever in the moment, enlightened, in the here and now!