So if enlightenment is such an end-all, be-all (perfect words for it, actually), then why isn't mankind swept up in this sustained effort to realize it? Why isn't it integral to our education, to our heritage, why are we obsessed with preservation of the body-mind rather than liberation from it? It is because we identify ourselves with body-mind--in fact, mis-identify--and it is from that central mistake all others flow. We must awaken from the spell of conditioned awareness. Things long assumed real and true must be recognized as illusory and false. Everything goes, even, says Vasistha, the apparent objective universe propped up by "direct sense experience, inference and scientific investigation," this, too, must be unmasked as false and unreal. And that includes ourselves and everyone we hold dear:
"What is seen here as you and I and what is seen as this dialogue between us are like two waves colliding in the ocean and making a sound. We are like the waves of the ocean, non-different from the ocean of consciousness. We are but notions that spontaneously arise in it." - Vasistha's Yoga
No surprise, then, that seekers after genuine enlightenment are few and far between. It entails sustained effort completely antithetical to our body-mind experience. We must subvert everything we know and love--no wonder it takes exceptional avatars to promulgate this teaching, the Christ's and Buddha's and Ramakrishna's, and even they had to bury the message deep in spoonfuls of sugar to adapt to their listeners conditioned resistance to it. Look what happened to Jesus when he turbo-charged "the Kingdom of God is within you" into "I am the Son of God." Crucified. Who wants to hear that this Kingdom of his must take precedence over self-interest?
Must we abandon all that we love and value to something that sounds so cold as "pure consciousness"? When this is divine abandonment, yes. Nor does it mean that we can no longer step into that screen and participate in the movie.
"He [enlightened being] does not abandon what is natural and plays his appropriate role in this drama of life. He sympathizes with the sorrowful and rejoices with the happy ones, without being tainted at heart....This scripture does more good than father and mother and all your friends put together." VY
"What is seen here as you and I and what is seen as this dialogue between us are like two waves colliding in the ocean and making a sound. We are like the waves of the ocean, non-different from the ocean of consciousness. We are but notions that spontaneously arise in it." - Vasistha's Yoga
No surprise, then, that seekers after genuine enlightenment are few and far between. It entails sustained effort completely antithetical to our body-mind experience. We must subvert everything we know and love--no wonder it takes exceptional avatars to promulgate this teaching, the Christ's and Buddha's and Ramakrishna's, and even they had to bury the message deep in spoonfuls of sugar to adapt to their listeners conditioned resistance to it. Look what happened to Jesus when he turbo-charged "the Kingdom of God is within you" into "I am the Son of God." Crucified. Who wants to hear that this Kingdom of his must take precedence over self-interest?
Must we abandon all that we love and value to something that sounds so cold as "pure consciousness"? When this is divine abandonment, yes. Nor does it mean that we can no longer step into that screen and participate in the movie.
"He [enlightened being] does not abandon what is natural and plays his appropriate role in this drama of life. He sympathizes with the sorrowful and rejoices with the happy ones, without being tainted at heart....This scripture does more good than father and mother and all your friends put together." VY
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