Enlightenment Musings

This is a double mail to PS and ET2 - I really think these groups
should be merged at some time.

Anyway.

After a couple weeks with the Thought Flow system (and its rather
heavy duty pre-sups), something just occured to me which some amongst
you might find interesting.

It appears at first glance that the entire human race is seeking
"enlightenment" which, it is rumoured, will be an end of pain and a
return to the metaphorical "garden of Eden" or however a state of true
flow is described, depending on the culture you're happen to be
entrained in.

I have this strange notion that there comes a point when one has to
decide if one indeed, is serious about this.

Now just speaking very personally here, I've been involved in "human
potential" - well, forever and in a pretty big and exclusive way.

And the thing is, I've known for a while and suspected much longer
than that, that human potential doesn't stop at a small, comfortable
cottage in the suburbs with the bills paid and the grandchildren
playing happily before a merry fire.

This is a pretty big deal, in actuality, if you were to allow to
consider it.

The cottage above of course is a metaphor, a personal "garden of eden"
constructed by our poor little thought-minds as "the best a human can
get", based on previous evidence, as usual.

Nice car, happy children, absence of pain and a body that passes for a
25 year old if you don't look too closely.

Now then.

What if enlightenment and the decision to really seek it AND ENGAGE
WITH IT was mutually exclusive to that kind of thing?

What if you had to really and actually "give up" every single one of
your own personal childhood dreams, desires, wishes, plans, and in
fact EVERYTHING that you previously held to be so very important, and
that you would have to make a decision that you would be willing to do
that?

Let me make it a bit stronger than that, even.

That you would have to leave your kids, your jobs, your dependents and
never mind their suffering?

That you would never get (x) and give up trying altogether?

That you would accept all possible outcomes, including the possibility
of contracting a very painful form of cancer within the next few days
that would lead to an excruciatingly painful death? The possibility
that you find out it is your mission to *increase* human suffering on
a grand scale rather than alleviate it to any extent?

What about all three above wrapped up in one? And then some?

Do you REALLY want enlightenment?

You know, as in REALLY and not as in, "its a nice little game that
helps pass the time, and keeps my illusions going that I'm actually
doing something holy but really, I'm shit scared and am hoping that I
can lessen the pain a bit and take a holiday this year, get a new
outfit for my sister's son's wedding ..."

Do you REALLY want enlightenment?

If that question doesn't seriously scare you, you are either a better
man than I or you might not have considered at great length what it
actually means for a human to return to flow and what happens in
consequence to their constructs in every sense, in every way, all
their environments, all they have known and cherished all their lives?

And here, in truth, it's every (hu)man for themselves.

It's the real "Matrix" question. The red pill or the blue. And I
really do have this strange notion that we really do have a *choice*
in the matter.

Just a thought or two ...

SF

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Received on Wed Apr 16 2003 - 09:08:25 BST