RE: [ET2] Enlightenment Musings

> Hello,
>
> I have just joined the e-group and this is my first "offering".

Hello Dave :-) and LOL.

That was an - unusual mail you landed with there, I was having one
of those days :-)

Normally, we're much more respectable and practical on this list
<clears throat> but be welcome most whole heartedly :-)

>
> It certainly is scary to think about giving up all that
> we hold as precious
> in order to find enlightenment. How much do we really
> want it? It reminds
> me of the story about the trainee Buddhist monk who
> asked his master how he
> would find enlightenment. The master took him to some
> water and proceeded to
> hold his head under. As the devotee struggled, the
> master continued to
> submerge his head and when he could struggle no more,
> lifted it from the
> water. "When you want enlightenment this much you will
> find it", was the
> reply.

That's actually quite good. That's what it has felt like on many
occasions to me, too. Not even a question of "wanting" but just
simply being entirely unable to do anything else, no matter what.

>
> A good friend of mine, who had been giving much thought
> to the act of
> surrendering to the Universe, was meditating some years
> ago. In his
> meditation a voice asked him if, as part of the
> surrender process, he would
> be prepared to give up his relationship with his wife,
> who he loved dearly.
> My friend battled with this for some time and then
> almost exhausted with the
> inner struggle, answered that he would. Immediately, a
> voice replied, "but
> you won't have to".
>
> So my point is that. In being prepared to relinquish
> that which we love, the
> chances are that we won't have to. In fact we'll
> probably appreciate them
> even more, or perhaps in a different way.

I'd be really careful with that idea that you *don't* have to
radically change your life when you start to flow (hm, interesting
alternative phrasing there ...)

I can see how that can easily be a circular waterslide back to "ah
it can all stay as it already is, just with a few tweaks here and
there ..."

It's a very dangerous thing (in my opinion) to read too much into
these kinds of things. The guru guy held this student's head under
water. The struggle ceased when the student had a heart attack and
those meaningful words were indeed, spoken over the student's
corpse - "you don't have to not love your wife?"

Oooh. We can't possibly know from here what THOSE words actually
entail and mean FROM THERE.

Reason I'm going on about this is that unless we actually become
aware of our own deep, deep fears about whatever frightens us the
most about "becoming these others" we can't face them, treat them,
and these very fears might lead us round and round on that
waterslide without us even being aware of it.

> I'd love to find out.

Now that I second most fully. I'm gonna find out or die trying -
LOL. Or both.

waves,

SF

Oh, PS. The reason I started talking about this at all and in the
first place was that those very fears would make the most
beautiful and interesting snow globes I personally could imagine
making and handing over as a true offering of will towards flow.

           
Received on Wed Apr 16 2003 - 14:22:30 BST