Enlightenment Part 2

 Got up at 2 am with the call to sit.  I arrange my body on the cushion.  Pull a blanket around my shoulders.  I fidget until I am somewhat comfortable.  Thoughts came up at first, planning for writing.  At first I wrote notes down in my iPhone.  Watching carefully my thoughts, the thoughts slowly, slowly, slowed.

Felt the muscles of my face and around my eyes relax.  The Witness disappeared.  Slipped into deep empty fullness.  Time disappeared. 

The Witness came back.  The thoughts once again started to arise.

I had the thought that I should get up and write.  Ignoring the first feeling to arise, I continue to sit.  That feeling goes away.  I ignore the 2^nd urge to arise.  I usually arise at the 3^rd time the feeling comes.  I looked at my phone, sat for about an hour. 

Slipping into All-that-is comes easier every year.  At the beginning there was a balance of trying and not trying.  It has been likened to painting a cage around a bird before it flies away.  Frustrating at first.  The ego, the monkey mind, does not want to quiet. 

The ego is important.  If we were to sit in All-that-is, we would never eat.  There is no one there to eat.  The ego protects us.  Allows us to survive.  We never kill the ego.  We transcend and include.  The ego is allowed to rest.  We can thank the ego for being present in our lives, for protecting us.  The ego helps us to plan for meals, find a means to make money, to find shelter.  Importantly, the ego helps us to fully enjoy being in this body.  Enjoying being human.  Doing human.  

In the state of All-that-is, there is no doing, just being.  Most of us do not spend enough time just being.  Ours is a doing society.  Mass media tells you to do.  Our whole society tells us to do, do, do.  Doo-doo to that. 

When we take time to just be.  We change in subtle ways.  Compassion comes up.  We are less selfish.  We are less self, with a small “s,” and more Self, with a big “S.”

But compassion arises within being in the ground of all being, within being in All-that-is.  When we come back into the world we can use that compassion with wisdom.  Ken Wilber writes about Wisdom as what we learn in deep meditation, and Compassion is using that wisdom while walking in the world.

We can shed the ego within being All-that-is, but we must re-engage that ego to walk and work in the world.  Think of the ego as a comfortable overcoat, your favorite coat.  We shed that coat in deepest meditation, where compassion arises.  We then arise and put back on that overcoat to walk in the world.  To act with wisdom.  Right action. 

The practice of just being, slips us into All-that-is.  Within All-that-is there is no “I.”  No one can speak the words “I am enlightened.”  That sentence doesn’t make any sense.  Enlightenment is the ground of all being.  It is being in the ground of all being.  We are always already in the ground of all being, but our ego gets in the way of recognizing this.  It wants us to survive.

Words get in the way.  We can start to argue.  What is this “Ground of All Being?’  What is this “All-that-is?”  Was that an episode of Kensho?  Is that Satori, Samadhi, Nirvana?  Maybe really I’m just lost in Samsara?  Who do we label as Enlightened?  Is enlightenment a temporary mind-state?  Can enlightenment be a trait?  What does it mean to incorporate this “into your bones?”  What does it mean to “have a toe dipped in this state at all times?”  Is enlightenment really just acting within the flow of the true will of the Universe?

If you've never heard of some of theses terms, it really doesn't matter!  If you are interested, Google them, the Wiki's are pretty good.  

Words are “fingers pointing at the moon.”  Words are maps of the territory.  The territory is exactly what it is.  We are like the blind persons, trying to describe the elephant to each other.  

In the world of traditional science, we try to agree on what our words are describing.  Hypotheses about how the world works.  In the science of the mind, what is happening is much more subtle, more difficult to describe.  In the science of spirituality, there is an “N” of one.  Each person has his or her own experience.  No two individuals have exactly the same experience.  Agreement on words is more difficult. 

Reading about the experience of others, then practicing just being.  Then perhaps you realize others have walked the same path. 

Mainstream scientists have difficulty accepting the science of mind and spirit.  If you have never been in the state of All-that-is, you will deny that it even exists. 

Books by Lynne McTaggart and books and writings by Larry Dossey, especially his editorials in the journal Explore, very nicely point us toward the important edges of the science of mind and spirit.  

Pointing out the places to explore at the edges of science helps to move us all toward a better understanding of All-that-is.  Whatever that is…

Take some time to just be.