Yes it was in the Whole Foods Parking Lot
I touched Enlightenment, and I can tell you how...
Touching Enlightenment
The last step to Enlightenment (sustainable self-Mastery) is simple, but it isn't easy. The key is to notice the background refrain in my mind that is saying that the experience I'm having is not the experience I should be having. There is something missing...something I want badly and I can't be happy until I have it. Is there something you feel you need to be different in order to be content with life? Is it a change in a key relationship, someone else's behavior, a tedious procedure, negative cash flow, or suboptimal health? Are you wishing you could undo something that happened in the past? The step to true, sustainable self-Mastery (otherwise known as Enlightenment), is to DROP THAT DESIRE, whatever it is, no matter how justified it seems. When I realized this was what was required of me to attain self-Mastery, it broke my heart, because the thing I wanted seemed so good, and wanting it so natural and so essential to my happiness. I was walking through Whole Foods (seriously) noticing how much of my background mental chatter was focused on what I wanted and wasn't getting when I decided to try completely dropping the desire. It wasn't easy, but once I really set the intention, I was able to do it, in three or four tries, within one shopping trip. I was walking across the Whole Foods parking lot when I succeeded in letting go of my yearning for something different from what was happening in the moment. Immediately, even though I was in the most ordinary of circumstances, I felt as ecstatic as if I were making love or at the height of raising energy in a ritual. Everything around me shone with the radiance of the generous creative beings who are showering me at every moment with love in the form of this experience we call life. The cedar elm in front of me glowed, and the woman loading groceries into her car next to me was beautiful. I heard a phrase from a song "Life is perfect, I believe it!" I looked up the song, and it was John Denver's "Love is Everywhere." Though I couldn't remember ever having heard the song before, the phrase I heard walking across the parking lot was from the song, and the lyrics describe my experience perfectly!
Love is Everywhere
Love is everywhere -- I see it
You are all that you can be -- go on and be it
Life is perfect -- I believe it
Come and play the game with me!
Open yourself to the first celebration
Open your eyes to the joy and pain
Life is the fruit of your own creation
Every new birth is a soul regained
Drinking my life from a silver fountain
Sweet water running to the cold salt sea
Old man moon on a white-top mountain
Sound of the wind singing dreams for me
Follow your heart like a flying stallion
Race with the sun to the edge of night
Form your truth like a gold medallion
Dance in the circle of love and light
Love is everywhere -- I see it
You are all that you can be -- go on and be it
Life is perfect -- I believe it
Come and play the game with me!
--John Denver I stayed in that ecstatic state for over 24 hours, and even when I fell out of it again, I knew that because I had asked to be shown the process of unlocking self-Mastery, I can describe it and recreate it at any time, no matter what is happening at the moment. Since then I have slipped bask into my habit of thinking about what I'm wanting many times, and have become better at letting go and restoring the blissful feeling of lacking nothing, being perfectly content and excited to be alive and doing whatever I am doing right now, no matter how ordinary it might be. From this state which I could only name "enlightenment," I suddenly intuitively understood a number of sayings that I had heard but not really made my own before: "The Kingdom of Heaven is amongst us" -- That ecstatic state of oneness with all is immediately available, at all times, simply by accepting what is. We create the fall by criticizing creation and separating ourselves from it. "If the only prayer I pray is 'thank you' it is enough." -- Life is perfect, and the natural response is profound gratitude. "Desire is the root of all suffering." -- I always thought this one anti-body, but I think it's a bad translation. 'Feeling lack causes suffering" would be my paraphrase. There is nothing wrong with sexual desire and ecstatic sexual union, but desire (in the sense of wanting life to be different) causes disappointment and suffering where there could be peace and gratitude. Suffering does not come from the intention to create something different going forward, but from the futile resistance to what is actually happening in the present moment (or has already happened in the past). There is no way to change the future by denying the reality of what is happening right now, no matter how "unacceptable" we may judge our present situation. Truly accepting "this is happening" brings clarity and oneness with all that is, which feels joyful, even orgasmic, and allows me to transcend myself and be in the creative flow with all my co-creators, human and divine. This does not mean all moments are pleasant; in fact some are quite painful, but while the "pain is necessary, the suffering is optional," because the suffering is created by the resistance to the pain. If the present moment is problematic, the only way I can effectively deal with it is to accept what is happening. "This is happening. What do I do about it?" is much more effective than escaping into denial, defensiveness, or fantasy. And if the present moment is ok, I ruin it by perseverating about something that isn't, especially if I have done all I can to change it already. "Be a hollow flute" -- this is the same image as Ganesh's trunk and Lakshmi's hummingbird (see earlier posts). This practice removes the resistance to the creative flow through me. In this ecstatic state of enlightenment, I am free of the gut-level anxiety I have felt since childhood, that "core wound" that says I am not doing enough to get the love I want or need. The truth is that I don't need to do anything to earn the grace of abundant love beyond simply opening to accepting the love which is every moment pouring through everything around me and pouring through me. I am an open channel of the creative love energy of the gods, and the only thing I need to give up to receive this ecstatic flow is the feeling/belief/thought that something is lacking in my present experience. It is so simple (but not easy). I promise you the exchange is worth it!
Perhaps it sounds pretentious that I'm calling this state "enlightenment." Maybe I've found the back door to "non-attachment," or "radical acceptance." Yes, I think so. But the experience is the amazing thing, and it really did feel like enlightenment. It's not that I am claiming to be special, or that I'm claiming Buddha or guru status. But I have always known I'm a boddhisatva -- now that I've touched enlightenment I feel called to share this experience to relieve suffering. My suffering. Your suffering. I need reminding that I can relieve my own suffering whenever I am willing to participate wholeheartedly in this improv comedy we call life. "Yes, let's!" I encourage you to try this practice and I hope that it may give you peace and joy. Blessed Be! WildCat