To solve any problem, we first have to go to its source, the ultimate source of ourselves to discover who we are. Our minds can think of two possibilities: we’re being or we’re non-being. But, because the mind is part of this enquiry, it is limited. It is incapable of going beyond itself and yet who we are is beyond the question of being versus non-being.

This is where meditation can assist us. When our minds are in a state of quiescence, such as when we quiet our minds during meditation, we revert to a more natural state. It is a state of non inquiry and a state of beingness. As for non-beingness, we reach that state when we sleep.

The ultimate self, who we are, is beyond both states because both are part of time and space. They’re therefore also impermanent … Read More »

As we journey through life we spend a lot of our time in the pursuit of things which we believe will bring us happiness, joy and peace of mind.

For example, when I was at Princeton working on my Masters degree, I had a friend who was really in love with a woman and he felt that if he got her to marry him, he would be in a state of eternal bliss and happiness. What happened was that he did end up marrying her. About five or 10 years later I called him just to see how things were going. Life was going on and he was doing okay, but his deep passion and love for his wife had clearly dissipated. He still loved her, but her bringing him bliss had clearly gone away and he was in pursuit of … Read More »

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#39 Enlightenment-The Greatest Mantra-I Am The Supreme Reality (part 2)

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#39 Enlightenment-The Greatest Mantra-I Am The Supreme Reality (part 1)

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#38 Enlightenment-Spiritual Enlightenment is Found through Earnestness & Silence

Who are we before anything else ever was? Who are we permanently at our core? When we take everything that is impermanent away, who are we?

When we begin to remove things that we often consider to be the ultimate, we are left with God. However, although God may be the ultimate, our concepts of God are not. Though religion plays a beautiful role in this conceptual world of ours, it still prevents us from God, from the ultimate, because it labels God. For instance, it says, God is good, God is benevolent, or God is wrathful. Any label cannot describe God, cannot describe the ultimate. The ultimate is that which is before anything and everything else, including our concepts of God. In fact, God or the ultimate precedes any label we can use to describe them.

Our concepts are that which … Read More »

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#37 Enlightenment-The Only Obstacle to Our Happiness is Ourselves

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#36 Enlightenment-Living in the Present Moment-Pure Beingness

When looking at causation, we need to ask: What causes things? What is the ultimate cause of everything? By taking a look at the universe we can see that everything is interlinked at such a level that we can’t help but wonder if anything really can happen. We need to understand that it’s up to the universe to make things happen. The entire universe needs to conspire to cause them to happen.

There’s this wonderful saying that I like: “When I pull a blade of grass, the entire universe shakes.” Scientists and philosophers around the world will agree with and validate the fact that things are interconnected. Everything is interlinked even at microscopic level. But all this causality and interlinking occurs in space and time. When it comes to enlightenment, what we’re talking about is that which is before, beyond and … Read More »

I wrote a poem based on a Zen tradition and it describes aspects of enlightenment:

I wake up,
rain washes the trees,
smells are fresh,
spring is abounding now,
then I wake to the illusion
I’m dreaming.

Enlightenment is about waking up to the reality that life isn’t real. It’s merely an illusion, an extended dream. Our minds create a reality, saying “This is real, everything is real, I am real.” Instead of just witnessing life and being aware of it, we identify with our lives and take them on as an identity.

Enlightenment is like seeing the world through the moon and then all of a sudden, the sun arises and we see the real world through the sun. Everything that we’ve imagined to be real through the glow of the moon pales in comparison to what we see through the sun or through enlightenment.

When enlightenment occurs, … Read More »

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#35 Enlightenment-Letting Go of Everything to Discover Who We Are

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#34 Enlightenment-To Find “Peace of Mind” We Have to go Beyond the Mind

Life is a dance between two intense emotions: fear and desire. We go back and forth between these two throughout our lives. But what we’re exploring here is what precedes and pervades life before desire and fear.

Who are we, foundationally, before these two emotions that we go back and forth between? Enlightenment is about permanence – who we are at our foundation, who we are that doesn’t change, who we are that remains permanent. The only thing that we can attest to and which stays permanent from the day we’re born until the day we die is awareness. We are aware that sometimes we experience pain and sometimes we experience desire. They change and develop, but that which never changes is our awareness.

We are the awareness of what is happening right here and right now. A universe full of things … Read More »

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#33 Enlightenment-Changing the Way We See Ourselves-The World Isn’t Flat

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#32 Enlightenment-How to Love the World & Live an Enlightened Life