...and discovered the truth were totally consumed with the need to understand. I mean, they were eaten up with it, fanatical, insanely motivated; it was almost a life or death matter (think Adya, Gangaji, etc). Another group of people that seem to break free are people who suffer serious existential despair (think Tolle, etc). Yes, there are a few rare folks who get hit with a blast right out of the blue, but not many. I've never heard of anyone with only a casual interest in truth or enlightenment who got free.
Doesn't it seem odd that some people are insanely intense in their curiosity about what's going on, and other people have no interest at all? Well, this is the odd nature of reality. It isn't fair. It doesn't "make sense." It simply is what it is.
By the time humans become adults they are heavily conditioned to believe all kinds of idiotic stuff. They don't know its idiotic because its all they know. They live in a kind of mind-generated cocoon woven of falsehoods. The cocoon is comfortable and everyone else they know lives in the same kind of cocoon. This is what SomeNothing was pointing to in an earlier post. Unless they sense (where does THAT come from?) that there's something wrong with what they've been led to believe, they live out their lives inside the cocoon. As one sage put it, "People live in a dream; they get married in a dream; they have children in a dream, they grow old in a dream; and they die in a dream, never suspecting that they're dreaming and that it's possible to wake up."
If you can't let go of enlightenment as a goal, then your interest will either grow more intense until you'll do anything to get out of the cocoon, or it won't, and either way "you" have no control over what happens because who you are is not who you think you are. You may realize that you have no control over what will happen, and this might make you angry. You might think that there ought to be a simple set of directions that will lead from dreamsville to awakening in short order, but there isn't. If there were, everyone with any interest would follow the directions and wake up, but you can see that this is not the case. It takes years to construct a cocoon and expecting to get out of it quickly is just another silly idea. The universe is obviously constructed in exactly the way that you see, and you are a unique aspect of that incredible construction. You can either accept the situation as it is, or rail at the unfairness of it all and blame everyone for not providing what you would accept as a simple set of directions that will lead to freedom in three weeks or less.
I am 99.9% certain that if you did nothing more than become internally silent, the truth would open up and invite you in (your cocoon would bust open), but you may not have any motivation to do that (because the end result is not guaranteed and the time required is uncertain), and that is perfectly so. The admonition to become silent is the simplest instruction imaginable. It is written in every holy book, and thousands of sages have repeated it. You want simple? This is simple. Be still and know (through the body rather than the mind). What will the body/mind do? I'm guessing that the body/mind will reject this advice totally and continue to fuss at fume at the unfairness of it all and the stupidity of folks who don't share your view of how things ought to be.
What will the body/mind do? Stay tuned.
Doesn't it seem odd that some people are insanely intense in their curiosity about what's going on, and other people have no interest at all? Well, this is the odd nature of reality. It isn't fair. It doesn't "make sense." It simply is what it is.
By the time humans become adults they are heavily conditioned to believe all kinds of idiotic stuff. They don't know its idiotic because its all they know. They live in a kind of mind-generated cocoon woven of falsehoods. The cocoon is comfortable and everyone else they know lives in the same kind of cocoon. This is what SomeNothing was pointing to in an earlier post. Unless they sense (where does THAT come from?) that there's something wrong with what they've been led to believe, they live out their lives inside the cocoon. As one sage put it, "People live in a dream; they get married in a dream; they have children in a dream, they grow old in a dream; and they die in a dream, never suspecting that they're dreaming and that it's possible to wake up."
If you can't let go of enlightenment as a goal, then your interest will either grow more intense until you'll do anything to get out of the cocoon, or it won't, and either way "you" have no control over what happens because who you are is not who you think you are. You may realize that you have no control over what will happen, and this might make you angry. You might think that there ought to be a simple set of directions that will lead from dreamsville to awakening in short order, but there isn't. If there were, everyone with any interest would follow the directions and wake up, but you can see that this is not the case. It takes years to construct a cocoon and expecting to get out of it quickly is just another silly idea. The universe is obviously constructed in exactly the way that you see, and you are a unique aspect of that incredible construction. You can either accept the situation as it is, or rail at the unfairness of it all and blame everyone for not providing what you would accept as a simple set of directions that will lead to freedom in three weeks or less.
I am 99.9% certain that if you did nothing more than become internally silent, the truth would open up and invite you in (your cocoon would bust open), but you may not have any motivation to do that (because the end result is not guaranteed and the time required is uncertain), and that is perfectly so. The admonition to become silent is the simplest instruction imaginable. It is written in every holy book, and thousands of sages have repeated it. You want simple? This is simple. Be still and know (through the body rather than the mind). What will the body/mind do? I'm guessing that the body/mind will reject this advice totally and continue to fuss at fume at the unfairness of it all and the stupidity of folks who don't share your view of how things ought to be.
What will the body/mind do? Stay tuned.
