The expectation for something to happen

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A while ago I realized something interesting and I thought I share it with you. Of course this has been talked about by sages and saints before, but to experience it first hand, becoming aware of it, and then eliminating it was still powerful and liberating enough to be worth repeating. 

What I'm talking about is the subconscious desire for enlightenment to happen when you do any kind of spiritual practice. 

When we sit down to do inquiry, or yoga or any other spiritual practice, we enter into the whole affair with the expectation for some outcome to happen. This desire might be conscious, but it is usually not. Well the issue here is that this expectation itself can be a powerful obstacle in front of realization. This expectation is really "the desire" for enlightenment as a material object to be possessed. Desire, as you know, is the other face of suffering.

When we talk about 'enlightenment' we should be aware that we only do so loosely. We talk about "becoming" enlightened or "having" an awakening, for lack of a better term, but this is really not the case. Realizing that there really is no one who is to become enlightened is the work itself. In other words, enlightenment is not something to be desired, and then freshly regained anew. Enlightenment is your real nature, already.

Enlightenment is the realization that there has never been any ignorance in the first place. 

Don't let this simple idea go past you without experiencing it directly. Really contemplate on it and dig deep into it during a meditation session. What does it actually mean? What is its significance for YOU. Assuming that this is a real truth, how to reconcile your own inner experience with this new knowledge? 

The purpose is not add another aphorism to your library of "enlightened talk" but rather to use this little thought to root out other subconscious assumptions and beliefs and allowing them to resolve themselves. 

How to judge if you are going the correct way? By being aware of your bodily reactions. As consciousness grows, your direct experience of life will necessarily become lighter and lighter. Internal blockages and campings - which are really the physical manifestations of your psychic attachments - resolve themselves and you begin to become more peaceful, empty, and free. In other words, liberated from bondage - by realizing that there has never been any bondage to begin with. 

[Mu_]

Well said.  And yet I do still wonder if "spiritual" practice makes you more enlightenment prone, but just not doing it with this particular desire for it.  Perhaps better safe then sorry.

[tedens]

@FoxFoxFoxvery good insights...

Edited March 25, 2019 by tedens

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