Why Do I Need To Give Up The Search To Reach Enlightenment?

[Parki]

"You need to give up the search to reach enlightenment"

I heard it many times, but It make no sense to me because before I even knew that enlightenment exist I wasn't enlightenment.
So how can I become enlightened by giving up the search?

[Prabhaker]

1 hour ago, Parki said:

So how can I become enlightened by giving up the search?

You have not started making an effort, and you are worried that ultimately you will have to drop making an effort also. Just start -- make every effort.

When you have made every effort -- and all the efforts will fail, as far as the ultimate experience of enlightenment is concerned -- when all the efforts fail, you are not required to make no-effort. When all the efforts fail, there is no-effort. You have done everything that was possible, humanly possible, and everything has failed.

And everything fails as far as enlightenment is concerned. It is not your doing. But when everything fails, and you have not been miserly in making efforts, you were total -- what remains? A great silence. That is the no-effort. You don't have to do it. If you do it, it again becomes an effort. It is a non-doing that comes of its own accord; you cannot bring it.

But before it can happen, you will have to risk everything, make every effort possible. When you are finished with making efforts, a great silence descends, a great relaxation comes over you. That is the moment of no-effort, and in that very moment you find the light you have been seeking for many lives.

So please don't be worried about no-effort. Just take care of all the efforts possible. Leave no-effort to existence itself!

[Leo Gura]

@Parki  Yeah, that's the last step: the final surrender.

YOU cannot reach the state of no-you.

Enlightenment is the realization that there never was a you. It's like you're trying to find a needle that doesn't exist in a haystack. One day you must surrender to the fact that it isn't there and cannot be found. When this happens, it's FOUND!

[Parki]

@Leo Gura So this "Don't try to reach enlightenment" from "Just stop right now" turns to "Do everything you can to finally figure out that you cannot do anything about it"?

[zikzak]

6 minutes ago, Parki said:

@Leo Gura So this "Don't try to reach enlightenment" from "Just stop right now" turns to "Do everything you can to finally figure out that you cannot do anything about it"?

Yes, but you may know this to be true from an intellectual/logic standpoint - that you can't do anything about it. As Leo says: "YOU cannot reach the state of no-yo".. But to have an actual experience/realization of this is very very different from understanding the logic behind it. Therefore the practice is to get your whole being into a position where you can actually surrender completely (stop the search /whatever). This is what meditation is. Even in states of deep silence or light appearing or whatever there's still a "search" going on. You might feel all search has come to a rest but your consciousness is still split in two, so to speak. The silence & you experiencing it. That has to fall away. And only infinity remains. Judging from statistics it's very very rare that it happens in a meditative practice.

[WelcometoReality]

@Parki It is ,as @Leo Gura said, the final step. Think of the enlightenment path like a hike. You start by a lake and to get over it you need a boat. So you use the boat to cross the lake. After that you have to climb a mountain, so in order to continue the hike you need to leave the boat behind you, it has served it's purpose and it will be impossible to climb the mountain with a boat on your back.

The enlightenment path is the same. Certain tools are used on different parts of the path.

 

[cetus]

@Parki Walk a pathless path.