Enlightenment Is To Be Lived, November 22, 2005

Enlightenment, really, is to be lived. It’s not a philosophy. It’s not something that you can adopt theoretically in your life. It’s something that is discovered through deep meditation, the cultivation of a profound aloneness, over many years, and begins to seep…, is expressed in and as that very Infinite Consciousness of Silence.

So a paradoxical state is born, one in which the realization of enlightenment actually cancels itself out in the simple process of living. So there is no “experience of enlightenment.” There is no separate experience of the Infinite, except as you are evolving into It.

When your experience becomes mature, experience of the Absolute Itself drops off and you’re left with the simple, stark, mundane and cosmic reality of being in “what is,” just “what is”: attribute-less, simple, unmanifest, active, containing all the contradictory opposites within It.

This is about as far as you can speak on this topic, other than going into total silence. Total silence can convey this message much better than this talk, for then you can just feel It and know It as you are feeling It and knowing It. Instead I’m superimposing these words and these concepts over and above the actual experience that is present here.

So it’s a very special and precious atmosphere, an existential atmosphere, that’s created here. I like to call it a secular form of mysticism, because we don’t really need to invoke any Deities or images of the Divine necessarily, for enlightenment is transmitted, it’s radiated, and through osmosis is received; it’s understood, it’s accepted, without any thought or inclination to make this happen through effort. So knowing that that kind of benediction is present, we can appreciate how great Life is, that it gives us this opportunity just to share this time together.