Why those intent on Enlightenment fail in practice?

Hi my friends,

We are talking about reaching the highest pleasure surpassing all sundry pleasures in this very life.

What prevents us from getting it? 

Normally we are very good at acquiring what we want, then how did we miss out on something as important as the greatest pleasure on earth?

My friends, It is because there is a force pulling us back from behind.

               

To be exact it is not just a force, but someone pulling from behind.

If it was not for that someone who keeps pulling us back from getting to the highest achievement we would all be there already.

This is because we are by nature directed towards that oasis in the desert that is the highest possible achievement.

So who pulls us from getting to the highest achievement we can make in a lifetime?

My friends, it is no one else but I myself, who pulls me from getting there.

Does it sound weird ? But this is the reality, there is no other person who is preventing me from getting there, except for myself.

Is there a better way to keep one checked from getting there? 

There is not. It is the best possible guard stationed by nature to stop one from seeing that grand state of life.

 What great spirit in nature wanted to prevent us from seeing the great reality and prevent us from being eternally happy?

Well, this is a big dilemma, some would say it is the devil, or some would say it’s our own impurities, but one thing for sure is we need to fight with ourselves to acquire the highest pleasure there is to get out there. 

In other words, we need to sneak a glance unnoticed by our own 'I' notion to see what is there behind the scene to get a glimpse of the most precious gem within us, which is covered by nothing else but that ’ I’ notion itself.

How to sneak this glance unnoticed by ourselves?

My friends, it is not easy, since as long as we are awake, our self- attention is also awake and anything we do, is done with the consent and knowledge of our notion of ‘I’. 

Some dishonest men who do murky dealings may manage to get away unnoticed,  and no one would ever get to discover them, and even rarely some cheats may hide from authorities as long as they live. 

It is no wonder they can cover their actions from the others, those who are smart can do that.  But it is nothing compared to the act of escaping the attention of ‘I’ which is there like an eternal watch dog acting as that someone preventing us from seeing the great reality . 

My friends, the point of any mystic life, the target of the whole business of spirituality, the objective of any occult doctrine aiming to reach the highest, is to escape our own attention in a wide awake moment to see the world as a non-self. 

What trick can make it possible? To move over to non-self- world unnoticed by the self?

My friends, in whatever we do, we know it is ‘I’ who do it; ‘I sit down’, ‘I concentrate’, ‘I meditate..’etc.  How to get to the realm of 'non- I' without ‘I’ noticing it, so its not ‘I’ getting there? This is the objective.

My friends there are many techniques promising to take one into that sphere.

It can be self- restraint , Self-torture, practice of repeating the same mental activity or mental investigation into oneself.

All religions are based on this single experience and they propose their techniques supposed to move one towards this goal.

If we take self-restraint as a practice, there one puts oneself under restrictions and continues with more and more of them in stages. One restricts one’s clothing, food, place of living and even what one sees and hears.

As clothing, one starts to have only one or two clothes for all purposes, as food  - one may eat only once a day, without having a choice but as received on an alms-journey. One either uses no place of living or only a simple place just to protect from sun and rain. These are restrictions one imposes willingly on oneself. Self-torture is not far away from here. 

If one stops eating for a few days, that becomes self-torture; if one stops living under a shelter that becomes self-torture and if one sits or stands for days against one’s will, that becomes self-torture too. 

When you torture yourself, it may feel as a new experience but the hitch in it is self can be tricky enough to take the side of the torturer!

So  'I am' giving a hard time to myself. When self takes the side of the torturer, the practice becomes useless however much one may torture oneself. 

Self-restraint may as well make one feel as someone new at the start, but self identity is even quicker to take the side of restrainer, and with the 'I' taking part of the restraining business, it becomes a fruitless practice in crossing over to non-I field.

How about the practice of repeating the same mental activity over and over again? 

This practice is widespread in many forms. But self is usually quick to take over the whole operation as ‘I meditate’ or ‘ I practise’ etc. 

However If you manage to get to a trance over the object of repetition, the trance can suppress your self-consciousness temporarily.

But you are in a trance. You may have forgotten your- self, but there is no space for a full realization.  just like you cannot have a full realization in a sleep.  The highest achievement is something  to experience wide-awake, not in a sleep nor in a trance. Wide awake is when your notion of ‘I’ is fully active,   at such a moment you need to find a respite to sneak the powerful watch of that individual who prevents you from getting to the greatest pleasure in the world. The individual  is no one else but you!

Thanks all,