Becoming More Enlightened is a Non-Attainment - By Shen Gerald
http://myspiritualselfhelp.com/articles/11/1/Becoming-More-Enlightened-is-a-Non-Attainment---By-Shen-Gerald/Page1.html
Wan Ibrahim
Wan Ibrahim is the owner of MySpiritualSelfHelp.com, a website that was created to share the wisdom for spiritual living. He also shares his insights, tips and stories about happiness, relationship and success from a different point of view at his Blog - Detached, and in the context of spirituality at Personal Blog Section.By Wan Ibrahim
Published on 04/30/2008
Many people has the notion that getting Enlightened is a form of attainment. This is not entirely true.
Many people has the notion that getting Enlightened is a form of attainment. This is not entirely true. Becoming more enlightened is a real challenge. The challenge lies in the fact that it is a non-attainment.
Basically, becoming more enlightened requires the skill of resting the mind as Presence which is our true nature. The problem is that the egoic mind only understands striving as a way of achieving something. The more we strive, the further we move away from becoming more enlightened. The striving to modify what is perceived as external appearances or occurrences creates the impression of an 'I' or 'self' being the doer of action. An enlightened person fully understands that the 'I' or 'self' has never been the doer or controller of any action or activity.
Furthermore, the more knowledge we gather, the more books about enlightenment that we read, the further we can deviate from it. The egoic mind is constantly interpreting these knowledges (gathered) and sadly this kind of activities obscures the recognition of Presence. After the stage of information gathering, there must be a phase of discarding them.
Besides what is being described above, there are many more types of layers that obscure Non-dual Presence. Essentially, a large part of our spiritual journey is about 'uncovering' these layers. Some of these subtle obscuration are at the mental level. Some of them are also at a bodily and biological level. A obscuration is like a form of attention caused by grasping that distracts away from the recognition of Presence. Many of these obscurations impact on us on a constant basis. These activities hijack the experience of Presence, replacing it with the experience that is collectively known as the egoic mind.
These mostly automatic habit of grasping and contraction distorts our way of viewing the world into a subject-object split. These subject-object split is known as duality. The dynamic is very subtle and thus they usually go unnoticed. These habits can be consider our unconscious and subconscious aspects which are part of our karmic conditioning.
The author runs [http://www.dreamdatum.com/]Dream Datum - self growth, a website which provides [http://www.dreamdatum.com/articles-path.html]self development articles. The author has been a meditator for more than 20 years.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Basically, becoming more enlightened requires the skill of resting the mind as Presence which is our true nature. The problem is that the egoic mind only understands striving as a way of achieving something. The more we strive, the further we move away from becoming more enlightened. The striving to modify what is perceived as external appearances or occurrences creates the impression of an 'I' or 'self' being the doer of action. An enlightened person fully understands that the 'I' or 'self' has never been the doer or controller of any action or activity.
Furthermore, the more knowledge we gather, the more books about enlightenment that we read, the further we can deviate from it. The egoic mind is constantly interpreting these knowledges (gathered) and sadly this kind of activities obscures the recognition of Presence. After the stage of information gathering, there must be a phase of discarding them.
Besides what is being described above, there are many more types of layers that obscure Non-dual Presence. Essentially, a large part of our spiritual journey is about 'uncovering' these layers. Some of these subtle obscuration are at the mental level. Some of them are also at a bodily and biological level. A obscuration is like a form of attention caused by grasping that distracts away from the recognition of Presence. Many of these obscurations impact on us on a constant basis. These activities hijack the experience of Presence, replacing it with the experience that is collectively known as the egoic mind.
These mostly automatic habit of grasping and contraction distorts our way of viewing the world into a subject-object split. These subject-object split is known as duality. The dynamic is very subtle and thus they usually go unnoticed. These habits can be consider our unconscious and subconscious aspects which are part of our karmic conditioning.
The author runs [http://www.dreamdatum.com/]Dream Datum - self growth, a website which provides [http://www.dreamdatum.com/articles-path.html]self development articles. The author has been a meditator for more than 20 years.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com