Friday, January 1, 2010

Seeds from the Ashes

As enlightenment-seekers, we search for clues to enlightenment in just about everything we do.  Is this going to help us?  What's the meaning of this? Is this a sign or indication we are on the right track?  These are the questions overwhelming us as we work through the pain and suffering in our lives.

We are inquisitive in many instances because we are earnest in our desire to find enlightenment and overcome the pain and suffering in our lives. The journeys we have chosen to travel have no final destination.  We are living like so many others who find fulfillment in the idea or concept of that which we are seeking to obtain.  The concept sounds great, even erudite in many cases, to others who listening to us espouse  our spiritual goals.

Many of us believe that somewhere, beyond the concept of enlightenment, we will actually find enlightenment during our lifetimes.  And, unlike many spiritual seekers who believe enlightenment is found only after our deaths, we fervently, doggedly pursue onward on our journeys without maps or directions from anyone, at least anyone we know, who has ever achieved the goal we are seeking.

When we really think about enlightenment from a practical perspective, it's similar, if not identical, to other goals we set for ourselves.  And if we believe this, we must act according to the way we do whenever we work on our other goals.  This means we must work on it diligently until we have achieved it. 

To begin our work, we must clear the deleterious thoughts, beliefs, and actions that are preventing us from achieving our goals.  We must be willing to overcome the harmful actions that are interfering with our work. And although some of us believe we have already done the work, we must continue the self-discovery phase until the path is clear to us.

 Nevertheless, for some of us who stubbornly hold on to our victim beliefs, we must work harder to overcome the stumbling blocks we have placed in our lives. This is a difficult task.  It's difficult because we don't want to continue working on the same issues over and over again.  We want to do it once or twice and then move on to something else.  Unfortunately, if we want to see clearly, we must work until the anger, worry, fear, doubt, and so on no longer cause us to reclaim our powerlessness.

The changes we seek are the ones that define us. To remove any of them is to redefine who we are.  It's similar to removing the grass from our lawns.  When we do, we no longer have lawns, at least ones with grass.  When we clear away the grass (victim beliefs), we have something radically different from what we had before.  And when remove the thoughts preventing us from moving forward with achieving our goals, we have begun the seeding process to produce someone radically different from who we were before we began our work.

To achieve enlightenment there's no way for us to escape from changing how we think and live. The change how you think and live is a disciplined, methodical process we must adhere to.  It's not magical. This means we must relentlessly pursue our work with a heretofore unknown work ethic. With enlightenment as our goal, the work becomes more urgent; it takes on a more serious tone. It's an acceptance that we are now living to express only enlightenment in our thoughts, beliefs and actions, nothing else.

As enlightenment-seekers, it really doesn't matter to us whether we become totally enlightened on our journeys.  What matters is that we become engaged in the work to achieve enlightenment.  It is in the work that we experience the joy of living rich and fulfilling lives.  And it is our work where we gain the necessary clarity to understand the true meaning of enlightenment.

Meanwhile, many of us overcome with victim beliefs find it difficult to envision anything other than our current situations of lack, limitation and struggle. We see the world from the prism of victim beliefs, which limits what we are able to see. We cling to the notions that we deserve to have more in life without our doing the necessary work to achieve the things we desire.

So to change, we must begin the work to plant new seeds of enlightenment.  And by doing this, we remove the dead grass (beliefs) from our garden (life).
This is the opportunity for us to plant enlightenment seeds (thoughts) into the fertile soil (receptive consciousness) and bring forth new beliefs and actions.

And during this process of fertilization, we must understand that enlightenment can only express itself in our lives unless victim beliefs pass away.  In other words, we must first remove the victim beliefs before we can plant new seeds to express enlightenment in our lives.

For us to achieve our goal of enlightenment, we must be willing to do the necessary work to make it happen.  It's that simple.

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