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Wisdom Quote
Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.
*C. G. Jung
Wisdom Story
On the question
of his own Enlightenment
the Master always
remained reticent,
even though
the disciples
tried every means
to get him to talk.
All the information
they had
on this subject
was what
the Master once said
to his youngest son
who wanted to know
what his father felt
when he
became Enlightened.
The answer was:
"A fool."
When the boy
asked why,
the Master
had replied,
"Well, son,
it was like going
to great pains
to break into a house
by climbing a ladder
and smashing a window
and then
realizing later
that the door of the house
was open."
*Anthony de Mello
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Comments
Enlightenment is simply being conscious of a luminous, pervasive, and all-wise Reality ~ call this God or whatever is respectful ~ in which we are already living. This Living Fact birthed us, sustains us, and confronts us at every turn. This Love is so immanent and available that almost everyone refuses to believe how simple and easy we can access, enjoy, commune with, and have union with this universal Transparency.
Writes Ronald Rolheiser, in The Shattered Lantern, regarding the Presence of God: "Within the Protestant contemplative tradition the presence of God is not something to be studied, analyzed, conceptualized, figured out, or captured." Rolheiser rightly affirms we undergo God's Presence.
However, again, letting ourselves undergo God is exactly what we refuse to do; we would much rather study about God and believe about God, and even share God ~ by which is meant witnessing about the reality of God. As long as I do the latter, then, I have a sense of control. If I undergo God, I must die to my illusory control of Sacredness.
Rolheiser refers to theologian and storyteller John Shea writing in the same tenor as does Rolheiser. Shea, in Stories of Faith, clarifies: "God is not a law to be obeyed but a presence to be seized and acted on." The Sacred calls us to the joy of fellowship and union with the Divine. Obedience is not imposed on anyone, and it does not exists apart from the determinative context of relationship with the Spirit. Obedience as a separate fact apart from the relationship does not exists.
Therefore, enlightenment is not moral in the sense of obeying the Divine. Enlightenment is awakening to the Sacred in our midst and within us, and in Whom we are one Body of God. Then, all apparent obedience is a manifestation of the transforming of ourselves in the relationship and in respect for it.
Continued... |
