Raincoast Enlightenment

Becoming Enlightened

Ten,
Nine,
Eight,
Seven,
Six,
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
Zero.
You’re enlightened.
That’s it.

Raj Neesh’s Definition

To the ego, enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment.
Because you suddenly realise it wasn’t you doing the composing. Your training wheels were.

Roedy’s Definitions

Enlightenment is giving yourself permission to do what needs to be done, then doing it.

Enlightening people is easy; getting them to notice that they are enlightened, that is considerably more difficult.

Enlightment is just making life burdens lighter.

Enlightenment is scary until you realise you are not your personality. If your personality changes, you are still you.

To hasten enlightenment, get a sponsor
who would most benefit once you become enlightened?

Stephen Gaskin’s Definition

Enlightenment is getting off your tail and doing something.

Your Orders

If you were a mother holding a starving baby, what would you request?

If you were one of the last remaining great whales, elephants or giant sequoias, what would you ask for?

Your job now is to satisfy those requests.

Warriors Of The Heart

I have yet to meet someone who said "I think we ought to have more famines and wars. We should level the planet’s rainforests, and poison its rivers." The closest I’ve met is someone like me who says "The world would be a better place if it weren’t so crowded, with living space for all species."

Yet such people must exist or we would not have wars and famines. As warriors of the heart, it is our duty to seek out and convert or neutralise such people, no matter what the root cause of their beliefs (possibly greed, pride, lust, envy, ignorance or crackpot religions) no matter how rich and powerful they may be.

Stress Balance

Chances are that you are either:

coasting
stressed out

If you are coasting, take on a bigger load of the planet’s problems. If you are stressed out, back off — you will be more effective overall. You don’t need to do it all yourself.

Unfortunately, if you are coasting, you will likely heed the advice for those stressed out and vice versa. So try both, and see which works better.

The Dalai Lama

I saw a documentary about the Dalai Lama. He was involved in a ceremony handing out bits of grass that as I recall symbolised the grass in the Buddha’s pillow. It was in some way supposed to aid the process of enlightenment. People were shoving, grabbing and hitting each other to get the strands of grass. Some of the Dalai Lama’s aids tried to persuade the cameramen to stop filming. They were so ashamed of this unenlightened behaviour in seeking enlightenment. However, he just laughed. "It takes eons, eons" he said.

Motes

Jesus warned us to remove the beams from our own eyes before we go picking at motes in others’ eyes. Don’t overdo this. You can see at least five times more clearly than someone actively destroying the planet; don’t be shy; go for it.

A Day Without Hunger

Mother Theresa celebrated Enlightenment Day, September 10 as the day she started her mission. I lost my virginity on 1968-09-10. It is an auspicious day. I would like to see 2001-09-10 as day without hunger — just one day when everyone gets a square meal and some clean water. It is doable. There are even people on the planet rich enough or powerful enough who could do it single handedly if they wanted to. We could try it for just one day and then decide if we wanted to do it on a regular basis.

Your Share

Ending hunger, protecting the environment and eliminating war are big problems. Logically you should need to shoulder only 1/5,000,000,000th of the problem. However, because so many people are so discouraged, they are doing nothing at all, you will have to shoulder 20/5,000,000,000th of the problem. Do you think you can handle it?

To Be Specific

Here is my best shot at describing what a model planetary citizen should do about environmental or other global issues.

Select your issue based on:
- your heart
- the issue is not getting enough attention relative to its importance.
Study what the experts have to say about that issue.
Find a group of people dedicated to discovering the truth, not proving a case.
Find a local project - a model of the bigger global one to work on for practice.
Ask God/Cosmic Consciousness (or whatever you call that strange thing) for guidance.

Cooking With Gas

If you are not enlightened, you can have the best intentions in the world, but you won’t get very far because your efforts are not co-ordinated with everyone else’s. Enlightenment is not just some airy fairy thing you do to bliss out. It is a practical tool for being effective in the world.

Never doubt that a small group
of thoughtful committed citizens
can change the world;
indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Links

quotations: concentrated wisdom. Wisdom 101 : the Clif Notes
Things I wish I had learned when I was younger
Musings
Living Love Proverbs

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